How to Write Crime

by Marele Day

Brought together by award-winning crime author Marele Day, twelve crime writers and readers give invaluable insights into what they do, what they look for - and how you can do it too.How To Write Crime shows you skills, techniques and short cuts and offers ways to solve problems that have helped the best-selling contributors in their careers. Exercises follow most of the chapters.Chapters such as 'Research', 'Plot and Structure', 'Character' and 'Dialogue' will help refine your skills; 'Taking Care of Business' will give you a headstart in the business of getting published; and 'The Reader's Point of View' should always be remembered.How To Write Crime is much more than a practical guide - it reveals writers at work and provides insights into how their books were produced. So, stop cleaning the fridge, sharpening the pencils and arranging the furniture - sit down, read this, and start writing!

Marele Day is a writer, teacher and freelance editor. Her poems, stories and literary criticism have appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines but she is best known for her thrillers featuring private eye Claudia Valentine - The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender, The Case of the Chinese Boxes, The Last Tango of Dolores Delgado (for which she won the Shamus Crime Fiction Award), and The Disappearances of Madalena Grimaldi.

ContributorsIntroduction - Marele Day1 What kind of ghoul am I? Genre and subgenre - Stephen Knight2 Research - Sandra Harvey3 Fact into fiction - Kerry Greenwood4 Plot and structure - Garry Disher5 Character - Minette Walters6 Dialogue - J. R. Carroll7 Beginnings, endings and bits in between - Robert Wallace8 Setting, action and suspense - Nigel Krauth9 The words on the page - Debra Adelaide10 From rough idea to final draft - Jean Bedford11 Taking care of business - Marele Day12 The reader's point of view - Stuart CoupeBibliography