I'm writing a story that isn't based purely on solving crimes, its basically a small group trying to work out the conspiracy perpetrated by a large company (sounds cliched but of course there is far more to it than just that), but solving crimes comes into it. One of the group is an investigator, and the plot will be that they work through various crimes that seem unrelated and gradually have to address the fact they're all linked because of the large company. Main problem I'm having is thinking up 'cases', especially as they aren't the main point of the story. I've looked up crimes solved, unsolved crimes, CSI type stuff but most of it, naturally, centres around murders and although there will be the odd murder, it would be too much in my opinion to turn it into some 'Poirot' style affair where people dropped like flies, I don't want to focus just on murder. Basically I need to find details of different sorts of crimes, maybe muggings, fraud, deception, anything a little out of the 'murder/rape' idea to give it a bit more variety and I can't find a lot, without copying someone else's plot. Anyone know a good way to start?
I may suggest watching CSI, Criminal Minds, or other crime shows to get ideas of different types of criminal activities. Remember, you can be creative with your crimes, they don't have to be usual crimes! Here are some basic types of crimes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Crimes You can also get some inspiration from real life crimes, such as these: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/psychology/index.html Good luck!!
Thanks Marino - I tried CSI a little while back but couldn't really get into it, and it was a murder, lol. That wikipedia link is very helpful though, have already had a spark of inspiration reading down the list, many thanks!
Thanks, if I get stuck again I'll take you up on that but those two links were just the sort of detail I needed. Not being in the police or a criminal I needed a bit of inspiration to get past the murder trap and think that'll do nicely
why don't you just scan cnn's website daily?... and watch any tv news shows for a couple of hours a day... i'm sure you'll get all the crime ideas you could possibly need that way...
I'll try CNN's website but I do watch the news and here (UK) it seems to be someone got murdered, followed by how badly taxes/inflation is going up and then the sport
