Researching Your Stories—D.M.K. Ruby

Where do you begin with researching your ideas for crime fiction stories? As the common trope goes, there are two kinds of people in the world, those who like lists and those who don’t and are busy creating chaos for the list makersJ

Here are a few ideas that I’ve found helpful: 

Books:

-        On that crime fiction classic – poison, good suggestions online include Raimey Gallant’s post on “Plotting Poisons into Fiction, a List of Resources”

https://raimeygallant.com/2019/03/19/plottingpoisonsintofiction/ 

and Valona Jones’ article on “The Many Poisons of Crime Fiction” https://crimereads.com/poisons-crime-fiction/ 

-        On forensic methods such as Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA and More Tell Us About Crime by Val McDermid, or Forensics – a Guide for Writers by D. P. Lyle.

-        Fiction and non-fiction books about your characters or setting. 

TV:

-        Crime fiction shows – obvs.

-        Stories about current high-profile cases and how investigations were conducted in getting convictions.

-        Documentaries on investigative techniques like Forensic Factor: A New Era (Canadian series), Forensic Files and Exhibit A. 

The Internet

-        YouTube where there is a myriad of sites to explore.

-        Buzzfeed, Refinery 29, Slate, Salon and others that have stories about events and people where things have gone sideways and how they were discovered.

-        Google Maps and Google Street view, both for nailing down a city plan as well as for interesting street names like Malignant Cove, Nova Scotia.

-        Substack - I have just started exploring this site and am now wondering if the DeadLies need to create a spot there as well.

-        Wikipedia. 

      Podcasts

-        Redhanded, an award-winning podcast hosted by Hannah Maguire and Suruthi Bala.

-        Scamfluencers, an excellent podcast on scams and their perpetrators hosted by Scaachi Koul and Sarah Hagi.

-        So, so many crime podcasts. 

      Social Media

-        Instagram – check out Will Dodds at @forensicsworld.

-        Tik Tok.

-        Facebook. 

Human Resources:

-        Your writing groups, for example, in my groups, there is a professional editor, an artist/small business owner, an artist/prep cook, some physicians, a retired real estate agent, formally a nurse and a current nurse.

-        People you know that may have helpful insight into your setting or on your characters’ work (I’ve interviewed an HR director, a hair salon owner, a housekeeper, a lawyer, and an accountant among many others).

-        Police, for example, we have been lucky enough to have Will Dodds, recently retired Sargeant in Charge of the Forensics unit in Victoria come and speak to our writers’ group and kindly offer himself as a resource for our group (Instagram handle is above).

-        Fire fighter, EMT, Nurses, pathologists, and other healthcare workers.

-        Coroner – we miss Barbara McLintock dearly, former DeadLies member who sadly died in 2018, she always had so much good advice for us. MGS and I met another fellow writer who also happens to be a coroner in Ontario and has kindly offered to be a resource as well.

-        Beta readers and sensitivity readers who have specialized knowledge.

This is by no means a complete list and I look forward to your comments and suggestions. What are your favourite research tools?