Getting cosy with a murderer!

[John Dean]

Following the news that we are running an online crime fiction course, I thought it would be useful to look at how to create a murderer!
The key to good crime writing is to create strong characters - do not stray into cliché, make your characters come over as real.So, that means you must make the villain real and not some clichéd figure from the movies.
The best thing is for them to have appeared earlier in the story so the reader knows them, becomes engaged with their life, starts to suspect them maybe, or perhaps doesn’t, begins to like them so that the revelation at the end of the book comes as a shock.
And give them a good reason to commit the crime – money, revenge, infidelity, power, sex, something that the reader can readily understand as a motive.
I’ve created murderers who are everything from gangland figures to nurses, pensioners to company bosses. Remember, everyone has the capacity to kill if pushed hard enough!
For further details on the online course, you will find information elsewhere on the home page of this site or you can contact me at [e-mail]