Evidence

The Alphabet in Crime Fiction - The concept was started by Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise. This week's letter is the letter E.

Here are the rules: By Friday of each week participants try to write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week. Your post MUST be related to either the first letter of a book's title, the first letter of an author's first name, or the first letter of the author's surname, or even maybe a crime fiction "topic". But above all, it has to be crime fiction. You could write a review, or a bio of an author, so long as it fits the rules somehow.

EVIDENCE

Writing a mystery is difficult. Not only do you have to remember to sprinkle in just enough clues and red-herrings, but you have to make sure you deal properly with the evidence.

Ever read a mystery and wonder what happened with the shoe print they took? Or thought they should have fingerprinted the scene but for some reason they didn't. That's because the writer forgot to keep track of the evidence.

At a crime scene, there is a great deal of evidence to collect: photographs, sketches, fluids, fingerprints, witness statements, the list goes on... As a writer, you not only need to keep track of what the officers do but what the crime scene investigators have done.

How do we do that?

Here are two things I do:

(a) carry a detective's notebook - you've all seen the crime series where the detectives write down notes in a little black book. Why not do the same. If you don't want to use a real notebook, save a Word file or, as in my case, use Scrivener's document note taking feature.

(b) write an evidence checklist - make sure you write down all the evidence that could have possibly been collected at the crime scene. Even if you know that evidence isn't vital to solving the case, make sure it's touched upon somewhere in the novel. Using evidence that may seem important to the reader to focus on a certain suspect rather than the real one, is a good way to mislead the reader and add a twist to your story.

How do you keep track of your evidence?

Also, authors I want to check out that start with the Letter E:

EDGAR WALLACE

Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1 April 1875 – 10 February 1932) was an English crime writer, journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and playwright, who wrote 175 novels, 24 plays, and numerous articles in newspapers and journals. Over 160 films have been made of his novels. In the 1920s, one of Wallace's publishers claimed that a quarter of all books read in England were written by him. He is most famous today as the co-creator of King Kong, writing the early screenplay and story for the movie, as well as a short story "King Kong" (1933) credited to him and Draycott Dell. He was known for the J. G. Reeder detective stories, The Four Just Men, The Ringer, and for creating the Green Archer character during his lifetime.

The Door with Seven Locks -Dick Martin is leaving Scotland Yard. His final job, investigating a stolen book, takes him via a conversation with the librarian Sybil Lansdown to Gallows Cottage and a meeting with Doctor Stalletti. Tommy Crawler, Bertram Cody's chauffeur is also there. Arriving home, Martin finds Lew Pheeney being followed by a man for whom he recently worked. 'Doing what?' demands Martin. Lew finally confesses. 'I was trying to open a dead man's tomb!'

EMILY BRIGHTWELL

Emily Brightwell was born in West Virginia and moved to Los Angeles in the early sixties. On a visit to England in 1975, she met her future husband, Richard and were married in May 1976 and lived in a small village outside London. In 1988 she began her new career as a fiction writer. She jumped at the chance to write a Victorian mystery series for Berkley and used original London newspapers from the 1880s and a host of books on Victorian households for research. These books and newspapers were priceless guides to her understanding of the real Victorian world of Inspector Witherspoon and Mrs. Jeffries.

Mrs. Jefferies Takes the Cake  - The evidence was all there: a dead body, two dessert plates, and a gun. As if poor Mr. Ashbury had been sharing cake with his own killer! Now, Mrs. Jeffries and her staff must do some snooping around. They're more than happy to help dish up some clues...

Sources: Wikipedia and Amazon.com
Writing and selling your mystery novel by Ephron