You Know You're Writing Mystery/Thriller/Suspense When....

You know you're writing mystery/thriller/suspense when...


...the soundtracks to Inception and Requiem for a Dream are an absolute necessity for getting your mood right.

...you start trying to Sherlock Holmes everything you see in real life. For "research purposes."

...you've googled so much info about crimes, weaponry, and forensics that you're undoubtedly on some watchlist somewhere.

..you use your lab's collection of photos of mutilated corpses (don't ask) as inspiration for describing some of the bodies your killer leaves in his wake.

- you have more characters that are dead than alive
- there's always profiling
- you use your anthropology training to know exactly how certain bones will break

... "need help to kill someone off" is a totally appropriate subject heading for a forum thread.

...you' talk so much about killing people (sometimes without mentioning the literary reasons behind this) that people are hesitant to spend time alone with you or give you their private information...

as is "Which US city should I blow up with a nuclear bomb?"

You watch so many crime shows, that when you watch a comedy, you're picking out the one who should be the intended target.

Someone around you does something ordinary, and you start trying to work out a way this action could kill somebody.

At some point in your planning/writing, you actually consider the no survivors as a perfectly reasonable conclusion to your story.


Someone accuses you of being bloodthirsty.

You spend your time at work, or elsewhere where you can not write, pondering the perfect crime.

... you think that spending your time looking up different methods for deadly poisons is reasonable.

... you're people watching you think, "s/he's going to be the next target." and "how easy would it be to dispose of the body?"

... crimes shows are research too.

You realize that the Body is probably the most important character in your story and know him/her better than your actual MC (at the moment the Body has twice as much info on her profile than the MC does).

...when you list out possible causes of death out loud in school.

...when watching every version of Sherlock Holmes ever made isn't fun, it's for Research (Serious Business!)

...when you have characters who don't need names.

...when you announce to your parents and partner that you can't work out why someone wants to kill the Prime Minister

...you write at night, it's more atmospheric!

...you need to the know the structure and history of foreign intelligence agencies.

...you are fascinated by details of a suicide bomb.

...you look up loads of foreign names and their meanings to make your characters more authentic.

...asking someone about what form of torture they think is worst sounds like a good idea.

...questioning friends on how they would get revenge is now a nightly event.

...it's tempting to grab a few of the weapons of choice and hit things with them to describe the attack with more detail.

Also: when your little sister is now afraid to make you angry because you said you were looking up the best ways to kill people without being caught.

When your family no longer gives you funny looks when you start talking about the details of how you killed someone

When you walk in to work and they ask how the murders going

When your shelves are lined with books on forensics and true crime

When you have drawings of prisons, murder scenes and bomb schematics among other things

When you make your brothers lay on the floor and pretend to be dead so you can sort out some of the small details in the scene

When your brothers get you to sort out their halloween costume because you are so good at making them look realistically gruesome

When you know so much about forensics, you could probably take a degree in it and pass within the first year.

When your biggest puzzle to solve is who you kill off next.

When you seriously consider killing off any and all MCs.

When you know more about justice systems in America than you do in any other country, including your own.

When you spend more time describing the victims than you do the MCs.

When you go to the airport to figure out where to place your character when the bomb scare is called in.

When going to the shooting range is research.

when you make it onto the NSA's watch list. Then they show up in black suits and "Talk" to you

When you're driving through traffic and imagine that the other cars are bad guys following you. then you fight the urge to use evasive techniques.

when you make your friends fight out a scene so that you can make sure its believable.

When you see something happening, and you think, "That would be a good way to kill someone off."

When you always find room to include The Traveling Shovel of Death somewhere in your novel.

When you suddenly develop the ability to predict who-done-it in almost every mystery you read or watch, no matter how confusing the web of suspects and clues get.

When you seriously consider making a seperate office for yourself, just so you can decorate a rug with white outlines of human forms... (Yup, I'm 36 and I really want to do that.)

When watching Forensic Files and other shows ike that is research.

When your solution to writer's block is to kill someone off.

When you develop characters for the specific purpose of killing them off.

When you see something that actually disturbs you, it is worthy of consideration for your novel, with your own twist on it, of course.

When your husband looks skittish when he beholds your array of DIY murder books.

When you know "Castle" is rubbish but you love it anyway.

When you go out to find the best location for your brooding detective to suffer in great lighting and atmosphere.

When you go on vacation and see a great spot for a murder.

When you have trouble regaining your American accent after watching a BBC mystery marathon.

When you go house/apt. hunting and you wonder if the closets would be good places to hide a body.

When you analyze any location for possible hiding places and escape routes.

When you start always sitting with your back against the wall and a clear route to the exit.

When you start toying with the idea of touring a "bad neighborhood" to pick up some atmosphere.

When you wonder if the local cop would agree to you roughly handcuff you and shove you in the car just to see what it really feels like.

When you wonder who you could ask to punch you in the kidney, just to get the details right. (You guys, I'm really obsessed with this one.)

When you're at work and you realize you could use your rattail comb to stab someone at the base of the skull.

When you're driving and you start noticing places that would make a good body dump site.

(Noir/hardboiled style!)

... you google early-to-mid 20th century racial insults, slang, and popular varieties of alcohol.

... you spend all your time thinking of creative body tableaus (dangling from a noose over a dark alleyway! chopped up in a garbage can! sprawled in a lady's bathroom or coat room!).

... you panic because you don't think you're citing the correct varieties of guns in your novel.

... you spend hours on Wikipedia trying to sort out which guns would be historically correct.

... you spend way too much time agonizing over caliber.

... you try to come up with ethnic gangster names that aren't stereotypical.

... you write nearly 3 pages on what the femme fatale is wearing.

... you realize every one of your characters drinks, smokes, has skeletons in the closet, and is attracted to entirely the wrong type of person.