  Mystery
This week: Oh what a tangled web! Edited by: Arakun the twisted raccoon  
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Quote for the week:
Books are slow, books are quiet. The Internet is fast and loud.
~Jonathan Safran Foer
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Computers and the world wide web are wonderful inventions for writers. Instead of pounding out our stories on a typewriter we can create them on the screen, erase mistakes instantly, and rearrange paragraphs with a few keystrokes. The internet allows us to do background research from the comfort of our homes and join great sites like Writing.com.
The internet has also changed the lives of detectives and criminals, both real and fictional. Instead of bulky paper files, investigators are able to maintain electronic databases that allow instant sharing of information between agencies. Unfortunately, the electronic age has also made life easier for criminals, as any victim of identity theft knows. Rather than breaking in to bank vaults and cracking safes, modern criminals break through electronic firewalls and crack passwords. Of course, some burglars still do their breaking and entering the old fashioned way, but some have used their victims' posts on social networks to find out when they would not be home.
Modern mysteries are likely to be solved by a team effort between characters with different skill sets. For example, Leroy Jethro Gibbs of NCIS is a fine traditional investigator who is clueless about computers and modern technology. Fortunately, his team members Abby and McGee have abilities their old school boss lacks. Jeffery Deever's Lincoln Rhyme is an expert in the interpretation of evidence and use of technology, but he is also a quadriplegic who depends on his assistant, Amelia Sachs, to work the crime scene. And Jack Bauer of 24 wouldn't have gotten too far without Chloe O'Brien.
Technology is a valuable tool, but it is not the only tool. Even if your main focus is a technological investigation, make sure you include action scenes and dialogue.
The internet is a treasure house of information, but it is also filled with misinformation. You might want your characters to be victims of this misinformation at times. A criminal might deliberately lie, such as a sexual predator who claims to be a 15 year old boy in order to meet young girls. In one real life case in Sweden, a father posted photos of his missing children on Facebook with a plea for information about their whereabouts. Thousands of users shared the photo, and finally someone recognized the children and told the father where they were. Happy ending right? Not exactly. The father was actually abusive, and his wife and children had been given new identities to hide from him.
If your characters use modern technology, make sure they use it in a realistic manner. For example, lay people and amateur investigators will not have access to all the same sites and databases as the police. Also, small rural departments may not have access to all the same applications used in large cities. You don't need to give detailed descriptions of the processes used unless they are important to the story, but make sure you know enough about it to make it seem real. If your detectives are adept in the use of technology, it is only fitting that they match wits with criminals who are equally skilled.
Something to try: Write a detective story in which the internet is essential to solving the crime.
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Question for next time: How do you research your stories?
Comments on last month's newsletter:
Quick-Quill 
Recently we heard about a boss who "butt-dialed" his employee while he was in the process of plotting the employee's murder. Truth is stranger than fiction but WHAT IF? How many of the NL viewers could write a mystery about this news story?
Jeff 
Great topic this week! I actually just listened to a TED podcast from NPR on the fallibility of human memory. They had several speakers, including a forensic memory expert (that's a real job apparently!  ) who recounted case after case of people who were absolutely convinced of remembering something that was either drastically different from what actually happened, and in some cases didn't even happen at all! It's remarkable how our memory bridges the gaps and fills in blanks... sometimes with information that we never even had in the first place. It's definitely a great source for mystery material!  |
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Mystery: January 01, 2014 Issue [#6073]
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