5 Signs Crime Fiction is Still Evolving - A Guest Post by Rebecca Gray

Today I'm pleased to publish a guest post by Rebecca Gray, who writes about real crime at backgroundchecks.org. Her comments on the impact of technology and new media have certainly made me think about my own practice as a writer in the modern world. Please add any comments you wish or write to Rebecca directly at the email address below.

image courtesy ponsaluk

5 Signs Crime Fiction is Still Evolving

Rebecca Gray

Crime fiction as a genre dates back to the 19th century, when Poe chilled readers with "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and Conan Doyle gave birth to the archetypal detective in Sherlock Holmes. You can still cast new writing in that classic mold, but today's crime fiction continues to expand its reach, merging with different fields like science fiction and fantasy or exploiting the possibilities of new media.

Changes in modern culture and technology are driving these changes in crime fiction. The plots of old classics in detection like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and The Red House Mystery depend on the lack of formal methods for processing a crime scene we now use routinely, so in order to produce similar novels today, a writer would have to craft a story deliberately excluding modern techniques and solutions.

Support your local writer

A couple of months ago I heard about Pubslush, a site that is like a Kickstarter for books. If you don't know it, Kickstarter is a site where creative people can get financial backing from ordinary folk for their creative projects. Pubslush aims at achieving the same result for writers.

So, seeing as I'm well into writing the fifth Sam Dyke book, The Strange Girl, I thought I'd give it a go. The result is the page I'm linking to here. If you're so disposed, and have money to spare, you can donate some of it to a worthy cause - me - and in return, when the project is finished you'll get a reward of some kind, assuming I reach a minimum attainment.

I'm not anticipating lots of take-up, to be honest, but I'll treat it as an experiment and if it works, that's great. If not, meh.

Here's the link to my project page:

The Strange Girl project

The Alliance of Independent Authors

I'm proud to say that I've just been granted Professional Membership of the Alliance of Independent Authors, a body that has been founded to promote and protect the interests of independent and self-published authors.

This is the first time I've been a professional member of anything and it gives me great pleasure that this first occasion should be for something that I love doing.

You have my permission to stare at and admire the badge on the right-hand side of this page.

Exciting news

This is just a placeholder post before I get around to reviewing James Lee Burke's latest book, Wayfaring Stranger.

There have been a couple of exciting developments recently, involving translation. First, I joined a site called Fiberead, who asked if I'd be interested in having one of my books translated into Chinese. Well, frankly, what writer wouldn't? China is currently the third-largest user of ereaders at the moment, and I guess that user-base will only increase with time. Getting my book into a form that will be readable should only be a good thing. The site is currently recruiting translators for Actress.

The second translation is coming from a site called Babelcube, who have put me in touch with a lady called Silvia Jurado Hermida, who is going to translate Actress into Spanish. Obviously this is also a large potential market, with Amazon having Kindle stores available for Spain and Mexico, for example. It's promised to be completed within 70 days - which will be some going.

Finally, just a nod towards Wayfaring Stranger, James Lee Burke's latest contemplation of The Way We Live Now. This book takes the Holland family strand that he's written about before and is positioned during and just after WWII. Although not evidently a 'crime' novel there are certainly strong plot elements in it that get the pulse racing, with Burke's usual mix of extraordinary villains and unusual characters. More later.

Digital Book Day

Just a note to say that July 14th will not only be Bastille Day, marking the beginning of France's freedom from oppression, but also Digital Book Day, marking the freedom of a number of ebooks from the oppression of having a price attached to them ...

You can go along to this site and on that day, download books from a number of wonderful writers for FREE! What could be better? OK, maybe a hot tub, but apart from that? Not much, I warrant. Here's the link, so put it in your diary:

Digital Book Day