Henry Sutton's Crafting Crime Fiction

My new book, Crafting Crime Fiction (2023), is my first full length work of non-fiction. I wrote it straight after I wrote two three book crime fiction series in under six years (The Goodwin Crime Family series for Little, Brown in the UK, and the Hotel Inspector series for Kampa Verlag in German). I felt almost fiction-ed out. I needed a pause from the imaginary world. I also thought it was time to consider not just what writing and reading crime fiction meant to me, but how I approached the writing and teaching of it (as a longstanding creative writing professor). Maybe this could be of benefit to others.

It was an absolute pleasure to reread and consider so many formative texts, and discover brilliant new international voices. It was also a complete joy to engage with and consider other writers’ processes and techniques. Writing of course is cumulative – we’re resourced by others’ resources, and their forging of new ways, new paths, new forms.

So, this is what I learnt about the greater mystery of crime fiction – there are no rules, no parameters, only endless dynamism, energy and entertainment. There is also plenty of pertinence, insight, inclusivity and integrity. Indeed, no other genre offers the range, engagement and intelligence right now, or right then, or ever. But we already know this, and know who speaks to us most loudly and clearly. Though this is not the space for naming specific titles and authors, because reading taste and writing are such individual pursuits, even if an uncommonly large audience is the aim.  

However, delving even deeper into the genre, I began to formulate a few positions of my own. Or rather, I found I was tilting towards what I considered to be the key and common factors of crime novels that really spoke to me, surprised me, and kept me wanting to go back for more, and more. It amounts to energy, purpose, and poise. These are thematic and character considerations, as much as they are technical and practical. They can inform any storyline. But to be successful such concepts rely on skill and careful control, and authorial authenticity.  

Authorial authenticity is where a lot of us come unstuck. We might want to write like so and so, but we can’t, at least not as successfully (and not least because they have already done so). Finding a voice, a voice of a novel, again comes down to individuality – our specific resource and experience, and our take on register and how we want a fiction, a novel, to appear. Getting this right in a coherent and consistent way, while also possibly surprising and exciting us (and the reader), with the thoroughness of its execution, the confidence of its creation, is not only why we write crime fiction, but keep writing it.

Crafting good and successful crime fiction is actually something of a mystery. But the very great thing about mysteries is the addictiveness of them, however hard you try to deconstruct them. Yes, I, too, am a crime fiction addict. I hope my book, Crafting Crime Fiction, addresses some of these mysteries, in enlightening, engaging and practical ways. I’m now returning to writing fiction, a new crime series, with, I hope, renewed energy, purpose and poise – thanks once again to all the brilliant crime writers who continue to keep up the pace, the dynamism, the challenge.