Writing About Crime

Daring bank robbers. Sophisticated jewel thieves. Sadistic serial killers. And of course, the tough-talking, brilliant detectives who chase them down.

Crime stories have always held a powerful place in our collective imagination. One hundred and eighty years ago, Edgar Allan Poe created the modern detective story. Decades later, Arthur Conan Doyle gave us Sherlock Holmes—genius, methodical, and iconic.

Then came the revolution.

In the 1920s through the 1940s, American writers reshaped crime fiction with stories that were gritty, violent, and unapologetically hardboiled. Hammett, Chandler, and Cain brought the noir voice to life: clipped, cynical, street-smart. They gave us morally compromised protagonists navigating corrupt cities full of double-crosses, dangerous women, and crooked cops.

In recent years, our appetite for stories about lawbreakers and the pursuit of justice has grown. Not just novels anymore—but podcasts, prestige television, streaming series, documentaries. From “True Crime” deep dives to character-driven sagas, crime stories are more popular—and more plentiful—than ever.

But too often, the characters we’re given are cardboard cutouts. The crook is bad. The cop is good. Black and white. Maybe the detective drinks too much, haunted by a cold case or a dead partner. He’s reckless, smarter than everyone else, always one step away from getting kicked off the force—but ultimately vindicated when he catches the psycho.

And the psycho? He’s evil for evil’s sake. Unhinged. Motivated by nothing beyond shock value. A cartoon villain who self-destructs just to watch the world burn.

The crook or conman is either dumb and hapless, or slick and soulless. No nuance. No humanity.

I’ve always loved crime fiction—the darker, the grittier, the better. And on the screen: "Breaking Bad", "Heat"—the stories that do it right. But I’ve always been a tough reader, a critical viewer. I notice when the details are off, or when the psychology doesn’t ring true.

Because I’ve lived in that world.

I’ve been through the legal system. I’ve stood in front of judges. I’ve seen holding tanks, jail cells, prison yards. I don’t glamorize it, and I don’t excuse it. I’m not proud of the choices that brought me there.

But I know how easy it is to make one bad call and find yourself sliding into something you can’t walk back from. The line between “normal” and “criminal” is razor-thin, it turns out.

Because of my own mistakes, I ended up living alongside real criminals—hustlers, dealers, scammers, gang members, thieves, even killers. Not the kind you see on TV. The real ones. Some were cold. Some were damned intelligent. Some were unexpectedly kind. Many were deeply broken, shaped by childhoods no one should have to survive. Others were just trying to get by, doing what they believed they had to do with the hand they were dealt. And sometimes, it was hard to tell who was which.

That’s what fascinated me—not just what they did, but why. What code did they live by? What were they trying to prove, or protect, or escape? What did they believe about the world that led them to act the way they did?

That curiosity—the need to understand—bled into my reading. The best stories didn’t feel like fiction at all. They felt like truth, like life. When it’s done right, fiction becomes a dream you fall into and forget you’re dreaming. There’s even a name for it: "narrative transportation"—when your brain slips fully into someone else’s world. It’s one of the most human experiences we have.

But when it’s done wrong—when a character acts in a way no real person would, when the details are lazy, when the motivations fall apart—it breaks the spell. That’s the worst thing a writer can do: shatter the illusion.

Storytelling isn’t just entertainment. It’s how we make sense of the world. Before laws, before books, before therapy—we told stories. Around fires. In caves. On scrolls. Stories to warn. Stories to teach. Stories to help us survive.

Crime fiction is a modern version of that same instinct. It lets readers explore the darkness—betrayal, loyalty, justice, desperation—without real-world consequences. It invites them to ask: What would I do?

For someone like me—someone who’s lived on both sides of the line—writing crime fiction is a way to talk about a harsh reality without naming names. It’s how I show people what that world really feels like—not through memoir or reportage, but through imagination. Through characters who could be real. Because sometimes, maybe they are. Or at least partly so.

Writing has always been my outlet. It’s how I process what I’ve seen. It’s also a craft I want to master—a skill I work to improve. I started with short stories, essays, blog posts, letters, emails. Now I’m finally writing a full-length novel. People ask me all the time: "Is it your story?"

The answer is no. I write fiction because I like to make things up. I like building plots, creating characters, entertaining readers. I love crafting suspense, narrative drive, and emotional truth. And I want to show people what the world I’ve seen really looks like, and have some fun doing it.

In my novel, I get to put sharp, witty dialogue in my protagonist’s mouth. I get to make my characters tougher, smarter, more decisive than I ever was. They live through high-stakes schemes, take calculated risks, pull off wild heists. My own past? Nowhere near as strategic. Far less glamorous.

Yes, there were riots. Knife fights. Police pursuits. But those moments were rare. Most of it was boredom. Regret. The slow, spirit-crushing experience of watching everything you love fade away while you’re locked inside.

So when I write, I fill the page with real sensory detail. I build a dark and lonely world I know too well. But I also get to invent something larger than my past. A story with purpose. With insight. With consequences that go deeper than handcuffs and cell doors.

More than anything, I write to satisfy my own curiosity—about human nature, about morality, about survival. Maybe, if I do it well, others will take something from it too.