Recently, I’ve been turning my hand to crime-writing – inspired by some of the competitions mentioned on Helen’s blog.

I’ve sent my entry into the M.R. Hall competition (by email after the on-line form kept insisting that my entry was longer than the required 2,000 characters, but I think that glitch is fixed now).

My entry for the Cremona Hotel competition has been drafted – but will no doubt need a generous dose of spit and polish before it’s ready to go on its way.

Now I’m turning my mind to brainstorming ideas for the GKBC competition (stands for Giving Kudos to Brilliant Content) and after that there’s the ‘Win a Book’ competition in the May issue of Writing Magazine (write 250 words in which someone pulls a gun on a bank cashier).

Alongside this, and to get me into the mind-set of a crime writer, I’ve been reading Crime in the City – the Official Crime Writers’ Association Anthology 2003. I’ve just looked on Amazon and only second-hand copies are available now – so maybe I’ve got a rarity here!

Like all good stories, these tales are character-led and usually contain no great detail about the mechanics of the crime involved or the police procedures used in solving it. The latter often puts people (including me) off penning crime fiction for fear of getting the investigative procedures wrong, so short stories could be a good starting point.

The best way of finding out about police procedure is to make friends with a policeman but failing that, there are resources available on the internet. After a quick trawl I’ve found:

• Crime and Clues – the Art and Science of Criminal Investigation
• Writers Write – this page lists several websites that might interest crime writers
• Writing.ie -Really Useful Links for Crime Writers

Or if you want some advice from the professionals (and have £99 to spare) why not book a place on Creative Thursday at the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Festival.

Now, time to decide how my next victim’s going to die …