NOT YOUR USUAL SUSPECTS

A group blog featuring an international array of killer mystery, suspense, and romantic suspense writers. With premises and story lines different from your run-of-the-mill whodunits, we tend to write outside the box. We blog several times a week on all topics relating to romantic suspense and mystery, our writing, and our readers. We welcome all comments and often have guest bloggers. All our authors can be contacted separately, too, using their own social media links.

We find our genre delightfully, dangerously, and deliciously exciting - join us here, if you do too!

NOTE: the blog is currently dormant but please enjoy the posts we're keeping online.


Julie Moffet . Cathy Perkins . Jean Harrington . Daryl Anderson . Nico Rosso . Maureen A Miller . Sandy Parks . Lisa Q Mathews . Sharon Calvin . Lynne Connolly . Janis Patterson . Vanessa Keir . Tonya Kappes . Julie Rowe . Joni M Fisher . Leslie Langtry

Friday, January 30, 2015

THE WILD WORLD OF TV CRIME SHOWS



I'M HOOKED
I can almost feel the pink blush tinting my cheeks when I reveal I'm obsessed.  Hooked.  A junkie.  An addict.  To what?  Television crime shows.    

We've just started getting a channel called Investigation Discovery (ID) and it is nothing but crime/police/investigation shows.  Being a romantic suspense writer, getting a chance to peek into the mind of a serial killer, or a stalker, is fascinating.

Sometimes, it's listening to the family talk about their loved ones and the anguish and grief of knowing they were taken from them far too soon.  It breaks your heart to hear them explain how someone had so little regard for human life, but if you can tap into that wealth of emotion and show it on the page, the results can be truly amazing. 

The variety of reasons people commit these senseless crimes stuns me.  Money is usually the number one reason.  Money – are people really so enamored of filthy lucre they're willing to kill for it?   Apparently the overwhelming answer is a resounding yes. 
Then there's always infidelity.  Maybe the woman scorned or the spouse who's being cheated on.   Oh, and let's not forget the obsessed stalker.  Okay, I gotta admit I sometimes check my closet at night before going to bed after watching a couple of these shows. 


The titles are just as interesting/bizarre as the cases themselves.  You've got shows like Homicide Hunter.  Murder Book.  Wives with Knives.  Disappeared.  Web of Lies.  Unraveled.  Snapped (although that's on a different channel – LOL).  And the list goes on and on.

Television cases like these are overtly sensationalized.  They have to be or people wouldn't watch.  But a writer can read between the lines, finding that gem which sparks a story idea.  It could be an overlooked piece of evidence.  Maybe somebody's alibi held up, but you can see holes in it you could exploit as a teller of tales. 


Do you every watch something and think, hmm, I bet there's a good story in there?  

Don't laugh; I've caught myself jotting down notes in the middle of a show, so I don't forget that golden nugget of information to weave into my own masterpiece.  If you watch, tell me about your favorite shows, I'm insatiably curious.  

4 comments:

Anne Marie Becker said...

Oh my gosh, so much fodder for suspense stories in there! I occasionally catch those shows. My mom used to love those kinds of things and tell me all about them. :)

Kathy Ivan said...

I would occasional catch them took, but now there's a whole channel with nothing but investigations! I'll start watching something and five hours later realize I haven't moved or changed the channel. LOL

Elise Warner said...

I'm into Masterpiece Mystery.Grantchester is the latest showing in the USA. Then there is a program The Mysteries of Laura--a sense of humor along with good detection and I've recently begun watching Blue Bloods--three generations who serve as Policemen--the daughter is the District Attorney.

CathyP said...

Clearly I have to find this channel!

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