What I Wish I’d Known is a regular series where we ask some of our favourite people in the book industry to reflect on their careers. In this instalment, crime writers share some of the unexpected and useful things they’ve learned along the way about genre conventions, satiating avid readers and the joys of spine-tingling thrills.
Gabriel Bergmoser – The Caretaker
There’s a fear I had, early in my career, of my writing being too slow. With so much vying for audience attention, the pressure is on to grab them early and not let go. As such, when drafting The Hunted I stripped out anything that could be seen as filler and drove the story forward at a relentless pace. I don’t regret this, but experience has made me more willing to rely on creeping tension and unsettling atmosphere over constant action. I initially had my doubts about this approach in more recent stories like The Hitchhiker and The Caretaker, but the reception has shown that readers don’t mind a book taking a bit more time to build its world and characters. In fact, it often makes the book even better.
Abby Corson – The Concierge
As a crime writer I always keep in mind not to underestimate my reader. Crime readers are experts at spotting clues, no matter how concealed I think they are. This is what they do for fun; pick apart crime novels and guess the twist way before they read it. For me, putting myself into their mindset is important. I don’t want them to guess the ending correctly so it’s all about pre-empting their thoughts and turning the book on its head so that even the unshockable are shocked. So far, most haven’t been able to guess the twist in my debut novel, The Concierge, but for my next book I know that those readers will be on to me and it’s my job to keep them on their toes!
Garry Disher – Sanctuary
I write crime novels because I love reading them, and writing them allows me to explore character, ideas, settings and social tensions—just like a ‘real’ novelist.
Contemporary crime fiction has many virtues. Strong storytelling, driven by absorbing questions (I prefer asking what-manner-of-person-dun-it? to the outdated who-dun-it?). Settings woven into characters, events and tone, not tacked on. Relatable heroes, with their mistakes, messy love lives and empty fridges—but who will act where we would flinch.
I handwrite the first draft—in blue biro or the magic leaks away. I plan in detail but stay alert for the voice saying ‘Hang on…’ And I happily use the genre’s conventions—except that my cop character, Hirsch, has little authority and the setting bewilders him.
Robert Gott – Naked Ambition
What I wish I’d known about crime writing is how much I’d enjoy it. I’d have started much earlier if I’d known that writing a novel was pleasurable, not painful. It can be frustrating of course, but the satisfaction to be had from writing ‘The End’ is sufficiently intense to sweep all before it.
Don’t believe writers who tell you it’s daunting. They just don’t want competition. Pick up your pens and write. You just might discover what a joy it is.
Julie Janson – Madukka the River Serpent
I wrote Madukka the River Serpent as an Indigenous family story, about their environmental actions to save a river. It was not working. I came up with the idea to rewrite the novel in the crime genre, and also worked against the conventions by including the supernatural world of ghosts.
I wanted my feisty protagonist, Aunty June, to have more agency in her activism, so she completed a TAFE Certificate III in Investigative Services. This is a real thing! Australia had never had a novel with a female Indigenous detective. My character came to life in the genre, and now I’m writing another crime novel for Aunty June.
Josh Kemp – Banjawarn
Before publishing my first novel, Banjawarn, back in 2022, I wish I’d known how supportive the Australian crime writing community would be. Since delving into the genre, I’ve often felt like a gothic horror writer masquerading as an author of crime fiction. At first, I was concerned this intermingling of modes would not have been so well received. I could not have been more wrong. Australian crime writers are incredibly welcoming and, despite the darkness of their subject matter, are genuinely lovely people who encourage diversity within their field.
Ellie Marney – Some Shall Break
As someone who writes YA crime fiction, I’ve learned that teenagers like to get a glimpse of the road ahead. They’re at a time in their lives when big decisions about the future are being made. YA crime is a way to see what happens when bad decisions are played out to their finale on the page.
The other thing is—we don’t give young adults enough credit. They’re as fascinated by the gruesome details of crime as adults are, and in a world where COVID, school shootings, war and climate change exist, it’s not like they can ever be shielded from reality. Let them read a little homicide, as a treat!
RWR McDonald – Nancy Business
I fell into crime writing like a lot of authors it seems. For me, it was following a line of internal dialogue, a kid describing her school friend’s gruesome murder but delivered in a matter-of-fact amateur sleuth-like way. Later I learned: don’t kill kids or animals. (There is always debate around where you draw the line. Some believe in going there but for me I’ll always save the cat.)
I also learned subgenres, rules, certain reader expectations and the genre’s rich legacy. And that crime writers are the best people and fun, their readers kind and whip-smart. I just wish I’d known to use a VPN to cover my search history!
Dinuka McKenzie – Tipping Point
The term formulaic is often levelled at crime fiction by detractors of the genre. I’ve come to realise that it’s exactly these genre expectations—the unrelenting twists, pacing, suspense and puzzle—that drive me to continually push myself as a writer. When you’re writing to an enormously engaged audience, who know exactly what they expect from the genre, it is on you to come up with the goods every time. To subvert and play with the tropes, pull the rug and recreate the template. All while exploring the mainstay of all compelling fiction—injustice, the morally grey and the uncomfortable.
Vidya Rajan – Ruby Rai P.I. (ABC TV, available online)
I love crime fiction, but probably cosy crime above all—the comfort of a world that can be righted after a puzzle is solved. It’s probably why it’s such an enduring genre in troubling times. But cosy crime can be subversive or reveal things about society in its own way too, sometimes through the warmth of the ridiculous. Think of Hercule Poirot—Christie’s response to Holmes, he’s a slightly silly figure but has an outsider lens as a Belgian refugee who can actually see the English more clearly than they see themselves. I’m quite interested in that perspective.
When I’m writing comedy that’s also crime fiction, I love to think of how I can turn that perspective up to eleven—making it more ridiculous and more satirical of power, in a way that is intrinsic to laughs and a key part of the crime solving. I’m a structure-head so this may only be interesting to me, but it might surprise people to know that comedy and crime plotting have a lot in common—it’s all control of detail, misdirection, surprise and getting yourself into trouble and out again!
Angela Savage – Behind the Night Bazaar
I fell into crime fiction after winning third prize in the Sisters in Crime Scarlet Stiletto Awards short fiction category. I’d always read the genre, and it seemed like the perfect vehicle for the ideas I wanted to explore. My protagonist was an Australian woman in Thailand, and working cross-culturally is a lot like being a detective: you’re always trying to get a handle on the big picture from a small set of clues, distinguishing reliable from unreliable sources, searching for meanings lost in translation.
What I wish I’d known is that crime fiction is considered less worthy, even low-brow in some literary circles—despite its popularity among readers. With major literary awards being won by crime writers, I think such attitudes are starting to shift. And I would counsel writers new to the genre to embrace its possibilities—and its popularity. Plus, the Australian crime writing community is so chill and friendly. I think it’s because we get all our murderous fantasies out on the page.
Jock Serong – The Settlement
I wish I’d known that the best writers are interested in poignancy, in human depth and connection, and that these qualities outlast and outshine the noisy stuff like gratuitous violence, half-baked ideas about country towns and stereotypical coppers. Crime writing is human beings obsessing, failing and persisting, loving and hating, applying their genius and pluck to the cryptic aftermath of something. It’s Conan Doyle, Simenon, Leonard, Temple, Disher and Viskic.
And I wish I’d known people were going to go so nuts about true-crime podcasts. I woulda bought myself some headphones and a mic…
Anna Snoekstra – Out of Breath
In my early days I felt a strong sense of unease about the kind of novels I write. I insisted I wrote psychological thrillers not crime, worried I must have a really messed-up brain to be drawn to those kinds of stories. Then I looked deeper into the fascinating history of crime writing. From the scathing portraits of fascism and the outlawed libri giallo in Italy, to the inverted criminal/detective mystery novels in Mexico and the parodying of authority in Argentina’s whydunnits, crime writing has been used again and again as a societal mirror and protest vehicle. It’s definitely not a catch-all but it gave me my verve back! Now when I write my twisted, cynical little novels, I tap into that history of purpose.
Benjamin Stevenson – Everyone on This Train is a Suspect
Funnily enough, given that I wrote a book inspired by the rules of crime novels, I wish I’d known that there are no rules to writing crime novels. Do whatever you want. Be serious or be playful. My first few novels I was so scared of not conforming to the genre that I hid half of my skill set (humour) from my writing. Only when I let it out did I find my writing improving.
Here’s the real secret: There are no genres. Only stories and the tools to build them. Finding the right tools to tell each particular story is the key, rather than fitting into any particular box.
