On Sleuthsayers with: ACK Not Again! Five Crime Series Plots that Deserve to Die

On Sleuthsayers today!  I've repeated the post here, for my regular readers.

You have to admire the Brits.  If they have a successful crime series, they don't automatically grow it

beyond one season (Midsomer, excepted.)  But the trouble with most crime series filmed, and also successful crime series in print, is they go beyond their best before date.  And by this I mean, they start to run out of plots - healthy original plots - and search madly for something, anything they haven't done before, including things that have been done to death <sic>.  The following tropes drive me crazy.

1.  The protagonist sleuth is the murder suspect.
By far, this one has me fired up to throw things.  Inevitably, every long-running series has one episode where the Detective Inspector, the PI or the well-respected amateur sleuth, becomes the prime suspect for a murder well into the series.  Into jail they go.  They've done it with Father Brown.  They've done it with Don Matteo.  Hinterland.  You name it.  Whenever I see this happening, I grit my teeth.  Why?

That plot is boring, man.  Obviously, they didn't do it.  If they did, then it is 'series over'.  And it can't be series over, because there are several episodes left, or a new season to download, and I can see that right on the screen.  So all we're doing is tediously waiting for the sidekicks to get proof that our beloved protagonist didn't do it.

2.  The protagonist and/or sidekick is held hostage.
This is the second plot trope that has me screaming Italian curse words at the screen.  This month, it was Don Matteo and Rosewood.  You can name others.  And again, this is boring. If they are all killed and don't get out, end of show.  But there are more episodes, so they obviously get away.  If we know the ending at the beginning, what's the pleasure in watching?

3.  The police officer protagonist is hated by his immediate superior.
One of the reasons I like Endeavor is because Morse's boss Thursday is such a good guy to young Morse.  In so many shows, including the original Morse, the detective superintendent or chief constable behaves like an out-of-control teen, lambasting our hero with manic fury.  He hates the protagonist, for no good reason we can see.  Or is it that he is so insecure, he can't stand someone who makes him and his department look good?  How demeaning.  By all that's holy, make this stop. 

4.  Young female sargeant has affair with older boss.
Okay, we all learned in the 80s and 90s: you don't have an affair with your boss.  It's stupid. It's career-killing.  It's also unethical, if he's married or you're married.  And yet, time after time we see this on the screen.  STILL.  IN 2018.

I cringe, because it perpetuates the ancient stereotype that young female police officers are not serious about their jobs.  They are slaves to their emotions.  They are willing to risk all for romance.  Writers, DON'T take me back to the seventies.  Just don't.

5.  The male Detective Inspector invites prime female suspect/witness to a romantic dinner.
Similar to the 'affair with the boss' above, this scenario gives high-ranking police officers I've talked to apoplexy.  No police officer is that idiotic.

Look, we all understand that tension is ramped up if there is personal involvement.  But come on, writers!  Don't make our extremely professional boys (and girls) in blue look adolescent.  It's insulting.

Just do the right thing.  Tell us a damn good story. And wrap things up before you sink to these tropes.

Melodie Campbell writes seriously wild comedy. You can find her latest crime books (The Bootlegger's Goddaughter and The B-Team) at all the usual suspects.  See this latest ad in Mystery Scene Magazine.   

Thangs that drive Crime Writers CRAAAAZY

I’m a crime writer.  Hell, I’ll put on my other hat (the one with the pointy top) and say it.  I’m even a fantasy writer (my corvette reminds me every day, as those are the books that bought it.)

 

So I know about suspension of disbelief.   I’m willing to admit that as an audience, we might agree to ‘suspend belief’ for a little while.

 

But enough is enough.  Television, you go too far.   CSI Hoboken, or wherever you are, take note.  Here are some things that drive otherwise fairly normal crime writers (oxymoron alert) crazy:

 

1.  Crime scene people in high heels and raw cleavage.

Of all the !@#$%^&* things that television distorts, this is the one that bugs us the most.  Ever been on a crime scene?  Ever been in a LAB?

For six years, I was Director of Marketing for the Canadian Society of Medical Laboratory Science.  I’ve been in a friggin’ lab or two.  Take it from me: it ain’t a place for fuck-me shoes and long loose hair.  You want my DNA messing with your crime results?

Network producers, stop treating us like ignorant adolescents who need to be sexually charged every single moment.  Stop.  Just stop.  It’s insulting.

2.   Gunshot victims who give their last speech and then die, Kerplunk.

Full disclosure:  I was also a hospital director.  People who get hit with a bullet to the heart die, kerplunk.  They aren’t hanging around to give their last words.  People who get hit in the gut may take many hours to die.  It’s not a pretty sight.  Take it from me.  They usually aren’t thinking sentimental thoughts.

3.  Where’s the blood spatter?

 If you stab someone while they are still living and breathing, there is going to be blood spatter.  Usually, that spatter will go all over the stabber.  So sorry, producers: your bad guy is not going to walk away immaculate from a crime scene in which he just offed somebody with a stiletto.  You won’t need Lassie to find him in a crowd, believe me.

 4.  Villains who do their ‘Fat Lady Sings’ pontification.

Why does every villain in boob-tube-town delay killing the good guy so he can tell the soon-to-be-dead schmuck his life story?  I mean, the schmuck is going to be offed in two minutes, right?  You’re going to plug him.  So why is it important that he know why you hate your mother and the universe in general? 

Someday, I am going to write a book/script where one guy gets cornered and before he can say a word, this happens:

<INT.  A dark warehouse or some other cliché. >

BLAM. 

The smoking gun fell to my side as Snidely dropped to the floor. 

“Dudley!” gasped Nell.  “You didn’t give him a chance to explain!”

I yawned.  “Bor-ing.  All these villains go to the same school.  You heard one, you’ve heard them all.”

“Isn’t that against the law?” said Nell, stomping her little foot. “Don’t you have to let the bad guy have his final scene?”

BLAM.

The smoking gun fell to my side as Nell dropped to the floor.