Letters Before the Crimes
Craft a story about a retired profiler who moves to a quiet countryside to escape the harrowing memories of their profession, only to find themselves drawn into a local mystery involving a series of anonymous letters predicting crimes before they happen. How does the profiler use their old skills in a town full of secrets and whispers?
Suggested length: A short story: 1,500 to 5,000 words, or flash fiction under 1,000
Start the clock
Pick a sprint, press start and keep going until it stops. Momentum beats polish on a first draft.
Make it yours
Three ways to take this prompt somewhere nobody else will.
- Let the most helpful witness be the one with the most to hide.
- Tell it from the point of view of a suspect who is lying about something else.
- Give the victim a secret the reader learns before the detective does.
Writing crime fiction
Not who did it, but why, and whether they'll get away with it.
Crime fiction covers any story built around a crime, and it's often told from the criminal's side. Where a mystery is a puzzle, crime fiction is about people: the pressures that lead to the crime, and what it costs everyone involved.
What readers expect
- A crime at the heart of the story
- Moral gray areas
- Criminals as real people
- Tension over who gets caught
A tip before you start
Give your criminal a reason the reader understands, even one they'd never act on themselves.
More Crime Fiction prompts
- The Tag at Every Crime SceneAfter a renowned graffiti artist’s signature tag appears at the scenes of multiple burglaries across the city, an undercover detective with a knack…
- The Heist Anniversary PoemEvery year, on the anniversary of an unsolved high-profile bank heist, a poem is published in the city's largest newspaper, hinting at the location of…
- The Journalist and the Smuggled AntiquesA novice journalist stumbles upon an underground network of crime while researching for a seemingly innocuous article about urban development. Delving…
- The Cleaner and the Cold CaseDescribe a day in the life of a crime scene cleaner who accidentally discovers evidence that could solve a cold case. The discovery leads them into…
Fifteen minutes in? Keep going.
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