Crime Fiction Plot Generator
Generate crime fiction premises that look at a crime from every side: who did it, who paid for it, who covered it up, and what the neighborhood still remembers.
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Wash and Fold
Hector Ruiz owns a laundromat in El Paso that two brothers from his old neighborhood have used to clean money for six years. He keeps the books straight and his head down. When the younger brother is found dead inside one of his dryers, the older one asks Hector to find out who did it, because he trusts Hector more than the police. Hector trusts neither of them.
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Time Served
Grace Adeyemi's twin brother was stabbed outside a Peckham chicken shop in 2009, and the man convicted of killing him has just been released. She is a nurse now, with a husband and a mortgage, and no plan beyond seeing his face. When she finally finds him, he tells her he didn't do it, and that he knows who did.
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Homecoming Parade
In 1971, the bank in Cobb's Ferry, Kentucky, is robbed during the high school homecoming parade, and the only witness is twelve-year-old Lyle Pruitt. He tells the sheriff he saw nothing. He saw his uncle. Forty years later Lyle comes home to bury his mother and finds a young reporter writing about the robbery, asking the questions the town agreed never to answer.
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Bones of Deception
A talented forensic anthropologist, haunted by a tragic past, comes out of retirement to help track down a serial killer whose crimes eerily mimic those of the murderer who tore her life apart twenty years previously.
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Under Shadows
An infamous thief witnesses a murder during a heist. Now on the run from the law and the killer, he must clear his name by unmasking the true perpetrator without exposing his own criminal secrets.
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Unburied Truths
A cold case heats up when an investigative reporter receives a cryptic letter hinting towards the real killer. Digging into the past could reveal the truth, but it may cost her life.
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Verdict of Blood
A brilliant defence lawyer finds herself defending her estranged brother, accused of a high-profile murder. As she struggles with family loyalties, she uncovers a conspiracy that might point to his innocence.
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Curtain Call
A celebrated detective and a renowned criminal profiler join forces when a serial killer begins murdering celebrities in sinister recreations of their most famous roles. As they delve deeper, the line between stage and reality blur.
Crime Fiction: what makes the plot work
Crime Fiction delves into the complexities of crime, law enforcement, and the human psyche, often involving detectives, criminals, and unsolved mysteries.
Make the place part of the crime
Crime fiction is often loved for its sense of place. Ian Rankin's Rebus novels are about Edinburgh as much as any single case, and Dennis Lehane's Mystic River is bound to the Boston neighborhood where three boys grew up. Ask what your setting's money, history and grudges have to do with the crime.
Give real pages to the aftermath
A murder doesn't end when the body is found. Families split, businesses close, witnesses move away. Some of the strongest crime novels spend time with the people left behind, and their grief and suspicion are as dramatic as the investigation.
Give the criminal an urgent reason
S. A. Cosby's Blacktop Wasteland follows Beauregard 'Bug' Montage, a gifted getaway driver who has gone straight until money trouble at his garage pulls him back for one more job. The motive is ordinary and pressing, which is why readers stay with him. Rent, medical bills and family loyalty make crime understandable without excusing it.
Choose whose story it is
The same crime reads very differently from the detective's desk, the criminal's car or the victim's sister's kitchen. Pick the point of view with the most at stake, then consider a second one that sees what the first can't. Multiple viewpoints suit crime fiction well, as long as each one changes what the reader understands.
More Mystery & Crime plot generators
Or see the whole shelf: Mystery & Crime plot ideas.
Detective FictionGenerate detective story premises with a puzzle at the center, a sleuth with a method all their own, and a closed circle of suspects who each have something to hide.
Multicultural FictionGenerate mystery premises where the culture is part of the case: a detective who reads a community from the inside, and clues that only make sense if you know…
Police StoriesGenerate police story premises that follow a case through the station as much as the streets: partners, paperwork, politics, and the officer who can't let one file go.
Women DetectivesGenerate mysteries led by women investigators, from village sleuths and private eyes to detective inspectors, each with a method shaped by who she is and what…
Names, a first scene and a title
Questions about Crime Fiction plots
Is crime fiction the same as mystery?
They overlap, and bookstores often shelve them together. Mystery centers a puzzle and its solution. Crime fiction is wider: it can follow the criminal, the victim or a whole community, and the reader may know who did it from page one. Many crime novels care less about who than about why, and what happens next.
How dark can crime fiction get?
As dark as the story needs, and readers of noir and gritty crime expect a lot. Where many readers draw the line is gratuitousness: violence described for its own sake, especially against children or animals, loses people fast. Violence kept off the page with consequences shown on it is often more powerful.
What is noir?
Noir is crime fiction with a fatalistic streak, where protagonists are compromised and things tend to end badly. Classic American examples include James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice and Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me. Noir has since spread to every region, from Scandinavia to the rural American South, but the sense of doom stays.
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