Meta: Plot, Woe, Plot: Faking Forensics and Conjuring Crimes for Investigative Fandoms
MJ Panel Mod: shihadachick
Note: Due to some personal time constraints, this post is going to be a little light - I hope to come back post-Jamboree and add some information, especially in the form of some forensics information that we may have as handouts on the day, but for now this is more the guidance questions I plan to use, and a few meta-ish thoughts. Please do jump in with any useful information, or things that worked (or that didn't work!) for you in fic. Cheers.
* * *
It seems as if every time we turn around there's another crime procedural show on TV. They may not have the biggest fandoms (yet!) but there's definitely a lot of potential there for fannish creation, and what this discussion aims to do is to give everyone a chance to discuss tools to use for any type of fic that has more than a glossing of crime plot or forensic detail involved.
First, a framing point - to my mind, investigative fandoms covers everything from the obvious CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds, Bones, and so on, to the buddy cop shows like due South, the Sentinel, and even Starsky and Hutch, to shows like Veronica Mars, and Angel, and, well, frankly, I think if it's got a fandom, there's probably people wanting to write crime-based plots for it.
One of the most important things I can think of about this topic is that what you can do in terms of forensics and criminal behaviour is going to be - to a degree - defined by the fandom you're working in. If you're in a fandom which works very close to reality, then your characters are going to need to take account of the fact that DNA evidence does NOT get processed overnight. If you're in a fandom which traditionally glosses over this point - CSI, I'm looking fondly at you, here! - then you've got a bit more wiggle-room. Setting - both location and in time - is also going to need to be something you should consider - if you're working with due South and you're writing inside the show's run then some of the forensics tools we're used to using in other fandoms aren't as commonly used - although, of course, if you're working with due South you've also got Fraser playing a mass spectrometer on legs, so that's possibly not the best example.
Trying to stay within the bounds of logic and physical laws is another point that may be useful to your story as well - if you can act part of it out (or play it out with models), sometimes that'll add a dimension or a twist you might not have thought about before. An example of something along those lines that I have to share - before turning this over to the room at large to see what else turns up - is from Lois McMaster Bujold's books. In one short story, our protaganist Miles is making an escape from a prison camp, in an air shuttle. As they take off, the door is damaged, and a woman he's become friendly with falls through the hatch. He grabs after her, misses, and berates himself ever after for missing the grab. Why's this relevant? It's relevant if I give you another two pieces of information: firstly, that Miles is 4'11'' and doesn't weigh very much himself, and secondly that the woman was about six feet tall. In a later book, Miles has a flashback to this event caused by a similar (and less fatal!) incident, and realises that if he had managed to grab hold of her hand in the first place, he'd have been pulled out with her. I hadn't put that together myself until the author had Miles realise it, and it's something that hits me every time.
Basically, what I'd love to discuss through this panel is what sorts of things we can do with a basic working knowledge of forensics, what kind of crime plots work best for the story and what are the kinds of things which trigger every disbelief alarm we have?
Are there certain crimes (or possibly certain treatments of crimes) which are over-used? Stereotyped?
How can we use a crime-based plot to further characterisation? What about the forensic evidence?
What are some strategies people have used with success to hook a crime plot into a secondary plot without letting it overpower that?
What are some common errors in forensics-related details? For example, if we read a detail that makes it clear our investigator isn't wearing gloves? Unless that's going to be a plot point, that's a big no-no. Or hair not being tied back - although again, many shows will elide that for the sake of the 'pretty'.
Where, as writers, can we find resources to learn more about the forensics side?
Having our characters make mistakes - both in handling the evidence and in interpreting it - what can this add to a story?
Adapting existing crimes from real life/other sources - how can this be helpful, and how can it be dangerous? (With outright plagiarism of other fiction excluded, since I think that's usually pretty clear.)
Are there certain shows which lend themselves more to a particular type of crime? Does the nature of the crime (or the violence/degree of graphic depiction thereof) change depending on the fandoms you write for?
I hope we can pool a lot of useful points for this topic, and thank you in advance to everyone for contributing.
Note: Due to some personal time constraints, this post is going to be a little light - I hope to come back post-Jamboree and add some information, especially in the form of some forensics information that we may have as handouts on the day, but for now this is more the guidance questions I plan to use, and a few meta-ish thoughts. Please do jump in with any useful information, or things that worked (or that didn't work!) for you in fic. Cheers.
* * *
It seems as if every time we turn around there's another crime procedural show on TV. They may not have the biggest fandoms (yet!) but there's definitely a lot of potential there for fannish creation, and what this discussion aims to do is to give everyone a chance to discuss tools to use for any type of fic that has more than a glossing of crime plot or forensic detail involved.
First, a framing point - to my mind, investigative fandoms covers everything from the obvious CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds, Bones, and so on, to the buddy cop shows like due South, the Sentinel, and even Starsky and Hutch, to shows like Veronica Mars, and Angel, and, well, frankly, I think if it's got a fandom, there's probably people wanting to write crime-based plots for it.
One of the most important things I can think of about this topic is that what you can do in terms of forensics and criminal behaviour is going to be - to a degree - defined by the fandom you're working in. If you're in a fandom which works very close to reality, then your characters are going to need to take account of the fact that DNA evidence does NOT get processed overnight. If you're in a fandom which traditionally glosses over this point - CSI, I'm looking fondly at you, here! - then you've got a bit more wiggle-room. Setting - both location and in time - is also going to need to be something you should consider - if you're working with due South and you're writing inside the show's run then some of the forensics tools we're used to using in other fandoms aren't as commonly used - although, of course, if you're working with due South you've also got Fraser playing a mass spectrometer on legs, so that's possibly not the best example.
Trying to stay within the bounds of logic and physical laws is another point that may be useful to your story as well - if you can act part of it out (or play it out with models), sometimes that'll add a dimension or a twist you might not have thought about before. An example of something along those lines that I have to share - before turning this over to the room at large to see what else turns up - is from Lois McMaster Bujold's books. In one short story, our protaganist Miles is making an escape from a prison camp, in an air shuttle. As they take off, the door is damaged, and a woman he's become friendly with falls through the hatch. He grabs after her, misses, and berates himself ever after for missing the grab. Why's this relevant? It's relevant if I give you another two pieces of information: firstly, that Miles is 4'11'' and doesn't weigh very much himself, and secondly that the woman was about six feet tall. In a later book, Miles has a flashback to this event caused by a similar (and less fatal!) incident, and realises that if he had managed to grab hold of her hand in the first place, he'd have been pulled out with her. I hadn't put that together myself until the author had Miles realise it, and it's something that hits me every time.
Basically, what I'd love to discuss through this panel is what sorts of things we can do with a basic working knowledge of forensics, what kind of crime plots work best for the story and what are the kinds of things which trigger every disbelief alarm we have?
Are there certain crimes (or possibly certain treatments of crimes) which are over-used? Stereotyped?
How can we use a crime-based plot to further characterisation? What about the forensic evidence?
What are some strategies people have used with success to hook a crime plot into a secondary plot without letting it overpower that?
What are some common errors in forensics-related details? For example, if we read a detail that makes it clear our investigator isn't wearing gloves? Unless that's going to be a plot point, that's a big no-no. Or hair not being tied back - although again, many shows will elide that for the sake of the 'pretty'.
Where, as writers, can we find resources to learn more about the forensics side?
Having our characters make mistakes - both in handling the evidence and in interpreting it - what can this add to a story?
Adapting existing crimes from real life/other sources - how can this be helpful, and how can it be dangerous? (With outright plagiarism of other fiction excluded, since I think that's usually pretty clear.)
Are there certain shows which lend themselves more to a particular type of crime? Does the nature of the crime (or the violence/degree of graphic depiction thereof) change depending on the fandoms you write for?
I hope we can pool a lot of useful points for this topic, and thank you in advance to everyone for contributing.