muhahahaha… will your villain get away with murder??? today’s writing prompt is Alibi… if your story contains a crime, especially murder… be sure to add in a few of the fun facts that will help to make your story believable…

I’m not suggesting that you overload your story with facts… unless you’re writing for CSI fans, you might lose readers…

but if you come across a fact or two that make you stop and think “wow… cool…” then definitely add it to your novel… then drop in a few of the other facts that will help to move the story from ‘oh, crap… a murder…’ to ‘you’ll never get away with this sucker’

your MC might focus on one piece of evidence while others gather the rest… but that one piece, maybe something that seems unrelated, will play a part in catching your bad guys, or stopping the villain from getting away… or maybe it will be something that they notice and focus on while thinking/talking about something else… then, bam, they remember and save the day…

maybe your MC is new to crime scenes, shocked by the wounds to the body… or in paranormal, shocked to see something that doesn’t make sense… or maybe they are really good at figuring out the crime, but the crime scene is something they can never get used to…

but if you add a fact to your story, make sure that it is correct… I love learning something fascinating from my stories, from a fact about car safety to the number of cave systems in the state of Kentucky… but we’re talking about alibis here… and your villain can’t have a false alibi you break down if you have your facts wrong… and discovering a fact like DNA or a blade wound that matches a purchase made by the bad guy can force your MC to take another look at them, despite their alibi… and then they can work to break it…

I haven’t checked out this checklist yet, but it sounds interesting…

Source: National Academy of Sciences: Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States

you can find facts, then find ways to screw with them… like how could a bite mark mislead an investigation??? or you could look at the ways a crime scene can be delayed, so that the time of death is off… something the villain could do to have time to set up his alibi… play with your crime and have some fun with it…

alright… that’s it for today… here is your pinterest writing prompt… something that has nothing to do with crimes/alibis… does your MC have a routine they go through every day, or once a year before swimsuit time??? does it make them happy/full of energy, or crabby/full of complaints… happy wordage, tracey