{"id":861,"date":"2015-05-11T07:00:11","date_gmt":"2015-05-11T07:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/?p=861"},"modified":"2015-05-14T10:25:41","modified_gmt":"2015-05-14T10:25:41","slug":"writing-crime-fiction-changes-your-pov-forever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/writing-crime-fiction-changes-your-pov-forever\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing Crime Fiction Changes Your POV Forever"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been publishing mysteries since the 90s and whether I want to or not, I often figure out a twist in a thriller or mystery without even trying–especially if it’s a movie or show.\u00a0 I just can’t stop that part of my mind from working even if I want to be an ordinary audience member.\u00a0 And something about seeing it rather than reading it makes the upcoming twist much more obvious to my writer’s mind.<\/p>\n

Recently fans of Scandal<\/em><\/a> went berserk when a hero of the show, Jake Ballard, was stabbed and left for dead, and the preview for the next week showed his bloody body laid out on a table, with one of the show’s character’s, Quinn, yelling that he was dead.\u00a0 Even though I was emotionally caught up in the surprise attack where Jake was viciously stabbed, as soon as it was over, I knew for sure that he wasn’t<\/em> dead.\u00a0 I blogged about it for The Huffington Post <\/a>while the Twitterverse and Facebook erupted in disbelief and rage. The mystery writer in me knew that when writers want someone indisputably dead, that person’s throat is cut deeply to make sure they die ASAP or they’re stabbed in the head like a zombie ditto or in the heart.\u00a0 Jake was stabbed in the torso; people survive worse injuries in real life and this, after all, was only TV.\u00a0 The next week’s episode proved me right.<\/p>\n

\"Scott-body-042115\"<\/a>That same week in Vikings<\/a>, the third season finale ended with great drama. Ragnar Lothbrok, the King whose army had unsuccessfully attacked Paris twice was apparently dying of battle wounds.\u00a0 He’d also been mourning his dead friend Athelstan, a monk captured in an earlier raid on England.\u00a0 In a deal to leave “Francia,” the Vikings received a huge amount of gold and silver, but Ragnar demanded to be baptized and then later get a Christian burial. The Emperor Charles agreed and we saw Ragnar’s beautiful coffin, reminiscent of a Viking ship, borne into the walled city’s cathedral.\u00a0 Watching this impressive scene, I mused, “Wouldn’t it be something if he rose from the dead, popped out of the coffin and attacked the king?”\u00a0 That’s exactly what happened. His funeral Mass was a terrific ruse for sacking the city.<\/p>\n

\"Ragnar\"<\/a>I wasn’t trying<\/em> to figure out either plot or second guess the writers, it’s just that the many pleasurable years of writing (and reading) crime fiction have shifted my perspective forever.\u00a0 I don’t enjoy thrillers or mysteries or a show with a plot twist any less, but that inner watchful eye (much friendlier than the Eye of Sauron), just never seems to blink.<\/p>\n

Lev Raphael is the author of 25 books–including The Nick Hoffman Mysteries–which you can find on Amazon<\/a> and Barnes & Noble<\/a>.
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I’ve been publishing mysteries since the 90s and whether I want to or not, I often figure out a twist in a thriller or mystery without even trying–especially if it’s a movie or show.\u00a0 I just can’t stop that part of my mind from working even if I want to be an ordinary audience member.\u00a0 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[253],"tags":[497,113,148,502,95,261,262,19,283,130,510,260,259,258,255,256,257,495,254],"class_list":["post-861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime-fiction-writers","tag-authors","tag-book-reviewers","tag-book-reviewing","tag-books-to-film","tag-creative-writing-2","tag-critical-injuries","tag-fatal-injuries","tag-novels","tag-plot-twists","tag-reading","tag-reviewing","tag-scandal-tv-show","tag-vikings-tv-show","tag-watching-movies","tag-watching-mysteries","tag-watching-mystery-movies","tag-watching-tv-mysteries","tag-writing","tag-writing-crime-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":962,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861\/revisions\/962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}