Do you need some help on how to write a police procedural novel? Check out our 10 top tips below!
1. Choose a setting.
How it Helps
Where and when your police procedural is set impacts a lot more than your characters’ fashion choices or use of slang. If your story takes place in England, for example, you need to refer to your investigating detectives as D.C.I. or “Detective Inspector” rather than just “Detective” like in the US. Even within the greater US, crimes committed on state-owned property are handled by a different department than those committed within city or county limits.
Timing is extremely important, as well, as certain databases and police processes wouldn’t be available until more recent years. Establishing where and when your story takes place is vital to everything else that comes from it.
How to Include It
Decide where and when you want your story to take place. Make sure you set your crimes in a place for your detective to have jurisdiction over investigating it. Then, look at what processes your detective would be able to use in that time.
Is it happening in the 1980s and 1990s? Then you wouldn’t have any sort of Internet or cell phone technology to analyze.
Is it happening in the 1950s? Then you wouldn’t have DNA or clear communication with other states or departments. Even fingerprinting would be unreliable.
2. Research, research, research!
How it Helps
Readers of police procedurals thrive off intense details of crimes and the investigative processes detectives go through to understand them. These fine details about the crimes themselves, and trying to figure out which of those details finally capture the criminals, are what make readers of police procedurals keep going back.
How to Include It
If you want to be realistic, you are going to need to do some research. Have an autopsy in your book? Make sure you know the correct processes and lingo forensic coroners use when completing their examinations. Does your criminal use technology or some highly specialized materials in their crimes? Then make sure you know exactly how those work for the story.
You also need to research the police procedures of the department you are using in the investigation. The FBI functions very differently from a local police station. Even police stations are different depending on the town and time period. So do your research before you get started.
3. Start with the crime and end with the capture.
How it Helps
The exciting part of a police procedural is not the crime itself: it’s the moment the criminal gets captured. Since police procedurals are less ‘whodunit’ and more ‘how are they going to get caught,’ it’s important that readers are introduced to the crime, and the criminal, early on so that they know the level of criminal the detectives are dealing with. This raises the stakes from the very beginning.
How to Include It
Open the story as close to the instigating crime as possible. If your criminal is a serial killer, you could even have the opening chapter be about that first kill that gets them discovered by the police.
The final chapters should be devoted to the criminal finally being captured or stopped in some way. This is so the bulk of your story is devoted to the ‘cat and mouse game’ the detective and criminal play throughout the investigation.
4. Create a timeline to keep track of the investigation.
How it Helps
Because it is a ‘procedural’ story, you need to ensure the story follows the investigative process. Even if your main character is a bit of a ‘rogue detective,’ they will still need to follow the law of their land in order to capture the criminal in a way that will result in a conviction. Having a timeline while you write will keep your story on track and ensure that your detective is following leads in a realistic and legal way.
How to Include It
Write down as much detail as you can about the opening crime and the final confrontation and arrest. Decide which clues the detective will follow up and how the criminal will evade being arrested based on those clues.
You essentially want two timelines: one for the detective’s investigation and one for the criminal’s actions during the investigation. Decide where on the timeline they will meet (this is usually towards the end) and how that will lead to the criminal’s capture and arrest.
5. The protagonist should be the investigating detective.
How it Helps
A police procedural follows the police investigation, so it stands to reason that your main protagonist should be that investigating police officer. This will allow your reader to realistically get all the same information the police would be getting as it is investigated and keep reading to find out how they’ll finally catch the criminal in the end.
How to Include It
After the opening description of the crime being committed or discovered, introduce your detective protagonist. They should be the main character investigating the crime and criminal. You can have other characters helping them, but they should be in every section where clues are discovered or witnesses are questioned.
6. Switch between focusing on the detective and the criminal.
How it Helps
A good police procedural allows the reader to follow the criminal as they try to evade the detective and stay free. This allows the reader to understand why the criminal committed the crime. Sometimes the criminal’s motivations and efforts can make the difference between supporting the detective’s search for them or the criminal’s efforts in escaping.
How to Include It
You don’t have to have alternating chapters or sections for the detective and the criminal, but do try to include the story from the criminal’s perspective every once in a while. Maybe you want the reader to see what the criminal did that kept the police from catching them at different points. Or maybe you want to expose their motivations in more depth.
Just be sure that the reader gets to see what the criminal is doing throughout this investigation to keep them wondering what will get the criminal caught.
7. Give a reason this case matters.
How it Helps
Make the case personal to both the criminal and the detective. The criminals in police procedurals generally have complex reasons they’ve committed the crime; this is so there is a complex investigation that must take place to uncover the criminal.
The detectives in police procedurals also usually have reasons that drive them to lose themselves in this particular case. Exploring that as part of the investigation keeps readers connected to the protagonist and helps them empathize with their zealousness.
How to Include It
The criminal’s backstory might be that they have a medical condition or they’re trying to escape death or kidnapping. Maybe they’re just a bad person who wants to do bad things to cause chaos.
The detective’s backstory has the potential to really make or break a police procedural story. What is it about this case that makes it so personal to them? Are they giving up on their family at home out of sense of duty and justice? Are they bringing new family into the world and feel a need to purge it of evil people? Decide on the detective’s purpose and, if possible, put it at odds with the criminal’s purpose to create a real dramatic conflict on a personal level.
8. Have the detective and criminal cross paths at some point.
How it Helps
One of the most common tropes of police procedurals is the moment the criminal meets the detective, either by accident or on purpose in order to taunt them. This moment can also be used to show how alike the two characters are or further explore their opposing points of view. It is best used to raise the stakes even higher as both characters usually come away with a heightened sense of purpose.
How to Include It
Some police procedurals have the detective meet the criminal in a moment of dramatic irony. While the reader knows that character is the criminal, the detective hasn’t quite gotten there in the investigation, only realizing afterward that they had been close enough to make the arrest.
You could also choose to have the criminal taunt the detective on purpose. Have the criminal send notes or leave voicemails for the detective which highlight how much smarter they are to get away with the crime so far. This would culminate in the criminal purposefully placing themselves in or near the detective as some point, forcing the detective to make a choice between chasing the criminal and stopping another crime from happening.
9. Add a red herring or two to keep the investigation complex.
How it Helps
Because a police procedural follows the investigative process from crime to arrest, there will inevitably be a misleading clue or even a planted mole that throws the detectives off the criminal’s trail. These usually happen right before they make a big break in the case and keeps the story exciting and realistic by showing the detectives as fallible.
How to Include It
Don’t include too many red herrings; limit it to two or three, depending on the length of your story. Too many misdirections would lose your reader as they would never know what clue to trust or follow through.
The planted mole is a good red herring if your criminal is using blackmail as they often blackmail someone on the police force to keep them out of trouble.
10. Use some police lingo where necessary to add a bit of realism.
How it Helps
Because police procedurals focus on police work, there will likely be police jargon used when they speak to each other. Depending on what department and where they are operating from, detectives might ask for certain forms or refer to criminals in certain ways (i.e. the Law and Order TV series calls criminals ‘perps,’ short for perpetrators). This adds realism to the story as every group of people who work closely together would have their own language relevant to the job.
How to Include It
This is where research is really important. Speak to actual detectives or police officers when doing the early research for your story and find out how they refer to criminals or describe the crimes you are including in your story. Do they have a name for certain forms or databases they might use in the investigative process? Ask them if there are any ‘police specific’ phrases they might use during an investigation that they wouldn’t use anywhere else. Then sprinkle those throughout your story where necessary.