FOR EDITORS, PROOFREADERS AND WRITERS

What is flash fiction and can its creation make us better writers and better editors?

​In July 2018, I wrote my first piece of flash fiction and submitted it to the Noirwich Crime Writing Festival’s flash fiction competition. Here’s what I learned.

What is flash fiction?
Think of a tiny story that packs a large wallop … that’s flash fiction. It’s not always called that. Some call it micro fiction, others nano fiction. I’ve also heard it called the shortie, short-short and postcard fiction.

How long is it? There’s no consensus other than it’s short ... very short. Some types of flash fiction have established word counts – the dribble with 50 words, the drabble with 100 words, and Twitterature – ­­no more than 280 characters. If Twitterature seems like a challenge, imagine writing it when the character-count limitation was 140!

So what are the key components and what can they teach writers of longer-form fiction?

1. Brevity – making every word count
Keeping things tight is one of the biggest challenges faced by many of the beginner novelists I work with.

Overwriting usually occurs because the author hasn’t yet learned to trust their reader. Will that single adjective be enough? Maybe another sentence that says a similar thing would be in order, just for clarification …

Often, it’s not a reflection of a writer’s ability to write, but about confidence. Getting the balance right comes with experience and not a little courage. A line editor can help with overwriting – they bring fresh eyes to the book, and can advise on what can safely be removed without damaging flow, sense, rhythm and tension, and in a way that respects style and voice.

Flash fiction helps writers practise the art of precision in the extreme. And when it comes to self-editing your novel, you can ask yourself this: ‘If this were a short story and my word count was restricted, is this the way I’d construct this sentence?’

The answer might be ‘No, but I’d be missing an opportunity to enrich the narrative and the dialogue in a way that’s best for my book.’ That’s a great answer. Still, the flash fiction writer is forced to be disciplined, and when it comes to writing longer works, that discipline will get you used to thinking in terms of making sure every word counts, and comfortable with removing those that don’t.

A limited word count also encourages writers to experiment with literary devices such as free indirect speech, sentence fragments, action beats, and asyndeton, all of which can facilitate brevity but enrich tension, immediacy, mood and rhythm. 

2. Structure – shaping the story
Stories need structure. No writer wants to get to the end of their novel only to realize that the denouement occurred ten chapters earlier. Sophie Hannah calls it ‘story architecture’, which I think is both a practical and a beautiful way of thinking about how a writer helps their readers experience a novel.

There are different ways to shape stories but the most common is the three-act structure. First, the beginning or hook that draws us in. Second, the middle where the confrontation takes place. This is where we come to understand the characters’ motivations and the conflict or obstacles in their way. Third, is the end where the denouement or resolution occurs.

Says Julia Crouch, ‘If you have any storytelling bones in you at all, you will more than likely, even subconsciously, end up with a structure like this.’

How does flash fiction help? Do you even need to worry about structure when you’re writing such a short piece of work?

Absolutely! No one will enjoy an 80,000-word novel that’s poorly structured. The same applies to 800 words. The only difference is that with flash fiction they’ll lose interest quicker.

Flash fiction is a story form in its own right. It’s not about pulling an excerpt from a longer-form piece of writing. Flash must have structure – a beginning, a middle and an end. Something must happen to someone or something, and readers must leave the story feeling satisfied, that the story is complete, that they’ve been on a journey, albeit a short one.

Without structure, it will descend into nothing more than an extract.

Perhaps flash is akin to poetry – squeezing big ideas into small spaces. That too, though, is good practice for the novelist, because it encourages writers to think about the discipline of shaping, and the journey that the reader will be taken on.

3. Strong endings – surprises and twists
There’s nothing more disappointing than a book that hooks you into turning page after page only to sag into a giant anti-climax.

‘Endings are so important to the reader and you will never please everyone,’ says Nicola Morgan. ‘Readers do want the end to feel “right”, though. They have spent time with these characters and they care what happens to them.’

How and when novelists decide to tie up all or most of the loose ends will depend on style, genre, and whether the book is part of a series, but there must be some sort of closure so that your readers aren’t left hanging.

Flash fiction is a challenge to write, but it’s a challenge to read too, particularly for those who love to get stuck into a world and the characters who move around within it.

It’s therefore an excellent format in which to practice packing a final punch, even if that amounts to just one or two sentences. This form of writing also allows writers to play with readers’ expectations of resolution in quirky ways.

You might decide to evoke a laugh, or a shudder, or shock, or a sense of poignancy, but the reader should feel something such that even though you’ve only written a few hundred words the story is memorable.

Here are some additional tips that you might consider if writing flash fiction appeals.

Flash fiction tips #1: Seek immediacy
Which tense will you use?

At the time of writing, I’ve written eight flash fiction stories, none of more than 900 words. In all but two I instinctively opted for the present tense. I didn’t notice my predilection until I reread them one after the other. It made me reconsider the two I’d framed in the past tense. I decided to see what would happen if I changed them.

I learned something. My narrative tension loses its piquancy when I write in the past. That’s not to say I wouldn’t use the past if I were writing a novel. However, for flash fiction, there’s no time to lose! I’m trying to close the distance between the reader and the viewpoint character so that the former is quickly immersed in the tiny world I’ve built.

The opposite might be true for you; there are no rules. But if your flash is flagging, don’t be afraid to experiment with tense and evaluate the impact.

Flash fiction tips #2: Characters and viewpoint
Given the space available, keep the story tight by sticking to one viewpoint character.
It’s easier to create immersion if you allow readers to get under the skin of a single person’s experience. That doesn’t mean there can’t be other characters in the frame, just that we see these others through the viewpoint character’s eyes.

You’ll likely need to omit anything about the character that isn’t necessary to drive the story forward. Novels include descriptions of the characters’ appearance and personality so that we can better visualize them and understand their motivations.
With flash, consider focusing only on those unique physical and emotional traits that nudge the reader towards the big reveal.

Flash fiction tips #3: Use the mundane
Play the what-if game. Take an object, or place, or personality attribute of someone you know, and ask what the story might be in another universe.

What if that old door in your friend’s hallway didn’t really go to the downstairs loo? What if that scribble you found on the inside of a library book had a more sinister connotation? What if your neighbour wasn’t quite who you believed them to be? What if your best mate’s boring job was just a cover story?

Sometimes the most wonderful clues to the theme of a shortie are hidden in plain sight.

4. The editor turned fiction writer – lessons learned
Writing and editing are two very different arts. I don’t believe that a good fiction editor must be a fiction writer. I do, however, think we need to understand the core components of fiction writing and what makes a book work, and be able to place ourselves in the shoes of the author and the reader.

Still, I’m (now) one of many fiction editors who also write fiction. Some of my colleagues have publishing contracts. Some are self-publishers. Some have agents, while others are seeking representation. Some of us write our fiction purely for pleasure.

​There are many roads, but we all agree on one thing: it has been good for us to sit on the other side of the desk – to be the writer, to be the one being edited. 

Louise reading 'Zeppelin'. Crime writer Elizabeth Haynes looks on.

The short story I wrote for Noirwich 2018 was a challenge for two reasons:

1. I’ve written non-fiction – several books, materials for online courses, this weekly blog, guest articles for magazines and newsletters, essays during my university days. But I’d not written fiction since I was in high school, and back then I wasn’t being judged on it.
2. The brief was to write 500 words of crime fiction related to Norwich or Norfolk. The last time I wrote anything with fewer than 500 words was when I constructed the bio on my website!

The amazing thing is that I made the final shortlist of three.

That, however, presented a new challenge. I was invited to Noirwich Live where the winner would be announced by New York Times bestseller Elizabeth Haynes. Would I read my story ‘Zeppelin’ to a roomful of people, mostly complete strangers?

The audience comprised fellow amateur writers, teachers of creative writing, published writers including Haynes, Merle Nygate and Andrew Hook, and most important of all, my daughter Flo and dear friend Rachel.

My knees might have been trembling as I took to the floor, but I got the job done and thought about what I’d learned from the experience.

Sharing takes courage
Writing fiction is one thing; sharing it with others is quite another. Even tiny fiction like mine. For some of us, it takes courage, especially when massive doses of newbie impostor syndrome are flowing through one’s veins.

And this is exactly how many of my author clients feel. Sometimes I’m the first person on the planet to see their work when they’re done with it. My experience enhanced my already deep respect for them, because now I know how it feels to share my fiction with others.

Editing is an honour
My own small venture has taught me what a privilege it is to be chosen by an author to edit for them. When they choose me or one of my colleagues, they take a leap of faith. They place trust in us to treat their words with respect and help them move forward towards their publishing goals.

Fiction is intimate
The nine stories I’ve written to date are really short. I’m at the beginning of my fiction writing journey. I have a lot to learn. But those stories are precious to me. Every one of them contains a bit of me, or of someone I care about, or someone or something that has made a mark on me in some way. They are not fact, but they are not completely made up either, and that infuses them with a level of intimacy.

In other words, fiction writing is personal.

It’s important that the fiction editor takes all of that into their editing studio and remembers it at every touchpoint of the project – an amendment, a query, a summary – and never forgets to say thank you.

​Further reading

• Julia Crouch. Five tips for keeping your readers gripped. Noirwich. 2018.
• Louise Harnby. 3 reasons to use free indirect speech in your crime fiction
• Louise Harnby. Playing with the rhythm of fiction: commas and conjunctions
• Louise Harnby. Playing with sentence length in crime fiction. Is it time to trim the fat?
• Louise Harnby. Shorts and Flashes. 2018
• National Centre for Writing
• Nicola Morgan. Write to be Published. Snowbooks. 2014
• Noirwich Crime Writing Festival

Dialogue tags – or speech tags – are what writers use to indicate which character is speaking. Their function is, for the most part, mechanical. This article is about how to use them effectively.

A dialogue tag can come before, between or after direct speech:
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• Dave said, ‘That’s the last thing I expected you to say.’
• ‘That,’ said Dave, ‘is the last thing I expected you to say.’
• ‘That’s the last thing I expected you to say,’ Dave said.​

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Placed in between direct speech, tags can moderate the pace by forcing the reader to pause, and improve the rhythm by breaking up longer chunks.

Rather than give you a bunch of zombie rules that you’ll want to break about two seconds after you’ve read them, here are three guidelines to bear in mind when thinking about which tags to use, which to avoid, and when you might omit them altogether:
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1. A good tag doesn’t trump the dialogue.
2. A good tag doesn’t repeat what the dialogue’s already told the reader.
3. A good tag doesn’t impair how natural the speech sounds.

Why said often works best, and when it’s not enough
The speech tag said  ‘is a convention so firmly established that readers for the most part do not even see it. This helps to make the dialogue realistic by keeping its superstructure invisible,’ say Mittelmark and Newman in How Not to Write a Novel (p. 132).

I agree, and I recommend you embrace it! If someone’s told you to avoid repeating said, head for your bookshelf and take a peek inside some of your favourite novels for reassurance.

If you deliberately try to avoid said, you run the risk that your writing will reflect that intention. If your reader is focusing on your avoidance, their focus is not where it should be – on your story.

Still, there will be times when you’ll want a tag that tells your reader about, say, the sound quality, the mood of the speech, or the tone of voice. Speech tags aren’t the only way to do this – for example, you could use action beats before the dialogue, or adverbial phrases after your tags – but few readers will complain if you use the likes of whispered, yelled, shouted, muttered or whined. Hissed is one that I rather like, though some writers and editors are less keen.

Even though said 's invisibility makes it harder to overuse, avoid the temptation to place it after every expression. Here’s an example of how it looks when it's been overworked (see, too, the final section in this article, ‘Omitting dialogue tags’):

Showy speech tags and underdeveloped dialogue
Showy tags can overwhelm dialogue. Since you’ve written your dialogue for a reason, that’s where the reader’s attention should be. When the tag is more visible than the speech, it’s a red flag that the dialogue, not the tag, needs enriching:

​Instead, we might amend the dialogue so that it conveys the preaching tone, and leaves the tag (said) with the mechanical function of indicating who’s speaking:

Showy speech tags and double-telling
Some speech tags are just repetitions of what the reader already knows – they double-tell. Asked and replied are two common examples, though these are used so often that they don’t fall into the showy category. For that reason, I don’t think you need to go out of your way to avoid these, though do take care not to overuse them.

Showier examples – such as opined, commanded, threatened – become redundant if you’ve got the dialogue right:

In the first three examples, it’s clear from the dialogue that an opinion, a command and a threat have been given. The speech tags repeat what we already know; we should consider whether said is a less invasive alternative.

In the fourth example, amazing and the exclamation mark (!) tell us that the speaker exclaimed, so again the showy tag is redundant.

It’s a question of style, of course. I’m not giving you rules but suggesting ways of thinking about the function of your tagging so that you keep your reader immersed in the spaces of your choosing.
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Non-speech-based dialogue tags and the reality flop
Even if you decide you do want a more extravagant tag than said, take care when using verbs that are not related to the mechanics of speaking.

Examples include: smiled, gesticulated, ejaculated, thrusted, fawned, scowled, winced, smirked, sneered, pouted, frowned, indicated and laughed.

The physicality of these verbs will jar your reader and they immediately introduce an element of inauthenticity into the prose. They’re great words for describing what other parts of a person’s body can do, but are unsuitable for use as dialogue tags:

Try one of the following instead:

Alternatives to showy speech tags – more on action beats
Rich action beats can complement or even replace speech tags, and are useful if you want to keep your dialogue lean and are tempted to use a showy speech tag. Keep them on the same line as the speaker they’re related to.

Action beats let you set the scene so that the reader can fill in the gaps with their imagination while a character is speaking.

Here’s an example of dialogue with a showy speech tag – moaned:

In the alternative below, the reader can discern the moaning manner in which the speech is delivered because James’s discomfort is shown in the action beat preceding it:

Notice how the action beat is punctuated. There’s a full stop (period) after winced.

Neither of these examples is wrong or right. You might decide that you prefer one over the other. Rather, I’m showing you alternatives so that you can make informed decisions about how to make your writing engaging.

Using proper nouns in dialogue tags
If your fiction is gender binary (and it might well not be) and the genders are known to the reader, you needn’t repeat the speaker’s name every time they appear in a dialogue tag. You can use third-person singular pronouns: he and she. Clarity is everything here.
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Notice how Alexander McCall Smith uses nouns and pronouns in his dialogue tags, and peppers the text with action beats so that the reader knows who’s speaking (The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, p. 125):

​Omitting dialogue tags
If you’re confident your reader can keep track of who’s saying what in a conversation, you can omit dialogue tags altogether. Once more, it’s not about rules but about sense and clarity.

This will work best if there are no more than two characters in the conversation, and even then, most writers don’t extend the omission for more than a few back-and-forths before they introduce a reminder tag or an action beat.

Here’s an example from Peter Robinson’s DCI Banks novel Sleeping in the Ground (pp. 273–4). There are two characters in this scene: Banks and Linda. Robinson omits most of the dialogue tags in this conversation because it’s clear who’s speaking, but he keeps us on track with an action beat and a tag halfway through:

Summing up
When it comes to dialogue, remember the function of the tag: to indicate which character is speaking.

​Says Beth Hill, ‘These tags are background, part of the mechanics of story; they meet their purpose but don’t stand out. They let the dialogue take the spotlight’ (The Magic of Fiction, p. 166).

So, during the self-editing process:

• Check your tags to ensure they’re performing their indicative function rather than taking the spotlight.
• Position them to moderate pace and improve rhythm.
• Take care with non-speech-related tags.
• And support your dialogue with action beats so that said can take invisible pride of place.

Cited sources and further reading

• Alexander McCall Smith: The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Abacus, 2003
• Beth Hill: The Magic of Fiction. Title Page Books, 2016
• Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman: How Not to Write a Novel. Penguin, 2009
• Louise Harnby: How to punctuate dialogue in a novel (article)
• Louise Harnby: How to punctuate dialogue in a novel (videos)
• More dialogue resources
• Peter Robinson: Sleeping in the Ground. Hodder & Stoughton, 2017

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Good proofreading practice means acknowledging that changing one word, or moving one line, can have unintended and damaging consequences throughout the rest of the book if we aren’t careful.

If we want to proofread for publishers, packagers and project-management agencies, or if we're checking self-publishers' print-on-demand books, we need to be comfortable with working on page proofs. 

What are page proofs?
The proofreader will usually be asked to work on page proofs. What are they?

​In this case, the proofreader does not amend the text directly. They annotate the page proofs.

You might be required to work on both hard-copy page and PDF page proofs – it will depend on the client’s preference. You'll be looking for any final spelling, punctuation, grammatical, and consistency errors that remain in the text. However, you'll also expected to check the appearance of the text.

Checks will include the following:

• the running heads match the chapter title
• the chapter title matches the entry in the contents list
• the design of the various text elements is consistent (e.g. correct font, text size, use of bold/italic, consistent capitalization, correct paragraph indentation, line spacing, etc.)
• the chapter title drops are consistent throughout
• the text on facing rectos and versos (right-hand and left-hand pages) is balanced
• in-text citations are presented according to preferred style and can be located in the book's references or bibliography
• footnote/endnote markers are present and correct in text and correspond to relevant footnotes/endnotes
• odd page numbers always appear on recto pages
• bad word breaks are flagged
• part titles always appear on new recto pages

​​This isn't a comprehensive list but it gives you an idea of how this type of proofreading goes beyond just checking the text for typos. If your client hasn’t supplied you with a proofreading checklist, you can access this free one when you sign up for The Editorial Letter.

What's important here is that every amendment you suggest might have an impact somewhere else. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make the amendment; it means, rather, that you need to be mindful of the consequences of your actions – the knock-on effects.

What are knock-on effects?
Professional proofreaders often refer to the indirect consequences of their mark-up as knock-on effects. A useful way of thinking about this is in terms of dominoes because it provides us with the perfect description of what’s at stake.

Imagine you've lined up four dominos: A, B, C, and D. You push over A and it pushes over B. B then knocks over C, which in turn causes D to fall. Domino D’s topple was caused indirectly by Domino A, even though A didn’t touch D.

This process can occur on page proofs and can have serious consequences. The changes we make can, if we’re not careful, impact on the text flow, the pagination, the contents list, and the index.

An example
Here’s an example to illustrate the point. Imagine the publisher’s brief tasks the proofreader with attending to orphans and widows (those stranded single lines at the bottom or top of a page).

Solutions that involve instructing a typesetter to shuffle a line backward to a previous page, or forward to the next page, in order to avoid the widow/orphan might cause one, or all, of the following problems:
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• The repositioning of a line onto a different page automatically forces a reflow of text. Things look fine for the next six pages, but on the seventh page after the amendment was made, a new orphaned or widowed line has now appeared. The previous arrangement of the text prevented this.
• Let’s imagine that the seventh page is still widow/orphan-free. But the reflow of text means that this seventh page now contains a line that appeared on the previous page. This line includes a keyword term that is cross-referenced 130 pages later. The cross-reference is now incorrect.
• The index is being created simultaneously by a professional indexer. It’s not uncommon for proofreaders to never see the index, nor to spot check it. The line that’s been repositioned on a different page contains an author citation that is included in the index. The indexer doesn’t know what the proofreader’s done, and the proofreader doesn’t know which terms are being included in the index. Neither of them knows that the index entry now has the wrong page number attached to it.

In all three cases, the proofreader has prevented one problem but caused others. Consequently, good practice involves more than blindly placing mark-up instruction on any given page.

Thought needs to be given to how the problem can be tackled and the impact managed so that there is no knock-on effect. Spotting an orphaned or widowed line is not enough. We might also have to consider the following:

• Providing additional instructions to the typesetter regarding to how to manage the problem by compensating elsewhere on the page (e.g., increasing or reducing line spaces and page depths, new line creation, etc.) so that the impact of moving one line is restricted to the page where the change has been made and its facing recto/verso.
• Telling the project manager about the suggested line move so that the manager can inform the indexer.
• Looking out for obvious key words or citations in lines that have been moved to check whether they are cross-referenced in the text (having a PDF, even when working on hard copy, is a must in these circumstances).

Summing up
If you’re considering training as a proofreader and want to be fit for the purpose of marking up page proofs, check that your course includes a component about knock-on effects.

Even when we are supplied with detailed briefs about an ideal layout, the publisher client expects us to be mindful of the consequences of our amendments. The proofreader’s job is to find solutions to problems in ways that don’t cause unintended damage.

If you’re including authentic technical or procedural information in your crime writing, you’ll be wearing your research hat. Your story should come first, of course. However, be sure to get your facts straight before you decide if and how far you’re going to bend reality.

Procedure varies between region and country, and when your novel is set will also determine the relevance of the resources I’ve included. Still, even those outside your jurisdiction might spark an insight that drives your storyline further or deepens your characterization

Conversations, consultations and ride-alongs
My brushes with the law have been limited to bad parking. Still, I know a few coppers socially, and it’s to them I’d head for procedural guidance in the first instance.

If you know a police officer, a forensic anthropologist, a crime-scene investigator, a barrister, or whatever, ask them if you can pick their brains. They’ll have expert subject knowledge and insights, and your talking with them face to face could be the most powerful tool of all.

If you don’t have existing contacts, ask your friends for theirs or put a call out on social media. A writer recently requested help from munitions experts via the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) Facebook group. Several commenters provided advice and one offered to put her in touch with an expert.

​If your book's set in the UK, try Consulting Cops or Graham Bartlett, author and crime fiction advisor. Both have teams of law-enforcement experts who'll help you keep your facts straight.

Here’s crime writer Julie Heaberlin discussing the importance of researching and feeling comfortable approaching experts, especially to bring deeper layering to her novels:

In a bid to improve relations between the police service and the public, some larger forces now operate ride-along schemes that allow members of the public to patrol with an officer. In the UK, these include Avon & Somerset, Nottinghamshire, Essex, Lincolnshire, Lancashire, Humberside and Warwickshire Police.

Search online using the keywords ‘ride-along police [your country/state/city]’ and see what comes up.

Watch and read
How about TV and movies? Your favourite crime dramas and fiction might have been meticulously researched. Then again, they might not. In ‘Five Rules for Writing Thrillers’ David Morrell urges writers to do the research but to use caution:

Morrell talks more about how research makes him ‘a fuller person’ and how he learned to fly in order to create an authentic pilot for his book The Shimmer. The expense of a pilot’s licence will probably be out of reach for the average self-publisher. YouTube could be the solution.

There are thousands of hours’ worth of real-life video footage on YouTube. You can learn from experts about how a body decomposes, how an autopsy is carried out, how a forensic sketch artist works, and how to clean up a crime scene.

And there are lectures on the science of blood spatter, computer forensics, investigation techniques, and forensic imaging. You name it, it’s probably there.

Use Wikipedia
Wikipedia is great for any sleuthing writer wanting to track down information about criminal procedure. Do, however, use the primary sources cited in the references to verify the information. In the online masterclass ‘How to Write a Crime Novel’ Dr Barbara Henderson recommends using at least two sources for internet-verification purposes.

Here are some searches to get you started:

• Law enforcement in the United States
• Police officer ranks (international)
• Murder (crime definitions)
• Firearms policy in the UK​

Security agencies

MI5 – the UK’s homeland security service
​Visit the official site of MI5. There’s information on how it handles covert surveillance, communications interception, and intelligence gathering, plus a brief overview of its history since its creation in 1909.

Christopher Andrew’s The Defence of the Realm is the first authorized history of the service. Published by Penguin in 2010, it’s available on Amazon and in major bookstores.

Visit The National Archives and type MI5 into the search box. That will give you access to all the files that have been released into the public domain to date.

National Crime Agency (UK)
The NCA is tasked with protecting UK citizens from organized crime. Its website has articles and reports about cybercrime, money laundering, drugs and firearms seizure, bribery and corruption, and trafficking.

I recommend looking at the NCA’s free in-depth but readable reports such as the National Strategic Assessment of Serious and Organised Crime 2018, which outlines threats, vulnerabilities, the impact of technology, and response strategies.

MI6 (SIS) – the UK’s secret intelligence service
​Visit the official website of the SIS to find out how it handles overseas intelligence gathering and covert operations. There’s a brief overview of the service’s history and some vignettes that illustrate how intelligence officers operate.

Keith Jeffery’s MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909–1949 is ‘the first – and only – history of the Secret Intelligence Service, written with full and unrestricted access to the closed archives of the Service for the period 1909–1949’. If you want historical information, this is a good place to start.
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GCHQ – Government Communications Headquarters (UK)
The GCHQ website is worth visiting just to see the building from which it operates in Cheltenham! There’s an overview of GCHQ history, operations, its various operational bases, and how it works with Britain’s other security services to manage global threats.

For a more in-depth study of the service, start with Richard Aldrich’s GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain's Most Secret Intelligence Agency.

FBI – Federal Bureau of Investigation (USA)
The FBI’s website is packed with the usual overview material of how and why, but I think the go-to resources are the likes of the free Handbook of Forensic Services, the Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center (TEDAC) page, and the training guidance.

​The easiest way to navigate around the site is to head to the FBI home page and scroll down to the links in the footer.
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NSA – National Security Agency
The NSA website is the place to go for twenty-first-century code-breaking information, and there’s a ton of information about cybersecurity and intelligence. Head for the Publications section to get free access to The Next Wave and various research papers. The material is dense but could be just the ticket for building backstories for cybergeek characters.

Police forces
Michael O'Byrne is a former police officer who worked in Hong Kong, and later with the Metropolitan Police (sometimes referred to as New Scotland Yard). Try the second edition of his Crime Writer's Guide to Police Practice and Procedure.

INTERPOL
This is the world’s largest police force with nearly 200 member countries. The Expertise section of its website is rammed with useful and readable information on procedure, technical tools, investigative skills, officer training, fugitive investigations, border management and more.

UK police forces
Police procedure will vary depending on where you live. You can access a list of all UK police force websites here: Police forces, including the British Transport Police, the Central Motorway Policing Group, the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, the Ministry of Defence Police and the Port of Dover Police

An Garda Síochána – Ireland’s national police and security service
The easiest way to navigate the Garda’s website is to head for the home page and scroll down to the sitemap at the bottom. There you’ll find links to information on policing principles, organizational structure, and the history of the service. The Crime section is particularly strong on terminology and procedure.

Legal resources
Lawtons Solicitors’ website has an excellent Knowledge Centre filled with articles on parliamentary acts, offences, criminal charges and police procedure. What are the drug classifications in the UK? and Police Station interviews are just two examples.

Ann Rule’s advice on attending trials is aimed at true-crime writers, but you could use the guidance for fictional inspiration: Breaking Into True Crime: Ann Rule’s 9 Tips for Studying Courtroom Trials.

Crown Prosecution Service (UK): The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) website provides detailed prosecution guidance for criminal justice professionals. It is extremely dense, and so it should be; it wasn’t designed for novelists! See, for example, the section on Core Foundation Principles for Forensic Science Providers: DNA-17 Profiling. Still, there’s a wealth of information there for those prepared to wade through it.

​Department of Justice (USA): The DOJ site offers guidance on the role of the Attorney General, the organizational structure of the department, lots of statistical information, and maps of federal facilities.

​Forensics resources

• Forensic Science and Beyond: Authenticity, Provenance and Assurance is a free, huge and fascinating study that includes evidence and case studies of forensic science in relation to cybercrime, chemical weapons, victim identification, pharmaceuticals, nuclear forensics, and more. It’s worth a read for plot ideas as much as procedure.
• The Crime Scene Investigator Network claims to be ‘the world’s most popular crime scene investigation and forensic science website’. It’s US-centric, so whether the procedures outlined there will be relevant to your jurisdiction will be worth checking.
  Still, the site is easy to navigate and avoids academic jargon. There’s information on evidence collection (blood, semen, firearms residue, drugs, fingerprints, fibres, and so on), photography and procedure, and a collection of articles written by crime scene investigators. Well worth visiting, wherever you’re based.
• If you want to know what the UK’s Forensic Science Regulator considers best practice, delve into its current Codes of Practice And Conduct, 2017 and The Control and Avoidance of Contamination in Crime Scene Examination involving DNA Evidence Recovery.
• For additional technical guidance, and to search for more forensics resources, visit the UK government’s Publications and search by keyword. What’s especially useful about these collections is that archived reports are held on file. And that means you can access guidance not only as it stands now, but in the past too.
• The Royal Anthropological Institute has a Code of Practice for Forensic Anthropology that ‘defines the purpose of the forensic anthropology process and the series of steps that must be followed from the time a forensic anthropologist (FA) is notified of involvement in a case until the presentation of findings, whether by report alone or through the provision of evidence in the court room’.​
• There are some interesting insights into human taphonomic research (that's body farms to you and me) in this report: The Operation of Body Farms – Learning Points for Setting up a Human Taphonomy Facility in the UK.
• Val McDermid's Forensics: The Anatomy of Crime, published by the Wellcome Collection in 2015, 'traces the history of forensics from its earliest beginnings to the cutting-edge science of the modern day'.
• Introduction to Forensic Science: This is a free online course from the University of Strathclyde via FutureLearn. 'Explore the methods underpinning forensic science, from crime scene investigation to reporting evidential value within a case.'

Historical crime writing resources

• Victorian Crime & Punishment includes a prisoner database and case studies of real crimes and trials.
• The National Archives holds historical records of serving officers in the Metropolitan Police and the Royal Irish Constabulary.​
• The Police History Society documents police museums, collections, historical societies and related resources.
• US crime writer Jason Lucky Morrow hosts a true-crime blog called Historical Crime Detective. The subtitle is ‘Where Old Crime Does New Time’. That in itself was enough to pull me in! He promises we ‘will discover forgotten crimes and forgotten criminals lost to history. You will not find high profile cases that have been rehashed and retold ad infinitum to ad nauseam.’

Weapons research

• Harvard Injury Control Research Center's web pages related to firearms research offers a wealth of information on gun-related, accidents, ownership, carrying, and bad science.
• Guns Guns Guns is an ‘online directory and forum for those who prize their right to keep and bear arms’. If you want to know something about firearms, the answer’s probably there.
• The Firearms section of the UK government’s website includes statistics on firearms certification and guidance on legal use.
• The ATF: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (USA) includes a photo gallery of different categories of guns, a code of federal regulations, licensing information in regard to firearms and explosives, and articles about tools and services for law enforcement.

I hope you find these resources useful. I’ve barely been able to scratch the surface, not least because I’m busy trying to book a ride-along with my local bobby! While I sort that out, here’s some wise advice from David Morrell: