Breaking the Case: the art and craft of Crime Fiction

Aims of the course

• To provide students with a broad and engaging overview of crime fiction, tracing its development from classic mysteries to contemporary international storytelling.
• To introduce foundational figures such as Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Raymond Chandler, and Edgar Allan Poe, and then explore how modern writers have expanded, reshaped, and diversified the genre. These contemporary voices include Gillian Flynn, Tana French, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Dorothy Koomson, Walter Mosley, Attica Locke, Oyinkan Braithwaite, Keigo Higashino, Vaseem Khan.
• To introduce students to the central craft techniques of crime writing: Structure, characterisation, suspense, and setting, through examples drawn from classic and contemporary authors.  
• To encourage students to experiment with these techniques and produce original fiction that engages readers through mystery, motive, and tension. 

Course content overview

Crime fiction is now the UK’s biggest-selling genre, encompassing detective stories, psychological thrillers, police procedurals, and cozy mysteries. Behind its popularity lies a deep craft tradition shaped by writers from Agatha Christie and Raymond Chandler to Alexander McCall Smith, Val McDermid, Lee Child, Jo Nesbø, Tana French, and Oyinkan Braithwaite, Dorothy Koomson, Walter Mosley, Attica Locke, Oyinkan Braithwaite, Keigo Higashino, Vaseem Khan.

This course explores how the writers create atmosphere, structure suspense, and reveal character. Each week introduces a key technique - plot, character, dialogue, suspense and setting, and revision through readings, discussion, and writing tasks. 

Students will complete weekly creative exercises and finish with the opportunity to complete a polished short story or a novel opening of 1,000 words. 

Target audience

This course is designed for anyone with an interest in crime and mystery fiction and a desire to understand how it works: aspiring writers at beginner or early-intermediate level who wish to learn the conventions of the genre; readers of detective, thriller, or psychological crime who want to turn inspiration into practice; students seeking an accessible introduction to creative writing within a structured academic environment. 

Welcome week (Week 0)

Purpose:

• personal introductions
• introducing the course
• useful reading
• personal objectives

Learning outcomes:

By studying this week, the students should have: 

• become familiar with navigating around the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and from VLE to links and back
• test your ability to access files and the web conferencing software and sort out any problems with the help of the Technology Enhanced Learning team
• learn how to look for, assess and reference internet resources
• contribute to a discussion forum to introduce yourself to other students and discuss why you are interested in the course and what you hope to get out of your studies

Teaching Week 1: A Crime is Born: story structure and the classic mystery

This week introduces participants to the foundations of detective and mystery fiction, tracing the genre’s evolution from Edgar Allan Poe’s analytical detective to Agatha Christie’s intricate puzzles and beyond. 

Learning Outcomes:

• understood how detective fiction emerged from Poe to Christie and how these foundations shaped later subgenres.
• identified the core conventions of the classic whodunnit - the detective, the closed circle of suspects, the red herring, and the final reveal and explored ways to modernise them for today’s readers.
• examined how setting and social context influence crime narratives across periods and cultures.
• analysed an opening scene from a classic or contemporary mystery to understand tone, pacing, and reader expectation.
• practised writing a short opening paragraph that introduces a crime, raises a central question, and establishes a voice.
• begun developing an understanding of theme and moral stakes in crime fiction - how the crime reflects wider social or ethical issues.
  Reflected on their own creative process through short online discussion posts and peer feedback.

Teaching Week 2: The Detective's Mind: character, motivation, and moral compass

This week focuses on the beating heart of every crime story: the detective and their world. Participants will explore how investigators, from Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple to modern figures like Toks Ade or Cormoran Strike, embody personal values, flaws, and cultural context that drive the investigation forward.

Learning outcomes:

• learned how to create detectives, suspects, and antagonists with believable motives
• discussed moral tension in works by McCall Smith, Child, and Flynn
• completed a character-based writing exercise showing conflict through action
• analysed character motivation - duty, guilt, revenge, ambition, or justice. Drives plot and shapes tone
• distinguished between different investigative archetypes: the professional detective, amateur sleuth, anti-hero, and reluctant observer
• explored how internal conflict and vulnerability create empathy and realism in main characters
• recognised how supporting characters- partners, witnesses, suspects. Reveal aspects of the detective through dialogue and contrast
• applied the week’s insights by writing a short character sketch or interview revealing a detective’s flaw, secret, or personal stake in a case
• contributed to an online forum discussion analysing a chosen fictional detective’s moral code and its relevance today
• begun outlining how their own detective (or main protagonist) will evolve emotionally through the course of a story

Teaching Week 3: Secrets, Lies, and Red Herrings: building suspense and misdirection

This week delves into the craft of suspense, pacing, and plot revelation. The mechanics that keep readers turning pages. Participants will examine how tension is built through what is hidden, revealed, and misunderstood, studying the art of planting clues and misdirection without cheating the reader.

Learning outcomes:

• examined how point of view shapes reader empathy and suspense
• understood how suspense functions as both emotional tension and narrative architecture
• identified key techniques of misdirection - the red herring, unreliable witness, false clue, and strategic omission
• analysed how authors use timing and revelation to manipulate reader curiosity and empathy
• recognised the role of foreshadowing, reversals, and pacing in sustaining momentum
• explored the relationship between truth and perception - how bias, secrecy, and lies drive the mystery
• learned how to balance information between the reader and the detective for satisfying tension
• examined how dialogue, sensory detail, and silence contribute to atmosphere and unease
• practised writing a short scene of discovery or confrontation that includes at least one clue and one red herring
• engaged in an online critique session to analyse how classmates used tension and surprise effectively

Teaching Week 4: Voices of Truth and Deception: dialogue and the Sound of Crime

This week explores dialogue as one of the most powerful tools in crime fiction. Good dialogue doesn’t just move the plot,  it reveals character, conceals motives, and creates rhythm and tension. Participants will learn how speech patterns, silences, and subtext can expose guilt, class, and culture, while also deepening realism and reader immersion.

Learning outcomes:

• analysed how dialogue reveals power, tension, and emotion.
• explored how setting functions as character and atmosphere.
• written a 300-word scene combining dialogue and place to heighten suspense.
• understood how dialogue drives story through conflict, revelation, and misdirection.
• recognised the difference between real speech and believable written dialogue.
• explored how voice, accent, and idiom express class, background, and cultural identity without stereotype.
• learned to balance dialogue and description so that conversation feels cinematic yet grounded.
• practised writing a short interrogation or confrontation scene, focusing on power dynamics and what remains unsaid.
• workshopped peer pieces to refine rhythm, punctuation, and natural flow of speech.
• reflected on how listening skills—hearing how people actually speak—improve narrative authenticity.
• begun revising earlier story drafts to strengthen character voice and emotional texture through dialogue.

Teaching Week 5: Shadows and Streets: setting, atmosphere, and the World of Crime

This week explores the power of place in crime fiction, how setting shapes character, tone, and theme. Whether it’s the fog-shrouded alleys of Victorian London, the sun-baked suburbs of Lagos, or the quiet menace of a country village, the setting in a crime story is never just background: it’s an active force that reveals class, corruption, and moral decay.

Learning outcomes:

• understood how setting functions as character, influencing motive, opportunity, and justice
• analysed how different authors use place and atmosphere to evoke emotion from Chandler’s Los Angeles to Braithwaite’s Lagos
• explored the interplay between public and private spaces the street, the home, the police station, the body as moral landscapes
• recognised how sensory detail (sight, sound, smell, texture) immerses readers in a crime scene
• studied how to weave weather, light, and time of day into tone and pacing
• practised writing a scene rich in atmosphere that reveals character through environment rather than exposition
• contributed to an online discussion analysing how a chosen author creates tension through setting
• begun outlining their own story world, identifying recurring locations that could support a series
• submitted a 1,000-word story or novel opening for tutor feedback

Week 6: what next?

• assessment of student learning
• assessment of student satisfaction
• encouragement of further study

This course is open to everyone, and you don’t need any previous knowledge or experience of the subject to attend.  

Our short courses are designed especially for adult learners who want to advance their personal or professional development. They are taught by tutors who are expert in both their subjects and in teaching students of all ages and experiences. 

Please note that all teaching is in English. You should have near-native command of the English language to get the maximum benefit from the course.

Each week of an online course is roughly equivalent to 2-3 hours of classroom time. On top of this, participants should expect to spend roughly 2-3 hours of self-study time, for example, reading materials, although this will vary from person to person. 

While they have a specific start and end date and will follow a weekly schedule (for example, week 1 will cover topic A, week 2 will cover topic B), our tutor-led online courses are designed to be flexible and as such would normally not require participants to be online for a specific day of the week or time of the day (although some tutors may try to schedule times where participants can be online together for web seminars, which will be recorded so that those who are unable to be online at certain times are able to access material). 

Unless otherwise stated, all course material will be posted on the VLE so that they can be accessed at any time throughout the duration of the course and interaction with your tutor and fellow participants will take place through a variety of different ways which will allow for both synchronous and asynchronous learning (using discussion boards etc).

Fees

The course fee includes access to the course on our VLE, personal feedback on your work from an expert tutor, a certificate of participation (if you complete work and take part in discussions), and access to the class resources for two years after your course finishes. 

Concessions

For more information, please see our concessions information page. 

Alison Fordham Bursary

University of Cambridge Professional and Continuing Education is proud to offer the Alison Fordham bursary, which is awarded to students who wish to study on one of our short online courses via our VLE, reducing the fee paid by 50%. The bursary is limited to a single award for each set of online courses. 

Application criteria:

• applicants should set out their personal learning motivations since priority will be given to those who are returning to learning after an extended break, or have not previously engaged with fully online learning, or are seeking to use the online short course as a bridge towards undergraduate award-bearing study
• applicants who can demonstrate financial need 

For more information, please see our bursaries information page. 

A certificate of participation and a digital credential will be awarded to those who contribute constructively to weekly discussions, exercises and assignments for the duration of the course.