There are lots of story writing resources out there online that you can access to get ideas for writing your detective fiction. Of course, you will probably want to interview some of your local police officers for information on police procedures and even some of their most unusual cases they have ever come across. They do have their own cold case department and should even have very old cases that they may let you review in your research. Every city, county, state and federal government has their own rules for access to old cases and quite a few of their cold cases can be reviewed, in part, online at http://www.ncstl.org/education/Cold%20Case%20General%20Resources
Doing research is a big part of writing detective fiction and it would be nice if you didn’t have to go into dusty storage areas and browse those old case files yourself. Reading old handwritten notes from police officers and detectives who worked the cases can be a strain on your eyes as well. But if you want the nitty, gritty details of a cold case it is probably a good idea to read those notes in their original form. You can get a feel for how it was investigated, the language of the times, etc.
Another great place to do research of cold cases or even old murder cases is in the newspapers. You can access a lot of the information for free at local libraries and some online newspapers as well. Try some of these sources on this website: http://www.freenewspaperarchives.us/free-national-newspapers-collections/ The National Library of Congress has lots of online information for researchers. If you have a local library card you can access quite a few online databases through their websites for FREE. You can, of course, pay for online research sources if you like but us new writers have to start small with our limited budgets.
Character Creation
Behind the Name: A vast database of names from around the world, with information on their origins, meanings, and cultural associations. https://www.behindthename.com/
Springhole: A website with a variety of resources for creating well-rounded characters, including personality traits, motivations, and backstory ideas. https://springhole.net/index.html
Dabble: Free Articles for Writers and Software Service for authors – https://www.dabblewriter.com/articles/character-template
Worldbuilding
Worldbuilding Stack Exchange: A Q&A forum dedicated to worldbuilding, where you can ask and answer questions about creating realistic and believable fictional worlds. – https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/
Fantasy Name Generators: A collection of fantasy name generators for characters, places, and creatures, with a variety of different styles and cultures to choose from. – https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/
Fantasy World Builder: Database Random Generator for Worlds and all the elements in the sci-fi / fantasy realms. https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/world/
Historical Research Sites
The National Archives: The official archive of the United States government, with a vast collection of historical documents, photographs, and maps. – https://www.archives.gov/dc
The Gutenberg Project: A collection of over 60,000 free ebooks, including many historical texts and primary sources. – https://www.gutenberg.org
Google Scholar: A search engine for scholarly literature, including historical journals, articles, and books. – https://scholar.google.com/
We hope these resources help you in your writing adventures. Till next time. If you have any questions about these resources or suggestions for other tools online please comment below or use our CONTACt US form.
