How to Write Investigation: A Guide to Doing The Casefic And Maybe Only Suffering a Little

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Title:	How to Write Investigation: A Guide to Doing The Casefic And Maybe Only Suffering a Little
Creator:	TKodami
Date(s):	October 2018
Medium:	online
Fandom:	DCEU/DCU
Topic:	Case Fic, writing mysteries
External Links:	Part One Archived version, Part Two Archived version
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How to Write Investigation: A Guide to Doing The Casefic And Maybe Only Suffering a Little is a two-part, 35,000-word how-to guide for writing casefic by TKodami. Originally created for participants of the Superbat Big Bang, it was published to Google Docs in 2018 to be made available to anyone, from any fandom, who might wish to write a casefic.

Due to the context in which it was created, TKodami refers to Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne throughout, but a note at the beginning of the published version of the guide suggests that it should be relevant to people from any fandom:

I would like to point out that if you take away the billion dollars and the kryptonian superpowers, you do still have two investigative archetypes: the vigilante detective & the reporter who’s working inside (and outside) the system. Hopefully you will find something in this guide that is helpful to you as you embark on writing a casefic!

One section of the guide, "The Guest Star Method", references agelade's 2014 Supernatural casefic guide, "A DIY Guide to Writing a Four Chapter Casefic".

Table of Contents

The guide begins with an extensive table of contents:

• Introduction
  • A note about terms
• Part One: The Four Questions
  • The First Question: how important is the case?
    • Depending on what you want to do with your fic...
  • The Second Question: Who is your detective?
    • Clark Kent, Investigative Reporter
    • Bruce Wayne, Detective
    • A Quick Work on Investigation Styles
    • Popular Types of Detectives (and their reasoning)
  • The Third Question: is your mystery solvable (by your reader)?
    • The Clueless Mystery
    • The Updated Rules of Fair Play
    • What are the rules of writing a Fair Play mystery?
    • How do I know which kind of mystery I've written?
  • The Fourth Question: is your case easy to solve (to your reader)?
    • I'm interested in writing a case with no guesswork.
    • I'm interested in writing a case with some guesswork.
    • I'm interested in writing a mystery, but I don't care how difficult it is.
    • I'm writing a pastiche of another canon's mystery.
    • I'm interested in writing an honest-to-god whodunnit.

• Part Two: Structure and Writing
  • The Mystery Writer's Toolkit
    • Clues
    • Evidence
    • Red Herrings
  • Chekov's Gun and You: Reader Expectations
  • How to Structure an Investigation
    • When you're writing a background investigation
      • Let's look at an example. [ Background investigation drawn directly from canon. ]
      • Let's look at another example [ Background investigation of canon-adjacent ]
      • One last example. [ Clueless Mystery of canon-adjacent material ]
      • Closing Words about Background Investigation
    • When you're writing a mystery borrowed from another canon
      • When you're writing a casefic
      • The Rising Action Method
      • The Guest Star Method
  • General Tips for Writing Investigations
  • The Write-Y Part: Scenes versus Summary
  • Help! How do you write a detective looking over a crime scene.
  • Getting Some Help: When it is time to bring in a beta
  • Closing Words