History Main / WritingAboutYourCrime

* The ''Series/{{Castle}}'' episode "[[Recap/CastleS1E8Ghosts Ghosts]]" has the team discover that the BodyOfTheWeek, a fugitive ecoterrorist, was having a TrueCrime author ghost-write a tell-all about the bombing of an oil tanker in the Seventies. They theorize she was trying to manipulate public opinion ahead of surrendering herself for trial.

* The ''Series/DiagnosisMurder'' episode "Write, She Murdered" has mystery author Kay Ludlow murder her agent in order to break her WritersBlock and complete her latest novel. She intends to have Mark "solve" the crime for inspiration.

[[folder: Film - Animated]]

[[folder: Film - Live Action]]

* Argentinian film ''Arrebato'' has writer and professor Luis Vega accused of a murder after publishing a book where a real life crime is described meticulously.

* In the horror film ''Film/CabinByTheLake'', a reclusive writer named Stanley Caldwell writes a script for a {{serial killer}} movie after he's started kidnapping and murdering women himself by drowning them in a lake.

[[folder: Literature]]
* Inverted in Creator/{{Stephen King}}'s ''Literature/SecretWindowSecretGarden''. A man accuses the protagonist of plagiarizing a story about a double murder and the subsequent disposing of the bodies. [[spoiler:He ends up realizing the other man doesn't exist and attempting to commit the crimes and hiding the bodies exactly as described in the story. He does it in the movie version.]]

* In the early ''Literature/NeroWolfe'' story "The League of Frightened Men", Nero Wolfe's interest in the matter begins when Archie, reading news items at random to annoy Wolfe, mentions an author defending one of his books from obscenity charges (which the publisher placed on hold until they're resolved). The writer's defense was that he had committed a murder and written the book as his confession with any obscenity incidental (which got him a contempt of court charge when he insisted the judge had no right to dismiss this as a joke). Wolfe mentions to Archie that during the latter's recent and extended absence, he had met with and turned down a potential client who felt his associates were being murdered and his own life was in danger from a man he refused to name. Wolfe notes that the man he met had repeatedly used phrases from this author's last known work, and in fact had almost accidentally spoken the author's first name at one point, concluding the coincidence is worth following up on. Before doing so, Wolfe then receives a phone call from the daughter of the now-missing man...
** [[spoiler: Subverted in the end by Wolfe's conclusion from the author's writing he has a raging InferioritySuperiorityComplex and simply can't resist any opportunity to appear as a cunning and deranged killer. That several other involved parties for varying reasons are either encouraging this appearance or attempting to assist the author in getting away with his mostly nonexistent crimes help to confuse the issue.]]

* The ''Series/{{Castle}}'' episode "[[Recap/CastleS1E8Ghosts Ghosts]]" has the team discover that the BodyOfTheWeek, a fugitive ecoterrorist, was having a TrueCrime author ghost-write a tell-all about the bombing of an oil tanker in the Seventies. They theorize she was trying to manipulate public opinion ahead of surrendering herself for trial.
** "[[Recap/CastleS2E18Boom Boom!]]" reveals that the true culprit of the case is writing about his crimes as fiction, with his latest target being Kate Beckett, who he sees as Castle's latest detective character Nikki Heat. Agent Jordan Shaw posits that this is a symptom of his psychosis; writing about his crimes is like taking a hunting trophy, immortalizing his act, and distancing himself from it by turning it into fiction.

* A Series/KeyAndPeele sketch has a rapper being interrogated by a cop about committing murder and [[ImplausibleDeniability denying he did it despite writing an entire song that talks about how he committed the murder]].
* The Series/DiagnosisMurder episode "Write, She Murdered" has mystery author Kay Ludlow murder her agent in order to break her WritersBlock and complete her latest novel. She intends to have Mark "solve" the crime for inspiration.

* This trope is the basis of the film ''Film/BasicInstinct''. When a former rock star is found murdered, suspicion quickly falls on his wild living author girlfriend, Catherine Tramell, because he appears to have been killed [[OutWithABang in the middle of having sex with someone]] and because years earlier she wrote a crime novel that included a former rock star being killed in exactly the same way. Tramell is quick to point out that it would be foolish to kill someone the same way she wrote about in her book, especially someone connected to her, since it would automatically make her the prime suspect, but main character Detective Nick Curran thinks that she's exactly the sort that would get a kick out of trying to outsmart the police despite that sort of heavy suspicion. We don't know whether she's guilty or not until the very last scene of the movie. [[spoiler:[[TheUnreveal But even then while it's strongly implied that she's the killer, it isn't explicitly confirmed.]]]]

* Played with in ''Film/TheNumber23''. The protagonist is obsessed with a book which he feels relates to his own life, which is on the surface a novel about a suicide girl and a detective. Turns out [[spoiler:he wrote the book while insane and later forgot about it; the female character is a twisted version of a girl he murdered in real life. The "novel" also encodes the place where he left the corpse.]]

* ''Literature/TheOverstory'': Douglas writes a long journal of sorts of everything that happened when he was an environmental activist (though he refers to his allies by their code names), including their arson and [[spoiler: accidentally getting Olivia killed.]] Though he never intends to publish it, it gets discovered by a visitor to his house, leading the police to quickly figure out that he is describing real life events and try to determine just what the real names of the other three people involved were.
* In the early ''Literature/NeroWolfe'' story "The League of Frightened Men", Nero Wolfe's interest in the matter begins when Archie, reading news items at random to annoy Wolfe, mentions an author defending one of his books from obscenity charges (which the publisher placed on hold until the're resolved). The writer's defense was that he had committed a murder and written the book as his confession with any obscenity incidental (which got him a contempt of court charge when he insisted the judge had no right to dismiss this as a joke). Wolfe mentions to Archie that during the latter's recent and extended absence he had met with and turned down a potential client who felt his associates were being murdered and his own life was in danger from a man he refused to name. Wolfe notes that the man he met had repeatedly used phrases from this author's last known work, and in fact had almost accidentally spoken the author's first name at one point, concluding the coincidence is worth following up on. Before doing so, Wolfe then receives a phone call from the daughter of the now-missing man...

** "[[Recap/CastleS2E18Boom Boom!]]" reveals that the true culprit of the case is writing about his crimes as fiction, with his latest target being Kate Beckett, who he sees as Castle's latest detective character Nikki Heat. Agent Jordan Shaw posits that this is a symptom of his psychosis; writing about his crimes is like taking a hunting trophy, immortalizing his act and distancing himself from it by turning it into fiction.
* Parodied in an episode of ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'' when a pair of uptight actors decide to do a readthrough of their new play while waiting for their host, Prince George, to return--"The Bloody Murder of the Foul Prince Romero and his Enormous-Bosomed Wife". Baldrick quickly draws the wrong conclusion. Blackadder knows that it's coincidence but has them arrested and sent to the gallows anyway because [[DisproportionateRetribution they kept insulting him earlier]].
--> '''Actors:''' But it was a play, sir, a play! Look, all the words you see written down on that page!\\

* Subverted (maybe) in the case of Creator/OJSimpson, who published ''If I Did It'' as a "purely hypothetical" account of the crime by which he was tried and acquitted. The publisher considered that the book was "his confession".

* John Leonard Orr was a firefighter who was secretly an arsonist. Before he was caught, he wrote a novel called ''Points of Origin'' about a firefighter who is secretly an arsonist.
* Romance author Nancy Crampton Brophy once wrote an online essay entitled "How To Murder Your Husband", and was later arrested and convicted for... [[https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/-murder-husband-author-sentenced-life-prison-murdering-husband-rcna33339 yep, you guessed it]]. [[note]]The essay was actually written a few years before the crime, and was barred from being introduced as evidence to the jury, but headline writers could not resist pointing out the parallel.[[/note]]

'''Blackadder:''' Textbook stuff again, you see. The criminals' vanity always makes
them make one tiny, but fatal, mistake. Theirs was to have their entire conspiracy printed and published in play manuscript!

* Subverted (maybe) in the case of OJ Simpson, who published ''If I Did It'' as a "purely hypothetical" account of the crime by which he was tried and acquitted. The publisher considered that the book was "his confession".

'''Blackadder:''' Textbook stuff again. Theirs was to have their entire conspiracy printed and published in play manuscript!

* ''Literature/TheMurderOfRogerAckroyd'': Dr. Sheppard writes an account of the murder and Poirot's subsequent investigation, leaving out the fact that he himself is the murderer. He is careful to never actually lie in his manuscript, but to just leave out pertinent facts in order to mislead the reader.

* The 2016 film ''True Crimes'' starring Jim Carrey and Marton Csokas is based on the real-life Krystian Bala case (see below).

* This is TruthInTelevision for social media. There have been many cases where a person or a group of people have committed a crime and wrote about it on social media, even going so far as to show a video of themselves in the act. Needless to say, [[WhatAnIdiot they usually get caught]].

* Played with in ''Film/TheNumber23''. The protagonist is obsessed with a book which he feels related to his own life, which is on the surface a novel about a suicide girl and a detective. Turns out [[spoiler:he wrote the book while insane and later forgot about it; the female character is a twisted version of a girl he murdered in real life. The "novel" also encodes the place where he left the corpse.]]

* This trope is the basis of the film ''Film/BasicInstinct''. Writer Catherine Trammell is suspect of having murdered a former rock star in the same way a character in a crime novel penned by her (also a former rock star) was killed. We don't know whether she's guilty or not until the very last scene of the movie. [[spoiler:[[TheUnreveal But do we even then?]]]]

[[folder: Film Animated]]

[[folder: Film]]

* Inverted in ''Film/SecretWindow''. A man accuses the protagonist of plagiarizing a story about a double murder and the subsequent disposing of the bodies. [[spoiler:He ends up realizing the other man doesn't exist and committing the crimes and hiding the bodies exactly as described in the story.]] See under Literature the difference between the movie and the original book.