Eight Reasons Why You Shouldn't Marry a Crime Writer 

When I told my wife I was working on a fun post tentatively titled “Five Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Marry a Crime Writer,” she suggested I add a couple of zeros. I told her five hundred reasons was too long for a blog post. She said in that case turn it into a book. Long story short, I compromised—kept it as a blog post but bumped the number up from five to eight. So now everyone’s happy. Except my wife.

And with that, I present to you “Eight Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Marry a Crime Writer.” (There are MANY more. Just ask you-know-who.)

1) For an author of crime fiction, “Till death do us part” is more of a temptation than a vow. I’m certainly not suggesting every crime fiction author is a potential killer who values human life less than normal people do. Just those authors with three or more novels under their belt. True, there’s no research that shows any kind of connection between writing books featuring murder and committing actual murder; however that may very well be because there’s a gang of crime writers going around offing anyone trying to conduct such research. So, just to be safe, don’t marry a crime novelist, or, if you must marry one, at least have the good sense to pick one who writes about solving homicide cases. Or who writes cozy mysteries. 

2) They’ll make their plan to murder you look like mere book research. If and when (mostly when) you start to suspect your crime-writing spouse is devising the perfect way to be single again, good luck getting the authorities to take your suspicions and fears seriously. When you show the cops your spouse’s browsing history and ask them how they can just sit there and NOT take precautionary actions based on all the searches for “best murder methods” and “ways to dispose of a body,” the cops are just going to turn things around on you and say, “You obviously haven’t read any of your spouse’s novels”—a fact that may even be used to support a ruling of “justifiable homicide” in the event you ever do turn up not alive. 

3) They’ll constantly complain there aren’t enough shocking twists in your relationship. People who spend the lion’s share of their time coming up with stunning plot twists and jaw-dropping endings for their stories start to expect the same level of excitement in their real-life relationships. And sure, you may be able to satisfy them for a while with a surprise party here or a last-minute trip to Vegas there, but it’s only a matter of time before your spouse will start to bitch and moan about how you never shock them with news that you're actually your own twin sibling. Or that you're living a dangerous double-life. Or that you've actually been dead this whole time.     

4) They’ll often call out someone else’s name in bed—and that someone else will likely be a serial killer or a corrupt cop. Now some of you might be thinking, "That actually sounds kind of hot—a sort of accidental role-playing game that could spice up things in the bedroom." But what you need to realize is that the wrong-name thing usually won’t happen during sex. Your partner will just be lying there snoring and then all of a sudden pop up and shout, “Detective Jones!”  

5) You’ll be eleven times more likely to die while on a cruise or a train. Due to the plethora of 20^th century crime novels set on a luxury cruise liner or passenger train, every author of crime fiction has vacation-homicide wired into their writerly DNA. Even if they’ve never read a single one of the aforementioned types of books, just being a writer of the genre makes them eleven times more likely to consider tossing you overboard or poisoning you in a dining car. It’s one of the main reasons why, when my wife and I take vacations, she insists we travel by plane and sit in separate seats. Or take separate vacations.

6) They’ll make you watch crime-related movies and TV series—and ruin every single one of them for you. Authors of crime fiction will insult your affinity for rom-coms and/or epic fantasies and/or soft sci-fi, then force you to watch The Usual Suspects and Breaking Bad over and over while pointing out any and all flaws in the plot. You’ll be left gritting your teeth and shaking your head—wondering how the hell the love of your life is able to spot the tiniest incongruity or embellishment in a hit show or film yet miss multiple plot holes in every short story or novel they themselves have ever written. And if you ever dare try to question your spouse’s skepticism regarding Keyser Söze’s mythical back-story or Walter White’s meteoric rise to drug-kingpin status—or even hint at the shortcomings of one of your spouse’s own crime thrillers—be sure you aren’t on a cruise ship or a train at the time.

7) They’ll kill to protect their writing time. Granted, this is true of any writer, but with a crime fiction writer, things can get very Jack-Nicholson-in-The Shining very quickly. For instance, I keep a gun and a chainsaw next to my writing desk in case of interruptions by family members. Sure, both “weapons” are just props, but my wife and daughter don’t know that and aren’t likely to find out—because they, like most people, don’t read my blog.

8) You’ll get nothing in the divorce. I say this not because authors of crime fiction are known to secure shrewd legal counsel; rather because most authors of crime fiction (or any fiction, really) earn less than an unemployed part-time dishwasher. Therefore, unless you marry a mega-bestselling author like James Patterson or Gillian Flynn—or are dating a writer who is also an anesthesiologist or works four jobs to support their writing habit—don’t expect to get much of anything when you divorce them for all the reasons above … assuming you survive long enough to even serve them the divorce papers.  

DISCLAIMER: Just because all the facts and statistics in this post are 112% accurate doesn’t mean my wife—or the spouse of any other crime fiction writer—is in any real mortal danger. If anything, it’s we writers who should be worried. After all, most of us spend so much time researching and writing about criminal acts, we don’t exercise enough to be able to cause any real physical harm to anyone other than ourselves. That, coupled with the fact that most of us don’t give our supportive spouses the love and attention they deserve, puts our lives in grave peril on a daily basis.