Dumb Criminals and Smart Storytelling

One of the best ways to be a good writer?  Read good writers. And we’re not just talking Shakespeare.

Here’s crime writer Michael Wilson of The New York Times on the theft of an iPhone:

This particular Apple was not just picked, it was picked twice, a white blur as it flew from hand to hand to hand on the same afternoon. And one of those hands seemingly belonged to that timeless character from countless police stories: the dumb criminal.

It was Nov. 23, a little before 4 p.m., and a 16-year-old girl was walking through Prospect Park near her home, holding her iPhone. It was an iPhone 4S — not even one of the newest ones. Her parents had warned her about the phone’s distracting her in public. The ears through which those words had traveled, in one and out the other, were stuffed with white ear buds blasting the hip-hop song “Definition.”

Read the full Times story HERE.