A craft-driven writing exercise with context explaining what the exercise trains and which authors used the technique
An original reflection connecting the exercise to a real writing principle you can use today
A quote from a literary master to ground your morning in craft, not hustle
Writing real cases
The victim is a person before they're a case file, and forgetting that ruins everything.
Ann Rule wrote about Ted Bundy in The Stranger Beside Me, but the book works because she gives equal weight to the women he killed. She researched their lives, their families, what they wanted to become. When the victim exists only as a body, the writing becomes voyeuristic. When the victim exists as a person who was going to do something tomorrow, the crime gains its real weight.
The research will take longer than the writing, and that's correct.
Michelle McNamara spent years building a database of evidence on the Golden State Killer before she wrote a word of I'll Be Gone in the Dark. Truman Capote lived in Holcomb, Kansas for six years while reporting In Cold Blood. True crime that feels thin almost always comes from writers who started writing too soon. The research isn't preparation for the book. In most cases, it is the book.
Narrative structure and factual accuracy pull in opposite directions, and you have to hold both.
Real cases don't unfold in three acts. Witnesses contradict each other. Evidence arrives out of order. The writer's job is to find the structure that serves the truth without distorting it. Erik Larson solved this in The Devil in the White City by running two timelines in parallel: the architect and the serial killer, both operating in the same city at the same time. The structure creates suspense without inventing anything.
The writer's relationship to the case is part of the story, whether you acknowledge it or not.
Capote became emotionally entangled with the killers in In Cold Blood, and critics have debated the ethics of that relationship ever since. McNamara's obsession with the Golden State Killer shaped the book's voice and urgency. You can write in third person and maintain distance, but the reader will still sense why you chose this particular case. The honest move is to be clear about your angle rather than pretending you don't have one.
The families of victims will read what you write, and that should change how you write it.
This is the constraint that separates true crime from crime fiction. A novelist can do anything to a character. A true crime writer is writing about someone's child, sibling, or parent. Rule corresponded with victims' families for years. The awareness that real people will read your account of the worst thing that ever happened to them should sit on your shoulder during every sentence. It doesn't mean you soften the truth. It means you earn the right to tell it.
These patterns show up in true crime writing that lasts beyond the news cycle.
For a closer look, start with how to write true crime.
On true crime
Craft
How to Write True Crime (When the Story Is Already Real)
Capote, McNamara, and Grann on writing real cases. →
Ideas
True Crime Research: Ideas That Changed How I Think About Real Cases
Larson, Rule, and Malcolm on the work behind the story. →
Observations
Things I've Noticed About True Crime Writing
What separates the cases that stay with readers. →
A sample from your daily email
June 14th
"I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil."
- Truman Capote
We associate writing with creation, with putting words on the page. But Capote understood that the real work often happens when you take them away. The scissors are a metaphor for revision, for the courage to cut.
Your first draft won't be your final version. It's supposed to be messy, overfull, reaching for things it can't quite hold. The distilling comes later. You cut until what's left is only what needs to be there.
The page may be intimidating, but you're not playing alone. Every writer who came before you faced this same blank space and started with a single word.
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Nonfiction that uses literary techniques to tell stories about real crimes. The genre spans books, podcasts, documentaries, and longform journalism. Truman Capote's In Cold Blood (1966) is considered the foundational work. The facts are real, but the craft borrows from fiction: scene construction, character development, pacing, and narrative structure. Good true crime writing treats victims as people, not plot devices.
Court records, police reports, trial transcripts, newspaper archives, and interviews with people involved in the case. Michelle McNamara spent years building a database of evidence for I'll Be Gone in the Dark before the Golden State Killer was identified. Erik Larson works primarily from primary sources and archives, building his narratives from documents rather than interviews. The research phase for a true crime book typically takes longer than the writing.
Yes, and some of the best true crime does exactly that. McNamara's I'll Be Gone in the Dark was published before the Golden State Killer was caught. Sarah Koenig's Serial podcast reinvestigated a case with no clear resolution. Unsolved cases create natural narrative tension because the reader is genuinely uncertain about the outcome. The key is being honest about what you don't know rather than inventing a false resolution.
The central ethical question is whether you're exploiting real suffering for entertainment. The best true crime writers grapple with this openly. Capote was criticized for his relationship with the killers in In Cold Blood. Ann Rule struggled with writing about Ted Bundy, who she'd known personally. The ethical floor: victims are people with full lives, not characters who exist only to be harmed. Their families will likely read what you write.