Neil Root’s Covering Darkness: Writing True Crime
In the last blog post, we looked at some of the reasons why so many of us turn to a crime novel as our choice of book. Crime novels draw the reader in, amongst other reasons, by a compelling narrative – we simply can’t wait to see how the story ends. By definition, crime novels are works of fiction, drawing upon aspects of real life, perhaps, but claiming no basis in fact. They are works of the imagination. What happens if the story we are reading is based on true crime events? Would we be less likely to choose a book based on true crime?
Seemingly not, is the answer to that question. In Neil Root’s Covering Darkness: Writing True Crime (2019), he believes how true crime stories, when well written, can in fact ‘achieve real and lasting resonance and sometimes a deep connection with their readerships’ (p. 14). However, in his brief insightful survey of the roots of modern crime fiction he points out that True Crime was, in its earlier manifestations, widely dismissed by critics as unworthy of attention. Root goes as far as to state that ‘true crime [is] considered by some as the embarrassing relative of the non-fiction family.’ (p. 13). As Neil Root points out, books such as In Cold Blood by Trueman Capote (1966) and The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer (1979) have made True Crime more attractive as a genre. Since these books were written there has been a phenomenal rise in both the popularity and critical praise for True Crime books.
However, Root’s book does not just focus on True Crime books which have become a firm success story – such as Dominick Dunne’s Justice: Crimes, Trials and Punishments (2001) – but also usefully highlights the formula utilised by writers who fruitfully put pen to paper. In an acronym which Root coins as ‘SPINS’ in the third part of the book, he names the five ingredients as ‘Story’, ‘Protagonists’, ‘Investigation’, ‘Narrative’ and ‘Sensitivities’. Root notes how he has developed this method from reading widely throughout the genre.
Hopefully this blog post has inspired you to go ahead and pick up a copy of Covering Darkness: Writing True Crime in order to discover more about the fascinating world of True Crime – and if you are indeed up for a challenge, how to write it!
Neil Root’s Covering Darkness: Writing True Crime is available here.