Nothing But The Truth: Why did I write this book?

'Why do you write?'
          It's a question that has existed as long as the act of writing has, I'm sure. Readers, and indeed, other writers, are always interested in where ideas come from. So I thought it might be worth setting down, somewhere, the reason why I wanted to write Nothing But The Truth specifically. 
          To start with, it may help to know a little more about the book. Nothing But The Truth is a crime fiction novel, but written in the style of true crime. The opening parts of the book are written in a journalistic style, documenting the crimes, the investigation, and the eventual suspect (who, we learn, was apprehended for the crimes). The part that follows is a much more intimate narrative from the perspective of the author of the opening parts of the book (yes, it certainly got a little confusing keeping track of who was the real author as I writing this). In this final part, Ann Stackhouse, meets with and interviews Maxine, a female serial killer serving a life sentence for having killed several men. Ann believes that Maxine - or rather, Maxine's story - will be her ticket to author fame. Maxine believes that Ann will be her ticket to something bigger, and much more dangerous...
          So, why this story? Well, I am obsessed with true crime culture. That 'culture' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Of course, I am broadly interested in true crime as a genre. I spend my academic life researching and writing about it, in one way or another. So it was inevitable that this would seep into my creative working at some point, too; starting with A True Crime, into A Guilty Woman, and now again into this. However, I'm also interested in our cultural fixation on the genre. Everyone you speak to these days seems to have some appetite for true crime; even if they only listen to the occasional podcast, or watch the new hype documentary.
          My concern with true crime, though, is that it isn't always true. Over the years, many documentarians and authors have been discredited for their blatant disregard of the facts of a case or a criminal. This factualisation/fictionalisation means that some true crime works simply aren't what they claim to be. And that's where this book came from; an idle wondering one day, about the possibility of inverting this. If true crime can step into fiction, why can't fiction step into true crime?
So I tasked myself with writing a book that was entirely fictional, but which readers might read as though it were fact. It's a literary trick of the eye, where the line between fiction and non-fiction collapses for the sake of a good story - or at least, what I hope is a good story - with true crime, and the affect(s) it can have on us, at its core. It was a complicated and confusing book to work on at times. But I can genuinely say that I had great fun writing in a style that felt totally new to me. 
          I plan to write about Nothing But The Truth a little more, in this mini-series of blog posts, so there's definitely more to learn about the book in coming weeks. That being said, if I've managed to catch your intrigue with this first post, maybe you'll stick around to see the insights offered by the next one (and if I'm really lucky, you might even pre-order Nothing But The Truth in time for publication day). 
          ​Thanks for your time, readers, and let's catch up soon. Cx 

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