True crime books should be suspenseful. It's easier to create complete suspense in fiction, but it's still possible to hold back the denouement of a real case for a few hundred pages. It's always a temptation for new writers to give the whole thing away in the first chapter, leaning very heavily on verbatim police files. If you do that, your book will sound stilted and will go downhill rather than building tension.
Ann Rule in Writing Mysteries, Sue Grafton, editor, 2002
Ann Rule in Writing Mysteries, Sue Grafton, editor, 2002
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