Writing a Nonfiction Crime Story in a Literary Style
Rigorous research, incorporating authentic dialogue, and adding details from true-to-life moments, author Deborah Larkin shares how she wrote a nonfiction crime story in a literary style.
When I set out to write my debut book, A Lovely Girl: The Tragedy of Olga Duncan and the Trial of One of California’s Most Notorious Killers, I wondered whether I could write a nonfiction book that would draw my readers into the mood, emotion, and ambience of the 1950s world that still haunted me. I wanted to write what actually happened, but I didn’t want to write a journalistic account.
The bizarre murder plot orchestrated by Olga Duncan’s mother-in-law to “get rid” of the young pregnant nurse had troubled me since childhood. The story began in 1958 when I was an impressionable 10-year-old, obsessed with the disappearance and murder of the young woman in my hometown. My father, a reporter for the local newspaper, covered the story from the time of Olga Duncan’s disappearance through the trials and execution of her killers. I read every word of his newspaper articles, and I scrutinized the front-page photos of all the trial participants. However, it was his nightly accounts around our dining room table that brought the bumbling, brutal characters involved in Olga’s murder to life. Daddy had no filter. His tales made me feel like I was right there in the courtroom with him, and I wanted my readers to experience the story in the same way.
But how could I integrate my account of this shocking murder with a whimsical, coming-of-age memoir in a true crime book? As I began to write, I constantly reminded myself of the unequivocal requirement to stay grounded in fact while drawing my readers into the nuanced contrast between innocence and evil in the 1950s. I embarked on the interviews and research with scrupulous attention to and reflection on every last detail. I dug deep into the trial transcripts to retell the story with emotional impact so I could provide insight into these true events about real people. I believed that scenes written in the style of creative nonfiction could resonate with the emotional complexity of a novel. I wanted the readers to not only read the words on the page, but to experience the story—to feel it, to see it, to remember it, to imagine it. I wanted them to travel back with me to that more unsophisticated era of 1950s family life and immerse themselves in the shocking reality that this brutal murder brought to my small California hometown.
Although my father passed away in 1987, I still had many of his files when I began my first attempts to write the story in 2010, including notes from our discussions about his memories and opinions of Olga’s bizarre, brutal, and bumbling killers. My own recollections of my over-the-top obsession and anxieties about the horrible murder, along with my father’s weekly newspaper columns that included humorous tales about our quirky family life, added context to the time and place of the story.
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He’d saved hundreds of these old newspaper articles and weekly columns in a big black trash bag in the corner of his home office. After he died, my mother gave them all to me. From 60 years ago, I heard the distinctive cadence of his voice in the words I read from the yellowed clippings telling me about the tragedy of Olga Duncan.
However, it was these 5,000 pages of transcripts of the trial of the accused killer, the mother-in-law from hell, that transported me back to the 1950s and inside the majestic, marble-floored, white-pillared Ventura County Courthouse. I time-traveled into the mahogany-paneled courtroom and imagined myself sitting with the residents from all over the county who had been lucky enough to find a seat in the packed gallery. At 10:00 am on February 24, 1959, when the judge called court to order, I visualized it all in black and white, the men in their single-breasted suits, bowties, and fedora hats. I listened to the pointed questions from the confident district attorney and the smooth-talking insinuations of the defendant’s renowned LA criminal defense attorney. Their voices came to life across the 60-year time gap—the nervous stutters of the prosecution witnesses, the mutterings of dozens of reporters in the hastily expanded press section, and especially the startling, loud, and frequent outbursts of the defendant.
My research included reading every article about the investigation and the trial in four newspapers. In 1959, it was customary for reporters to include detailed descriptions of the trial witnesses, including hair styles, attire, and mannerisms. The district attorney and many witnesses and investigators talked to reporters throughout the investigation, offering their own thoughts about the case. Both the DA and the defense attorney granted interviews before and after court sessions. Reporters from all over the country were on hand to catch the drama of the outbursts of the accused murderer over witness testimony, or her hatred of the DA. The first-hand accounts of the journalists allowed me to fill in the gaps in the official trial record. And newspaper photographs taken throughout the proceedings helped me to paint a word picture of the courtroom, the trial participants, the reporters, and the ordinary citizens who crowded the courthouse corridors and watched the spectacle from the gallery.
All of this exhaustive research translated to an authentic retelling of true events through a literary style that shaped the story into a creative narrative. I became immersed in the lives of the people who populated this story. I reconstructed scenes with authentic descriptions, dialogue, inciting moments, rising action, and a climax that reflected what I believed was in the hearts and minds of the people who lived it.
On the last day of my research in my hometown, I completed the work for the epilogue of my book. After a long session of reviewing the microfiche newspaper files at the County Library, I experienced an inexplicable visual phenomenon. When I stepped through the library door and onto the sidewalk at closing time, exhausted yet elated, the setting sun had painted the sky with a brilliant orange glow that encompassed all of Main Street. This sky show was a dramatic exclamation point to the end of my years of work.
As I looked around the Main Street I remembered so well from my childhood, my eyes began to play tricks, maybe because I was so tired from staring at the microfiche film all day. My vision blurred and toggled back and forth between the orange glowing modern street with a bookstore on the corner to a faded black and white 1950s street scene with the old Jack Rose women’s department store in the bookstore’s place. Cars on the street and the other storefronts shimmered and shape-shifted as well; back and forth from technicolor to monochrome. I laughed. Sometimes you just have to embrace a little craziness. But then I burst into tears, releasing the tension of a decade of reliving the past.
Creative nonfiction is rooted in facts, but at its finest it can be as evocative as the best fiction. It’s sometimes weird and funny and cruel and brutal and loving and too unbelievable to be fiction. And it can break your heart all over again. Just the way I remember.
Deborah Larkin holds a bachelor’s degree in American History and Literature from the University of California at Davis, and she studied creative writing at the University of California at San Diego. She has a master’s degree in the Education of Exceptional Children from San Francisco State University. She has spent more than three decades teaching students with special needs before becoming an elementary school principal.
