My first published novel was, well, not my first published novel. I’ve been working as a ghostwriter behind the scenes for a decade, and have plenty of experience in a range of genres. Romances set in high schools, Regency-era tropes, supernatural tales of communities with superpowers – you name it. But when I wanted to publish something under my own name, I went with true crime. That’s when I really started to learn a lot about myself, thanks to writing…
Note: This is a guest post by: Rhiannon D’Averc, she is a crime writer based in the UK. You can follow her on Twitter and see the latest news and updates on her website. She is also the Chief Editor of London Runway, an indie fashion publication in the UK’s capital.
The result was Boy Under Water – Dennis Nilsen: The True Story of a Serial Killer. It’s based on a real series of murders, as the name suggests. While I might have had plenty of experience in other genres, true crime taught me some home truths that I might not otherwise have learned. Here’s what I picked up.
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Why I write true crime
It might seem silly, but do we ever really question why we write?
Most of us just like telling stories (or harbor dreams of being the next multi-millionaire breakout author). But why do we tell the particular stories that we do?
If you explain to someone that you’re writing a romance novel, their questions will usually center around why you’ve chosen to write at all. But when I told people about the true crime novel that was burning a hole on my hard drive, they usually wanted to know why I would choose such a gruesome topic.
That led to some soul-searching.
When I peeled it all back, I realized that my lifelong fascination with true crime probably had a lot to do with the reason why I watch horror movies. I watch them, even though I often hate them, because I want to know. How do you get rid of ghosts that want to do you harm? How do you stop a cursed video from killing you? What kind of red flags should you avoid if you don’t want to get dismembered by hillbillies in a remote wooded area? (You need to know this!)
Knowing is magic. Knowing keeps you safe. If I ever did, say, end up in a situation where a ghost from inside a haunted videotape was trying to track me down, I now know just to show the video to someone else. That’s all it takes to stay safe.
Knowing about serial killers, murderers, and conmen is a similar concept. The more I learn and write about them, the less likely it is that I’ll end up a victim of one. Even though I have potentially raised the risk by becoming a true crime writer, if cinema has taught me anything!
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What I might be capable of
Most of us consider ourselves to be normal, upstanding citizens. Maybe we break a parking law now and then or take the free samples out of our hotel rooms – they pretty much expect us to do that, right? But we’re not bad people. Not the kind of bad that might result in us murdering another human being… and then going on to do it again, and again, and again.
But then I started trying to get into the mind of a serial killer in order to write about him. I wanted the book to be as authentic as possible, so I dedicated a lot of time and effort to this realism. I devoured everything Nilsen had said or written in the public view. I got to know him, and his circumstances. I read views from people who knew him. I even exchanged a letter with the man himself, a short while before he died in prison.
What I discovered along this exploration was that there was no real particular trigger or abuse that turned Nilsen into a serial killer. I don’t think he was born evil. I don’t believe there’s a gene or a specific single incident which forced him to kill people.
What I found in my research was a lonely, sad, isolated man. He thought he was cleverer than he was, but also perhaps suspected somewhere in a dark corner of his mind that he wasn’t all that. He felt rejected, thrown away by the countless lovers who came and went in the space of a night. This built upon the rejection of a childhood spent in a poor Scottish family, and then the army, where a young, gay, slightly odd man was not cherished. It grew in the form of a fantasy that was deeply connected to the death of his grandfather and, left unchecked, evolved into something far more dangerous.
These are all human feelings. We might not call them ‘normal’, but we really mean not ‘healthy’ or ‘fitting society’. Actually, it’s very normal to feel different to others around us. It’s normal to have fantasies which grow and evolve as our sexuality develops – particularly if we aren’t able to engage in relationships with others, which might replace those fantasies.
The more I researched, the more I felt like any one of us could be subject to just the right (or wrong) kind of mix of experiences and feelings to become a killer. Maybe if Nilsen had been less lonely, or found a partner who wanted to stay with him, or not been frustrated with both his career and his personal life, the crimes would not have happened.
I don’t mean to absolve his blame – he still took action, decisively and on his own. He has rightly been condemned for those actions. But it did make me think that perhaps, there but for the grace of God go we.
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What I was aiming for
If you had asked me before I published the book what I wanted to come of it, I probably wouldn’t have been able to give a clear answer. There were wild dreams, of course – like being the next multi-millionaire author. But I didn’t really know how I would feel about any kind of result that happened.
Actually, I found that I was pretty satisfied with the modest sales that I got. I’m not a bestselling author just yet, and definitely not a millionaire. But I do feel happy with the response. Having friends, distant family members, and people I hadn’t spoken to in years tell me they’d read and enjoyed the book was pure reward.
More than anything, this experience has taught me that I’m happy to write, and ecstatic for people to read my work.
The money earned is more on the practical side of things, a necessity that cannot be ignored if I want to write full-time. But knowing I’m in it for the love of writing means that I can happily throw myself into another project, without fear that a failure to sell well would be a crushing disappointment.
So, why would I recommend true crime writing to any author?
Because I believe that it can teach you a lot, no matter what genre you normally write in. You can explore the human psyche at its worst, as well as examining the motivations that drive you to write. You also learn an invaluable skill in terms of research, which can stand you in good stead when it comes to adding realism to your work. And, like me, you might just find that it is the right genre for you.
What has writing taught you about yourself? Think about it, and if you like, leave a comment and share.
