Plots and artefacts: courts and criminal evidence in the production of true crime writing

This article examines some ethical and practical concerns of producing true crime writing, examining the role of criminal evidence in the generation of such texts. Writers draw on a range of (often) sensitive forensic material in order to develop a cohesive story, and yet such use has still to be properly examined. Drawing on my own experience as a socio-legal scholar who writes literary nonfiction crime essays for the general reader, I ask questions about what is involved in producing creative writing from criminal evidence and from other legal material. What is the role of case archives, court transcripts, and the court experience? What acts of interpretation does the writer engage in? How do you make a story out of messy data? And what ethico-legal hurdles do you encounter?