Crime fiction inspired by real life

Ethical questions I ask myself, and insecure answers

There’s a level at which every work of fiction is inspired by real life; an author cannot forget her old experiences when she sits down to create something new. But I’m not talking about that general kind of inspiration–I’m talking about when we writers are inspired by a particular real life situation and write a book about it. And even more specifically, I’m talking about when we write a fictionalized version of a crime that happened to a real person. 

I’m going to start off by saying that this piece deserves more time than I’ve given myself to write it. Sometimes, compelling ideas happen at the same time as life is happening. I’m going to write my thoughts, knowing that they’ll probably continue to develop after I’ve hit publish (maybe, hopefully, I’ll keep learning about this subject and I’ll even be brave enough to evolve if evolution is necessary).

One reason this topic is on my mind is that I’ve returned to an old novel draft that was partly inspired by a real-life crime that happened to a large group of people while I was in college. I don’t know any of the victims or other people impacted by the crime; I can’t say I was personally affected. (I was moved by the crime, and it informed my professional path, views, and values as a lawyer; but I wasn’t hurt in any way.) And as I’ve worked on a novel that is partly inspired by that crime, I hear a voice asking the question: Am I doing any harm writing a novel about this? The first level is for the author herself: Should I be writing this story? But then there is another level for other professionals involved: Should I be publishing, promoting, blurbing this story? And then there is the reader’s level: Am I complicit in harm if I buy this book? If I recommend it to people? If I read it at all?

Full tweet thread here.

If you happen to be thinking these are very silly questions, I’d ask if your opinion changes when you read Amanda Knox’s tweet thread about the Matt Damon movie Stillwater, which was marketed in places as being “loosely based on” and “directly inspired by” “the Amanda Knox saga.” (All quotes here are Knox’s.) The movie follows an American father (Damon) trying to help his daughter who is arrested in a foreign country; the bulk of the movie springs from the trauma and tragedy that Knox’s family felt when she was railroaded by Italian police, vilified in the press, and wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher (a name I honestly didn’t recognize when I read the tweets–the victim who lost her life was all but erased in the media storm about Knox). In a series of tweets, Knox takes issue with the movie’s obvious use of her image and life experience without anyone ever asking for her input: “Director Tom McCarthy tells Vanity Fair, ‘he couldn’t help but imagine how it would feel to be in Knox’s shoes.’ ...But that didn’t inspire him to ask me how it felt to be in my shoes.” But then Knox learned the movie was going a step further: despite Knox’s real-life exoneration by Italy’s highest court, the movie’s ending depicted the character based on Knox as being responsible for the roommate’s murder. Knox broke down the clear harm that this kind of fictional retelling does: “By fictionalizing away my innocence, my total lack of involvement, by erasing the role of the authorities in my wrongful conviction, McCarthy reinforces an image of me as a guilty and untrustworthy person.” She writes, “I continue to be accused of ‘knowing something I’m not revealing,’ of ‘having been involved somehow, even if I didn’t plunge the knife.’” “And with Matt Damon’s star power, […the movie] is sure to leave plenty of viewers wondering, ‘Maybe the real-life Amanda was involved somehow.’”

I read these tweets shortly after Amanda wrote them in July of 2021. I never saw Stillwater or even heard much about it, but I have thought about Amanda’s tweets more times than I can count. It’s what first prompted me to ask myself the kinds of questions I’m asking here: what are my ethics in storytelling when I know I’m being inspired by something real that hurt a real person? What are my ethics when I’m reading something by someone else but I suspect it’s based on a real case, or I later learn it is? 

Most recently, I noticed a really interesting discussion happening on Bookstagram about a book I haven’t read: Jessica Knoll’s Bright Young Women, which fictionalizes the lives of some of Ted Bundy’s victims, closely following some real-life details but hugely fictionalizing others. The critical reviews of Knoll’s third book have been overwhelmingly positive, and news pieces have portrayed Knoll as a compassionate champion of victims who have been marginalized by media obsession with Bundy. I’m inclined to believe that Knoll is a compassionate champion of victims; she’s publicly discussed her own victimization in a horrific crime, which inspired her to write her first novel, The Luckiest Girl Alive. And I’m not trying to write a call-out piece or point the finger at other authors when the situation has nothing to do with me. I wasn’t asked to blurb her book; I’m not even trying to decide whether to read it, let alone recommend it as a professional author with some potential for sway. I just feel compelled to use this as an example of an interesting, nuanced conversation some really thoughtful readers are having, asking hard questions in a time where public interest in “true crime” is sky high. To summarize, some readers have noted that one of the main characters in the book is a completely fictionalized woman who did not exist in real life, but whose specific murder in the book by Bundy is obviously based on a woman who did exist. These readers have noted the dissonance between a book that clearly aims to center victims’ stories yet, in their eyes, erases one real-life victim’s existence, leaving only her death as true. Again, I haven’t read the book and I’m not familiar with the real-life stories; I didn’t find anything online just now looking to see if Knoll has addressed this specific concern. (The bookstagrammers whose posts I’ve seen on this specific issue all said that an Author’s Note might have changed their view, but instead they’re left wondering why Knoll made the choices she did.) If it sounds like I’m judging Knoll, I’m not; I’m just trying to pay attention and learn something, for my own part in the crime-fiction system.

Not only have I asked myself these questions as I’ve worked on my own novel, but I found myself thinking over Knox’s tweets and my role in blurbing a book that I could tell was partially inspired by a real-life crime with a real-life victim. Please forgive the vague nature of this paragraph; I feel a little vulnerable writing this, but I have always wanted to use this Substack as a place to talk about some of the hard bits of being an author. The novel was not advertised as being inspired by this real-life crime, but some of the details of the crime, as told in the novel, struck me as being obviously inspired by the real-life crime I knew about. (And it’s a crime that some, if not many, readers might recognize.) When I read the initial chapters, I said to my husband, “I don’t think I can blurb this book.” But I kept reading, and, in my view, the story diverged from those initial details and wound up being substantially different from the real-life crime. I ultimately thought the book tackled several thought-provoking issues–and was beautiful on the sentence level–so I sent the publisher a blurb, calling it perfect for book clubs. But the truth is, if I had been asked to read a draft earlier on in the process, I would have advised the author to change those initial details that rang in my ears as being pulled from a real case with a real victim. I would have sent her a link to Knox’s tweets. Because those early details in the book had to have been in reference to the real crime. And now that I’m thinking about it again, fresh off reading those reviews of Knoll’s book, I wonder if there are readers out there who recognized the details of the real crime but didn’t know where the book diverged into fiction. Do those readers know that there was a different result in the real-life trial? In the events of the real night that led up to the real crime? I hope so, but I don’t know. Removing those details from the set up, in my mind, removes the risk of harm. If you don’t need to reference the real-life crime, maybe don’t.

I think if I find myself in the blurb situation again, I intend to muster the courage to send an email to the publisher about my concerns. And as for my own novel, I’ve got an Author’s Note in progress; at minimum, I would plan to include it in publication. I’ve even considered reaching out to a contact I found through my research who could potentially put me in touch with real-life victims. I still haven’t made a decision about this bit, including because I’ve been unsure this novel will even make it past my agent to my editors. But that doesn’t stop the questions from rolling around in my head in the middle of the night.

If other readers have thoughts on this topic, I’d be so curious to hear them.

Thanks for reading; your likes, comments, shares, and subscriptions really encourage Andromeda and I in this labor of love!