Points: 0
On Crime Storytelling and Why Aiming for Closure Can Be Problematic
I have been an avid consumer of true crime for decades now. Before podcasts, I watched the Paradise Lost documentaries, Dateline NBC (a favorite, because of Keith Morrison's purple prose and swooning affect, not to mention the hardboiled charm of Josh Mankiewicz), 20/20, and Cold Case Files and Wicked Attraction, et cetera ad infinitum. As a child, my family watched Rescue 911, Unsolved Mysteries, and Cops, shows that featured people in distress and unexplained disappearances-even as I wasn't allowed to watch Beverly Hills 90210 because the teens were promiscuous and sassy.
I have often wondered-and been asked-what it is about true crime that keeps me coming back to the well again and again. I used to joke that I was gathering material, that as a writer, surely this counted as research for whatever I was working on.
Only now do I see that that isn't a joke; it's true.
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'When you read a book, you're totally lost in your own private world, and society says that's a good and a wonderful thing. But if you play a game by yourself, it's this weird, fucked-up socially damaging activity.'