The Craft of Writing on the Strange and Sinister

In addition to writing about true crime here, I’ve also shared my story of honing the craft over at WOW! Women on Writing. Here are a just a few of the posts I’ve written on the topic, and it’s fun to see my progression go from just a spark to a fully-developed project or idea.

How to Write Compelling True Crime. In this post I share how I came up with the idea to start up Missing in the Carolinas, and how it evolved from being just a missing persons podcast to one that mixes in solved cases and reviews of other true crime shows and books. I also used this content to create a YouTube video about true crime writing.

Three Reasons Female Writers are Addicted to True Crime. It’s no secret women are the majority of people who consume true crime content, and this post lists just a few of the reasons why.

Podcasting Has Turned Me into a Supersleuth. In this post, I discuss my research process and why you’ll often find me scanning old newspaper articles with a magnifying glass.

Five Tips for Writing a Podcast Script. Through a lot of listening to other podcasts and trial and error with formatting, I’ve learned a formula for writing a podcast script and share tips with readers.

It wasn’t until I started digging through my archives to find these posts that I realize just how much I’ve written on the topic! I’ve also come to understand that there are “subgenres” of true crime, and some that I just don’t care to dive into. The stories that fascinate me the most are murders, cold cases and missing people. The topics I’m less likely to do a deep dive into include bank heists and serial killers.

I’m curious to know what types of true crime stories pique your interest the most?