What true crime readers expect
Readers expect a story told with novelistic pace, grounded in sources: what happened, how it was investigated, what the trial established and what remains unknown. Increasingly, they also expect respect for victims, attention to the failures of the system and honesty about what the author can't prove.
The legal and ethical stakes are high. Accusing real people of crimes they weren't convicted of can be defamatory, and AI models can invent specific, false details about real cases. Every factual statement in a true crime draft must be checked against your sources.
Length and structure
True crime books commonly run somewhere around 60,000 to 100,000 words, depending on the case. Shorter accounts of a single local case can work at the Standard preset; a full investigation suits Full-length.
Many true crime books open at the crime or its discovery, step back to introduce the victim as a person (not just a case), follow the investigation, then the arrest and trial, and end with aftermath and open questions. Some interleave the author's own investigation with the historical one.
How Inkora writes true crime
Put your research in the brief: a timeline of documented events, the people involved and their roles, the sources for each fact and what is disputed. Ask the draft to mark any detail not from your research. Planning produces a synopsis, key people and a chapter outline you can correct before writing.
The fact ledger records dates, places and names a chapter establishes, and later chapters are written not to contradict them. That keeps the book internally consistent. It doesn't make it true: checking against the record is yours to do.
What to put in your brief
The brief is the “Your book idea & instructions” box in the new-book wizard. The more specific it is, the less generic the book. Here is an example, with the settings that go with it:
True crime based on my own research into a 1964 unsolved disappearance in a mining town in County Durham (case name and people anonymised in this example). Sources: inquest records, local newspaper archives, three interviews I conducted in 2024 with people who were children at the time. Use only the documented facts in my notes below and mark everything else as [CHECK]. Do not suggest anyone is guilty; present the three main theories and the evidence for and against each. Respectful of the family, who have given me permission. Narrative non-fiction, past tense, my own investigation woven in as first-person interludes.
Other wizard settings
- Genre
- True Crime
- Audience
- Adult readers of narrative true crime
- Tone
- Dark & atmospheric
- Length
- Full-length (60,000 words)
Example outline: The Pit Road: A Disappearance in 1964
A brief like the one above gives a plan along these lines. You can rename, reorder, add or delete chapters before any writing starts.
- 1
The Last Bus
The evening of the disappearance as the records describe it.
- 2
Who She Was
The missing woman's life, from family interviews.
- 3
A Mining Town in 1964
The community, the pit and the people on the road that night.
- 4
The Search
How the police and villagers looked, from contemporary reports.
- 5
Interlude: The Archive
The author's first visit to the newspaper files.
- 6
The Inquest
What the inquest heard and what it left unanswered.
- 7
Theory One: The Reservoir
The evidence for and against an accident.
- 8
Theory Two: The Lodger
Suspicions at the time, and why they were never tested.
- 9
Theory Three: She Left
The possibility of a new life, and the postcard.
- 10
Interlude: The Interviews
Three people who were children that winter.
- 11
What the Records Can't Tell Us
Gaps in the evidence and lost files.
- 12
Still Looking
The family today and what an answer would mean.
Condensed to 12 chapters; the Full-length preset plans 20.
Common mistakes
- Implying guilt that no court has established.
- Publishing AI-generated details about real people without checking them.
- Treating the victim as a plot device rather than a person.
- Invented dialogue presented as fact. Quote only what's recorded.
- No sources section, so readers can't judge your evidence.