Starting the True Crime Chapter

I’ve been working on my actual book chapter this past week, outlining, getting together my key case studies. Here’s what I have so far.

When I sit down to do the work, I usually start with some rough ideas like this, including things I need to make sure to find and make note of before I write about each case study. This is only a part of the outline doc - I’ve got sections on sources, sections on how different scholarship fits alongside what I want to say, places I need to dig around for more context, etc.

Once I have all this, I start to write. Just free flowing, really, no structure to it. My “outline” such as it is, is mostly notes to myself like those above; loose topics to try and hit or integrate in at some point. A lot of that happens in revision. Consequently, most of my writing so far has consisted of material for the introduction to the chapter and outlining my parameters for discussion, doing some lit review, and setting up the media industries context, which is the central focus of the book. I’ll explain more about the book itself later as I work my way through the actual proposal for the press I hope to work with.

The next few weeks will probably be process posts like this one with a few analysis posts thrown in. Hell, I might even highlight some scholarship. Might be useful as I work through the lit review anyway.