Invisible City is your debut novel, but you have written extensively about crime as a journalist. How was writing fiction about a crime different from writing a news piece about a crime?
I think one of the things I enjoy most about writing is writing dialogue, and you don’t get to do a ton of that in crime journalism. You can quote people, obviously, but when writing a piece about a crime, you weren’t there. I swoop in after the crime happened and try to piece together the story from a number of sources–but I’m never really on the inside. I only know somebody from what they show me. In fiction, I get to know people from the inside, because I’m the one creating them.
The Writer’s Life: Julia Dahl on the power of journalism
Full article at Shelf Awareness : The Writer’s Life: Julia Dahl on the power of journalism