Editing In Cold Blood (section)

==Capote's research==
Capote became interested in the murders after reading about them in ''[[The New York Times]]''.<ref name="salon">{{cite news | url= http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/masterpiece/2002/01/22/cold_blood/ | title= In Cold Blood | work= [[Salon.com]] | date= January 22, 2002 | access-date= 2007-06-21 | last= Standen | first= Amy | author-link= Amy Standen | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080312204740/http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/masterpiece/2002/01/22/cold_blood/ | archive-date= March 12, 2008 | url-status= dead | df= mdy-all }}</ref>
He brought his childhood friend [[Nelle Harper Lee]] (who would later win the [[Pulitzer Prize for Fiction]] for her novel ''[[To Kill a Mockingbird]]'') to help gain the confidence of the locals in Kansas.

Capote did copious research for the book, ultimately compiling 8,000 pages of notes.<ref name= "SparkNotes">{{cite news | title = In Cold Blood: Analysis | publisher = Spark notes | url = http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/incoldblood/section10.rhtml | access-date = 2008-03-16 | archive-date = January 9, 2018 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180109022752/http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/incoldblood/section10.rhtml | url-status = live }}</ref> His research also included letters from Smith's Army buddy, Don Cullivan, who was present during the trial.<ref>{{cite news|author=Myrick, Steve|date=September 24, 2015|title=Fifty years later Cold blood still fresh|url=http://vineyardgazette.com/news/2015/09/24/fifty-years-later-cold-blood-still-fresh-oak-bluffs-man?k=vg56126fd293bf2&r=1|newspaper=[[Martha's Vineyard Gazette]]|access-date=October 5, 2015|archive-date=February 12, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200212122754/http://vineyardgazette.com/news/2015/09/24/fifty-years-later-cold-blood-still-fresh-oak-bluffs-man?k=vg56126fd293bf2&r=1|url-status=live}}</ref>

After the criminals were found, tried, and convicted, Capote conducted personal interviews with both Smith and Hickock. Smith especially fascinated Capote; in the book he is portrayed as the more sensitive of the two killers. The book was not completed until after Smith and Hickock were executed.

An alternative explanation for Capote's interest holds that ''[[The New Yorker]]'' presented the Clutter story to him as one of two choices for a story; the other was to follow a Manhattan cleaning woman on her rounds. Capote supposedly chose the Clutter story, believing it would be the easier assignment.<ref>Davis, pp. 60–1.</ref> Capote later wrote a piece about following a cleaning woman, which he entitled "A Day's Work" and included in his book ''[[Music for Chameleons]]''.

Capote's novel was unconventional for its time. [[New Journalism]], as a genre and style of writing, developed during the time in which ''In Cold Blood'' was written and Capote became a pioneer in showing how it can be used effectively to create a unique non-fiction story. New Journalism is a style of writing by which the author writes the non-fiction novel or story while it is developing in real life. This is exactly what Capote did as he followed the court trials and interviewed those close to the Clutter family to create this story while it was unfolding in the real world. As a result, he simultaneously researched and wrote the story we now know as ''In Cold Blood''.