Style over Substance in Capote's In Cold Blood In "Murder, He Wrote", William Swanson believes that the stylistic techniques employed in Truman Capote's novel In Cold Blood are more memorable than the story itself. For Swanson, Capote not only captures readers' attention with the story of a horrific crime, but his use of different voices, sounds, and silences make it an event that people will never forget. Nearly two decades after his initial exposure to Capote's novel, Swanson found that it was still a "brilliant study of crime and punishment" as "disturbing as ever" (32). When Swanson first read the novel, he was more impressed by Capote's "boldness" and stylistic techniques than by the story (32). During the 1960s, journalists were “rewriting the rules of the craft, creating a fusion of journalism and literature…that was often extraordinarily fresh and powerful” (32). After the release of In Cold Blood, Swanson believed that Capote had not only invented "a new art form", but had also set a standard against which...