If you could design a Leopold-Loeb fictional story, what would you want in it? What would it focus on? What what you do differently than other stories based on them? Thanks!
oh the timing of this ask is kind of incredible bc i'm actually writing a novel right now! so unfortunately i'm not going to be able to answer this ask too thoroughly. :( i'll try to provide some general details tho!
it's just covering a period of three to four years, from when the duo meet through the crime (i'm not 100% sure on when it'll end currently — i have a few ideas in mind — but i will not be including any court proceedings lol). i don't intend for it to follow the case beat for beat (à la swoon, more or less) as it's a rural setting in the late 1970s rather than 1920s chicago. however i plan to include some other details that are usually left out because they're not directly relevant to the case (e.g. loeb's concussion).
overall though i'm really prioritizing getting their dynamic right, since that tends to be the main issue with like 95% of adaptations. i'm also writing exclusively from the pov of the loeb character since so many adaptations are either narrated by the leopold character or they alternate between the two (not that there aren't any completely from the loeb pov; little brother fate comes to mind). but i assume that people often write from the leopold perspective since he wasn't a compulsive liar + had the chance to ~tell his story~ after prison. & it's of course interesting to get an inside look on obsessive love, but i just want to explore the other side of it all.
i also do not plan on deep diving into The Commission Of The Crime Itself bc i am not entirely interested in writing, in detail, the murder of a child. doubly so since it's an adaptation of an actual crime.