Never Die Alone and writing Street Lit

Tips for crafting raw, gritty tales of urban fiction

I originally detested The breakout film Never Die Alone, which starred the late rapper DMX as hardened drug lord King David. He was a despicable, unsympathetic character who destroyed the lives of the people in his orbit in some of the most heinous ways before suffering his own end. Ironically, I'm working on a story with a similar theme myself. This type of story is part of a larger genre of fiction that I'm also not too fond of, which is called Street Lit. Street Lit fiction tales are supposed to be gritty, realistic stories that depict the lives and struggles of people in urban environments, often focusing on crime, poverty, violence, and survival. And you find this in books like A Hustler's Wife, The Coldest Winter Ever, and Iceberg Slim; to movies like Boyz N Da Hood, Precious, Menace to Society and Clockers, to television shows like Power and The Wire. Even video games like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas delve into this realm.
Having grown up and spent a large chunk of my adult life in that environment, many of these stories hit a little too close to home and bring back dark memories. But I also have a problem with how bleak and hopeless many of these narratives are and how reprehensible many of the central characters portray themselves to be. And yes I'm saying all of this as I'm in the middle of crafting a story that could be considered street lit. Don't judge me; that's the direction the story took me in as I started writing it.
In any case, writing Street Lit with authenticity can be tricky, especially if you don't have the credibility of having lived in that environment. Here are some things to keep in mind when you do it.

Keep it Real
Authenticity is the glue that holds street lit stories together. Their appeal is in large part due to the belief that these are real struggles that real people in urban environments have to deal with. And regardless of whether this is true or not, your street lit story has to FEEL real and believable. If you've endured this environment, draw on your past knowledge and experience, or take a visit to the spot you came from and take in the environment and the people in it. It's tougher if you've never been in that environment, but not impossible. You're going to have to do some extensive research to make sure you're getting details accurate.
The authenticity of your story also depends on how you treat your characters. Stereotypes are frowned on, so you need to be sure you're writing characters with depth and nuance. Create multi-dimensional characters who have strengths, weaknesses, and clear motivations. Your characters are going to be put into situations where morals and ethics are put to the extreme test, and hard choices are a part of everyday life. But you need a thorough understanding of who your characters are outside of these choices, what motivates them and what they stand for. More than any other form of fiction, your characters have to feel like real people and not caricatures, and everything from their mannerisms to the very way they walk and talk has to feel authentic.
And about those tough choices. Oftentimes in Street Lit, the morally correct choice is not always the wisest, or isn't the choice that is available at the moment. You need to be exploring that. What affect do your choices have have on your characters and the people and environment around them? Actions have consequences, and you need to show how your characters' decisions are affecting the other people and environments in your story. In the story-driven rap album Good Kid, MAAD City, one of Kendrick Lamar's friends is murdered as a direct result of a string of decisions he and his friends made over the course of the day, starting with Kendrick's decision to go visit his girlfriend in the territory of a gang he wasn't affiliated with.

Slanguage
People in the streets have a certain way they talk, and the lingo changes often depending on location and time. This is something you need to be cognizant of in your street lit stories. One of the many reasons the detecitve TV show Detroit 187 failed was the failure to respect this. 187 is the penal code for homicide in California, not Michigan (Michigan's is 750). And during the show, Detroit's famous Coney Dogs were called just chili dogs. Stuff like That created a disconnect and many viewers in Michigan cried foul. Making sure you nail the way people talk and the language they use is vital to making your story believable. It helps if your story is happening in a specific region and not Generic Inner City X. If you're not actually from the region you are writing about (actually, even if you are because lingo changes over time), do some research and find out the popular phrases and slang people from that area are saying. Learn their dialects and colloquialisms, and figure out how to describe and portray those in a way readers will understand. Context is also important, because certain words and phrases can have multiple meanings depending on the context in which they are used. The dialogue should sound natural, not forced, and should reflect the social environment.

Keep it Gully
A calling card of Street Lit is its subject matter. Most of Street Lit is an offshoot of Crime fiction, and that means it doesn't shy away from harsh subjects like violence, drug abuse, poverty, incarceration, and survival. Street Lit's appeal is that it makes the struggle of urban environments real to its readers. You want to lean into that. So if a scene in your story calls for some brutality, then you'd be doing your story a disservice by not delving into it. You are writing about people in desperate situations who are doing whatever they have to do to survive in that environment.
However, you must resist the temptation to show depravity for its own sake. The last thing you want is for your audience to think your story is just exploiting these topics for shock value, which can also be deeply offensive to people who are actually from that environment and have had to actually deal with those struggles. Be sure there is logic behind everything that happens in your story, and there is depth to both the motivations and consequences of the events in your story. There are reasons why people do what they do and their actions have repercussions that should affect everyone involved. Show how characters are affected by the violence around them—how it shapes their relationships, dreams, and mental state. Readers connect more when they understand the emotional toll.

Products of the Environment
A while back I wrote an article on the concept of The City as a Character. this is vital for believable Street Lit. This concept is a vital part of Street Lit stories, where so much of what happens in the story is defined by the environment and location of the story. What does your environment look like? sound like? smell like? what are the landmarks and why are they important? what is the climate like in your locale? Is it set in a gang-claimed neighborhood in sunny South Central Los Angeles? or a dark and dingy housing projects in Queens, New York? or the snow-covered streets of the South Side of Chicago? or the scorching hot fifth ward in Houston? The oppressive conditions of your story should be felt in the very architecture of your environment. shine a light on where your characters do their everyday business, where they eat, shop, work, pray, socialize, and run errands. Do people drive, catch the bus, or take the subway? how do the laws of the land - as well as how they are enforced - affect the story? Include details that reflect the culture, traditions, and social dynamics of the urban environment. A street lit story can't happen just anywhere, and your story's environment needs to be conductive of the dark story you are trying to tell.

The light at the end of the tunnel
How your character navigates this oppressive environment and the situations it presents is the crux of your story, and should be reflected in the type of growth they show over the course of the narrative. Are they rising above their circumstances, or are they falling deeper into the street life? Is there an opportunity for them to overcome, or is their die cast? I think you want to show at least a few instances of your character having a way upward out of their situation, if only to increase tension and up the stakes. Your characters are trying to make life better for themselves and the people they are close too. even your villains. keep that in mind as you develop your plot and your characters' roles within it. You can have a powerful narrative built around a character's downward spiral despite their best efforts to make things better. (I wrote an article about that, by the way).
You can also use this story to address topical issues in urban communities and maybe even suggest solutions for them. Feel free to get on your soapbox and use your story to make statements about police brutality, gentrification, systemic racism, or economic inequality. these issues can add more complexity to your story while also keeping it current and making it more nuanced.

Conclusion
Regardless of my personal feelings about Street Lit, these are stories that need to be told. If you keep your stories raw, real, and gritty while respecting the themes and characters you are presenting, then you can create Street Lit stories that resonate with audiences of all walks of life.

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And what are your favorite Urban fiction stories? Tell me in the comments.