In his novel In Cold Blood, Truman Capote attempts to create a new form of writing, a combination of fiction and journalism. According to Capote he was attempting to create "something on a large scale that had the credibility of fact, the immediacy of film, the depth and freedom of prose, and the precision of poetry". Whether or not Capote was successful in this so-called "new" form of writing has been debated by numerous critics. Some critics argue that Capote was pretentious when he suggested that he invented the form of writing that blends the fact/fiction barrier. In the Columbia University forum, Charles Alva Hoyt pointed out that what was called a "new literary genre" was simply a plain old reinterpretation of the art of writing history. What Mr. Capote believes he has discovered is already known to the world by a different name: history. Story is the art of telling the truth, selectively (so that the reader cannot strangle with vast accumulations of data) and gracefully (so that the reader wants to read in the first place). Another critic who also claims that Capote invented nothing new is Rebecca West. Despite these criticisms, West had nothing but praise for the way Capote presents his characters as truthfully as possible, while also making them interesting to the reader. In Harper West he wrote the following Capote characters; "They speak the words that journalists hear when they interview participants in prodigious events, and they listen with embarrassed ears." The reality of the character's dialogue is evident in Myrt Clare's response to the news of the murder of the Clutter family. While his speech is colorful enough to dominate any fictional novel, it also has a ring of truth that makes it difficult to decipher whether it is fact or fiction. “I'm not surprised,” Ms. Clare said. "If you think about how Herb Clutter spent his whole life in a hurry, rushing here to get the mail without even a minute to say good morning and thank you, dog, running here and there like a headless chicken... walking into clubs, managing everything, getting jobs that maybe other people wanted. And now look: everything is taken from him Well, he won't be in a hurry anymore" While Capote may not have invented a new genre, he is certainly successful in instilling a depth in his characters that the fact-driven historian does not.