Tag Archives: Advice

REAL CRIME WRITING FROM A REAL DETECTIVE

By day, Adam ‘R’ is a true-to-life, serving Detective. By night, he advises screenwriters and novelists on realism in their craft. Every day Adam lives in the policing line-of-fire and today he shares his thoughts on DyingWords.

Did you see the story about the Detective Sergeant that can’t sleep until the case is solved? You know the one, where this maverick cop breaks all the rules to nab the crook… because this time…it’s personal?

It’s not only cliché, it’s not reality. Detectives work heinous cases every single day and yet they balance their case loads with their regular lives away from work. They still pick up groceries, spend time with the kids, pay bills, and try to remember to put the trash out just like everyone else, regardless of how sickening, depressing, or exciting their work life is.

If you don’t intend to delve into your detective’s personal life, you should probably ask yourself: Are the circumstances of your story’s “case” really going to cause your detective to be so emotionally invested? Convince your reader that this case is something special. It needs to be for it to be plausible that your detective forgets about the rest of daily life.

Next, there’s the maverick cliché. It takes far more than workaholism and a lacking social life to be a great detective. It takes knowing “the rules” inside and out, and being the best at playing WITHIN those rules! Detectives are investigating law-breakers; they generally shouldn’t be the ones breaking the law. Breaking the rules usually means letting the bad guy go free eventually.

As the author, you should understand the consequences your detective faces for not playing by the rules. Just as you want to keep your story moving, real detectives don’t want to waste time when a life is on the line or a suspect might be moments from getting away.

So how do we play by the rules and keep the tempo up? Just like your brilliant detective, learn when the Miranda Admonishment and search warrants are required and what the exceptions are. Research the legal term “exigent circumstances” to learn when your detective can legally boot the suspect’s door without a search warrant.

Another tool your detective should be familiar with is a “telephonic search warrant”.

To obtain that search warrant quickly, your detective doesn’t need to run back to the office and start typing. Armed with an audio recorder and a telephone, your detective can get a prosecutor and a judge on the phone and verbally explain the probable cause for the search warrant. Once the judge says the warrant is approved, your detective can now legally bust down the door. There is obviously a little more to the real legal paperwork process after the recorded phone call, but consider it another tool your fictional detective has for doing things the real way.

You’ll notice that I keep referring to your protagonist as a “Detective.” It’s important to note that “Detective” is usually a formal rank, one that is one step above a uniformed patrol officer. The rank is often abbreviated as “Det.” and is often equivalent to a Corporal. A detective’s main responsibility is to follow up on the investigations that are started by the uniformed officer’s initial response to a crime.

One of the departures from reality that authors commonly make is to give their investigating protagonist a rank higher than Detective, usually to make the character seem more important or experienced. The reality is the higher the rank your character holds, the less likely s/he is to be actually playing an active role in the investigation. Or worse, s/he is more likely to be a controlling micro-manager that the subordinate Detectives dislike.

The rank of Sergeant (or Detective Sergeant) is that of a line-level supervisor, overseeing a team/squad/bureau of Detectives. The Detective Sergeant is the one that will be reviewing all of the incoming reports from the patrol division and assigning workable cases to the Detectives s/he supervises. The Det. Sgt. usually reviews and approves search warrants or reports before being officially submitted. Most importantly, the Det. Sgt. is the one who acts as a buffer between the Detectives and Management.

The rank of Lieutenant (or Detective Lieutenant) is usually considered middle-management. Think of Lieutenants as the spreadsheet obsessed bosses that are mainly worried about budgets and statistics, just like any middle-manager found in the corporate world.

If you’ve chosen a specific department for your character’s employment, do the research on their rank structure. For example, LAPD has multiple tiers of Detective Rank, such as D-2 or D-3. Some agencies don’t utilize the Lieutenant rank. In the United States, West Coast police agencies rarely have “Majors” or “Colonels” as titles in their rank structure, whereas those ranks are more common in Eastern and Southern states.

If your character is a Det. Sgt., a Det. Lt., or a DCI (for our UK authors), you might be overshooting his or her rank versus the true assignment. None of this is to say you shouldn’t use artistic license in your storytelling.

However, nailing the realities of the police work aspect will make the suspension of disbelief a little easier when the rest of your story leads somewhere a little more off the wall.

* * *

Adam R. is a real-life, serving Detective in Southern California who also provides technical advising to authors and screenwriters. Adam asked that his last name be masked out of caution for conflict of interest. To learn more about the realities of police work, and how it applies to creating realistic fiction, visit Adam’s blog:

http://www.writersdetective.com/

Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/writersdetctive

26 EYE-OPENING WRITING TIPS FROM GREAT AUTHORS

All serious writers continually strive to improve their craft. The best upcoming authors look to the best established writers, historic and current, for advice. Here are 26 timeless, eye-opening tips from some of the most successful authors ever to put words on paper.

The first draft of everything is shit. – Ernest Hemingway

Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, and judgementally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass. – David Ogilvy

If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy. – Dorothy Parker

If you intend to write as honestly as you can then your days as a member of polite society are numbered. – Stephen King

I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide. – Harper Lee

Notice how many of the Olympic athletes effusively thanked their mothers for their success? “She drove me to my practice at four in the morning,” etc. Writing is not figure skating or skiing. Your mother will not make you a writer. My advice to any young person who wants to write is: leave home. – Paul Theroux

You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. – Jack London

My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: When you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip. – Elmore Leonard

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. – George Orwell

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. – W. Somerset Maugham

If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time — or the tools — to write. Simple as that. – Stephen King

Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong. – Neil Gaiman

Imagine that you are dying. If you had a terminal disease would you finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys this 10-weeks-to-live self is the thing that is wrong with the book. So change it. Stop arguing with yourself. Change it. See? Easy. And no one had to die. – Anne Enright

If writing seems hard, it’s because it is hard. It’s one of the hardest things people do. – William Zinsser

Write the book the way it should be written, then give it to somebody to put in the commas and shit. – Elmore Leonard

Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college. – Kurt Vonnegut

Prose is architecture, not interior decoration. – Ernest Hemingway

Get through a draft as quickly as possible. Hard to know the shape of the thing until you have a draft. Literally, when I wrote the last page of my first draft of Lincoln’s Melancholy I thought, Oh, shit, now I get the shape of this. But I had wasted years, literally years, writing and re-writing the first third to first half. The old writer’s rule applies: Have the courage to write badly. – Joshua Wolf Shenk

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. – Mark Twain

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. – Elmore Leonard

Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that — but you are the only you. – Neil Gaiman

The scariest moment in writing is just before the start. – Stephen King

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative. – Oscar Wilde

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. – Ray Bradbury

Write drunk, edit sober. – Ernest Hemingway

Don’t take anyone’s writing advice too seriously. – Lev Grossman

It’ s okay to write shitty first drafts – Anne Lamott

And here’s a bonus that I forgot to put in the original post to make it 27 tips:

When asked, “How do you write?” I invariably answer, “One word at a time,” and the answer is invariably dismissed. But that is all it is. It sounds too simple to be true, but consider the Great Wall of China, if you will: one stone at a time, man. That’s all. One stone at a time. But I’ve read you can see that motherfucker from space without a telescope. – Stephen King

PUBLIC SPEAKING FOR WRITERS

Thanks so much to Australian BestSelling thriller author, Rachel Amphlett, who gives writers these confidence building tips on how to publicly promote their work.

Most writers I know, myself included, are quite happy in their own little worlds. We might venture out to go to work, socialize with friends, or do the shopping but we’re never happier than when we’re tucked away daydreaming or scribbling down frantic notes for our current works in progress.

The problem is, when we are required to do public speaking, we’re simply not equipped for it. In fact, we’re terrified. So, how do you go from happy introvert to confident extrovert, even if it’s just for a few minutes?

Prepare Yourself

You’re probably going to be asked to read an excerpt from your latest work. The trick here is to read it out aloud on your own a couple of times during the week leading up to the event.

Talking out loud is a lot different to talking in your head. You’ll spot the words you’re likely to trip over, you’ll discover a whole new meaning to ‘pacing’ and, more importantly, you’ll find the places where you can come up for air.

Yes, remember to breathe – please. We don’t want you passing out from lack of air.

Know Your Audience

The first public talk I ever did with regard to my writing was in a library, on a Saturday morning, to two people. Yes, two.

I was still scared. These lovely ladies had read about my first novel in the local paper and had decided that they’d better come along to see what I had to say for myself.

I quickly realised it would be ridiculous if I insisted on standing and pacing about in front of them, so instead we pulled up a little circle of chairs and I started off by explaining how I decided to write a book. Before I knew it, a whole hour had gone by, two of the library employees had joined us, and they’d all grabbed details of how to download my book (it was only available as an eBook at the time, and the library still supported me, thank goodness), and we’ve exchanged emails since that time.

Sitting down and being at the same level as my audience meant we were a lot more approachable to each other – the gesture broke down any ‘us and them’ barriers that might have otherwise been in place, and led to a much better engagement. And I realized that they weren’t so scary after all.

The key here is to size up your audience and adjust your presentation, if necessary. Are the guests talkative and chatty? Engage them with questions. Are people taking lots of notes? Slow down the tiniest bit to allow them time to write. Reading your audience is hugely helpful in allowing you to tailor your presentation to their needs, which can make for a more successful event.

Take Your Time

For the life of me, I can’t remember where I learnt this trick, but trust me – it works. Whatever the occasion, when it’s your turn to stand up in front of an audience, make them wait.

Not too long, though. By taking your time, I mean walk up to the podium, stage or whatever speaking platform has been set up, and either open the book and run your gaze over the first few sentences, or adjust the microphone. Adjusting the microphone is my favorite trick. Personally, I haven’t got an excuse, because at six foot tall I usually tower over my host anyway, but it’s a fantastic way to prepare for public speaking.

When I was asked to read an excerpt from my first book at an international thriller author’s book launch, I adjusted the microphone, looked up at the audience, and asked if they could hear me okay. A few people at the back called out that they could, and off I went. Those precious few seconds allowed me to:

Get my breathing under control
Eyeball my audience
Engage with my audience, and prepare them (and me!) for the sound of my voice

Hopefully the above tips will help ease your nerves leading up to your moment in the spotlight. If public speaking is something you’d like to develop, there are several groups you can join, Toastmasters being the obvious choice, and one I’ve participated in a couple of times. I found them to be incredibly supportive and attentive listeners and the feedback is invaluable.

Often, the hurdle is getting used to your own voice, but once you’ve done that, you’ll be well on your way to being a confident public speaker, even if it’s just for a few minutes.

Rachel originally wrote this piece for the blogsite Writers Helping Writers. You can find it on this link: http://writershelpingwriters.net/2014/11/3-tricks-surviving-public-speaking-event/

* * *

Rachel Amphlett previously worked in the UK publishing industry, played lead guitar in rock bands, and worked with BBC radio before relocating from England to Australia in 2005. After returning to writing, Rachel enjoyed publication success both in Australia and the United Kingdom with her short stories, before her first thriller White Gold was released in 2011.

Her Dan Taylor thrillers (White Gold and Under Fire) and her latest standalone thriller, Before Nightfall, are all Amazon bestsellers. Currently, two further independent projects are in draft stage, while a third Dan Taylor thriller is being researched.

Now, till Jan 31, Before NightFall is on special at .99 cents at Amazon.

By day, Adam ‘R’ is a true-to-life, serving Detective. By night, he advises screenwriters and novelists on realism in their craft. Every day Adam lives in the policing line-of-fire and today he shares his thoughts on DyingWords.

Did you see the story about the Detective Sergeant that can’t sleep until the case is solved? You know the one, where this maverick cop breaks all the rules to nab the crook… because this time…it’s personal?

Another tool your detective should be familiar with is a “telephonic search warrant”.

The rank of Lieutenant (or Detective Lieutenant) is usually considered middle-management. Think of Lieutenants as the spreadsheet obsessed bosses that are mainly worried about budgets and statistics, just like any middle-manager found in the corporate world.

However, nailing the realities of the police work aspect will make the suspension of disbelief a little easier when the rest of your story leads somewhere a little more off the wall.

* * *

Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/writersdetctive

All serious writers continually strive to improve their craft. The best upcoming authors look to the best established writers, historic and current, for advice. Here are 26 timeless, eye-opening tips from some of the most successful authors ever to put words on paper.

The first draft of everything is shit. – Ernest Hemingway

Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, and judgementally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass. – David Ogilvy

If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy. – Dorothy Parker

If you intend to write as honestly as you can then your days as a member of polite society are numbered. – Stephen King

I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide. – Harper Lee

You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. – Jack London

My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: When you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip. – Elmore Leonard

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. – George Orwell

Imagine that you are dying. If you had a terminal disease would you finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys this 10-weeks-to-live self is the thing that is wrong with the book. So change it. Stop arguing with yourself. Change it. See? Easy. And no one had to die. – Anne Enright

Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college. – Kurt Vonnegut

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. – Ray Bradbury

And here’s a bonus that I forgot to put in the original post to make it 27 tips:

Thanks so much to Australian BestSelling thriller author, Rachel Amphlett, who gives writers these confidence building tips on how to publicly promote their work.

Most writers I know, myself included, are quite happy in their own little worlds. We might venture out to go to work, socialize with friends, or do the shopping but we’re never happier than when we’re tucked away daydreaming or scribbling down frantic notes for our current works in progress.

The problem is, when we are required to do public speaking, we’re simply not equipped for it. In fact, we’re terrified. So, how do you go from happy introvert to confident extrovert, even if it’s just for a few minutes?

Prepare Yourself

Yes, remember to breathe – please. We don’t want you passing out from lack of air.

Know Your Audience

Take Your Time

Get my breathing under control

Eyeball my audience

Engage with my audience, and prepare them (and me!) for the sound of my voice

Often, the hurdle is getting used to your own voice, but once you’ve done that, you’ll be well on your way to being a confident public speaker, even if it’s just for a few minutes.

Rachel originally wrote this piece for the blogsite Writers Helping Writers. You can find it on this link: http://writershelpingwriters.net/2014/11/3-tricks-surviving-public-speaking-event/

* * *

Her Dan Taylor thrillers (White Gold and Under Fire) and her latest standalone thriller, Before Nightfall, are all Amazon bestsellers. Currently, two further independent projects are in draft stage, while a third Dan Taylor thriller is being researched.

Now, till Jan 31, Before NightFall is on special at .99 cents at Amazon.

You can keep in touch with Rachel via: