For the second week in a row I must leave you in the capable hands of a guest blogger as I adjust to some changes in my life. But never fear, I’ll be back to my old blogging self next week! In the meantime, I figured the GGKFM clubhouse could stand a little guy talk for a while…
~Laura
When most people think of research, the first thing that comes to mind is the Internet or books. Believe me, while writing my first book, I spent as much time researching as I did writing. In fact, I spent so much time on the FBI and CDC websites I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that I now have an FBI file. And while that type of research is necessary and helpful, it’s often one dimensional. It’s the hands-on stuff that gets me cranked up and really brings my writing alive.
When I first thought about what type of gun my FBI protagonist (her name is Laura also) would use, I figured, what better way than to ask. So, I walked right up to a policewoman at a Starbucks I frequent and asked to see her gun. Thank God she didn’t slap the cuffs on me, although that just might have been valuable hands-on research. I gave her my business card and explained why I wanted to know about her gun. Sure enough, she sat down and told me all about her Sig Saur P229, 40 caliber gun. I was so impressed with her help, I mention the experience in my acknowledgement.
Okay, so now I had the make and model, but being a city boy, I hadn’t ever touched a handgun and certainly never fired one. I’d read all about the gun. I knew its features. But I didn’t know how it felt, how it smelled, how it shot, how accurate it was.
Which meant it was time for a road trip.
I ended up at the Top Gun firing range in Imperial, Missouri, to find out what I was missing. I talked to the owner and told him why I was there and what I wanted to know. He set me up on a lane with a 40 caliber Beretta that was similar in firing characteristics to the Sig P229. It was a Double Action/Single Action with a de-cocking mechanism and no safety lever; same as the Sig. My adrenaline was surging and, at seven yards, I was shocked by the accuracy. My first shot entered the 2-inch inner ring. The second took out the crosshairs in the dead center.
Before this I would have taken my chances running from a guy with a gun because I didn’t think handguns were very accurate. I’ve changed my mind. I took mental notes on the heft and the recoil. I smelled the ignited gunpowder, felt the concussion, and experienced the rush of aiming a lethal weapon at a target.
I swapped the Beretta for a Glock 22 and then a Smith and Wesson. They all had different features and different feels. After a hundred rounds of ammo, my arms were tired and I spent an hour chatting with two of the workers. They were both retired law enforcement officers and had a wealth of information. The owner pulled a new Sig P229 off the shelf and showed me the details of its features and let me handle it. I was pumped to go back and tweak my novel.
In my second novel, I have a scene where I plan for terrorists to drop the jumbotron into the crowd at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia during the National Anthem at a hockey game. Being an engineer, I wanted to get the details right. I tried researching the arena online, but I couldn’t get the fine details about the video control room or how the scoreboard was attached to the ceiling.
As it turns out that the new scoreboard at Scottrade Center in St. Louis is made by the same company as the one in the Wachovia Center. So I packed up my daughters and headed to the opening day practice for the St. Louis Blues.
I sent my daughters to some seats to watch the scrimmage while I went back to the concourse. I approached a young man that was working a charity event. For $10 you could act as a play-by-play announcer for a clip of a classic Blues telecast. The young man worked in the video booth and was familiar with the Blues Jumbotron which was perfect.
I paid him the $10 charity fee and told him not to bother cueing up the video clip. He looked pretty surprised, so I introduced myself and described what I was doing. Turns out he really got into it and gave me all the information I needed (and more). He told me where the video booth was located and where I’d find the door to the catwalk stairs. He even suggested a way to splice into the video feed to display a message on the board moments before the explosion.
When I returned to my daughters, I was really excited. I proceeded to tell them exactly how to blow up the jumbotron. It was when they buried their faces in their hands and I noticed the looks from the people sitting around us that I shouted, “I’m an author, not a terrorist.”
After the scrimmage I went to the seating area in the upper deck and took pictures of the catwalks and pulley system used to suspend the big scoreboard. Thanks to the information I received from the technician, I could see the video booth from the seats and got some good pictures of it. I noticed details about the catwalk and how it ran right by the American and Canadian flags hanging from the ceiling.
In my original draft, I had it close, but not quite accurate. I’d left out the little details that would bring the scene alive. The flags were a detail I would never have thought of, but mentioning them brings in a bit of emotion. I ran home and started editing.
Okay, so do you all share my passion for research or do you look at it more as a necessary evil? Any interesting research stories out there?
~Wilfred Bereswill
Will Bereswill is an Environmental Engineer and an Author. He travels extensively, both in the U.S. and Asia and draws on these experiences for his stories.
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I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to go into a boardwalk fortune teller since writing my first book. Just to see. But I’m still chicken. Probably even more so now that I know what happens to many of their clients (in my fictional world anyway). Internet research was about as close as I wanted to get that time.
Thanks for covering me today, Will.
by Laura
on October 23rd, 2007 at 5:54 am
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Will,
I’m a bear for research. My WIP is set in 1941 DC and I’ve spent days in the Library of Congress and the MLK library researching the city and the period. I set one scene in Cissy Patterson’s mansion on DuPont Circle and one morning I walked up to see it. It’s now home to a Washington women’s club. I figured the worst they could do was call the police so I knocked on the door, introduced myself, told the secretary what I was about and was invited to look around the first floor, which was more than I expected. As I was looking around the entrance foyer, the president of the club blew in, was told I was a writer researching the period. She dropped everything and took me on an extensive tour of the entire house, telling me stories of 1941 when she was a young girl on the DC social circuit. It was a terrific morning.
That’s one of the reasons I love research. You get to talk to so many interesting people.
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I love doing research though I’ve not yet done any out and about in the real world. 
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David,
I’m with you. It’s great to have that intimate knowledge about what it is that you’re writing. I tried to get a tour of security and surveillance at Harrah’s Casino, but I got shuffled into the black hole of thier PR department. So I decided to go and sit at a blackjack table and play. I struck up a conversation with a pit boss and he gave me a lot of information.
I also wrote an autopsy scene in my first novel. I REALLY wanted to go see one, even though I’m not sure if I could really handle it. I could never get that set up.
I guess the flip side of the coin is, not to put stuff in just because you know it. It needs to add value to the story.
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I *love* research, Will. I could happily do research forever and never get to the actual writing of the book. I used to research first, then write. Now, I try to write and research at the same time, that way I know what I need to know–if you know what I mean. 
by Sara
on October 23rd, 2007 at 8:29 am
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Ahhh, Tori, you need to get out in the world. I’m often shocked at how people will talk to authors. If you like research, you’ll love getting out there and getting your hands dirty.
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Sara, you really do need to focus that research. However, there are times that research brings some great storylines with it. I talked to some crime scene cleaners at a lecture that was not related to my current project. I think I have a great idea for another book.
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I had the head of orthopedic surgery at Duke get so into it he called me with plot ideas.
I had a firearms instructor at Quantico put a Mac 10, an Uzi and an MP5 in my hands and let me rattle off a few hundred rounds full auto. For free.
I’ve been walked through the booking process by the head of oiur county jail and no, I was not under arrest.
I walked through the old gas chamber from Central Prison. It now resides in the back yard of a woman in Johnston County. which is a whole other story.
And my favorite is when a gun dealer was showing me the latest and greatest. “But,” he said, “for home de-fense, nothing beats your Remingtom 870 pump.” He racked the slide, grinned and said, “You know what they call this, doncha? This here is the barkin’ dog of firearms.”
The barkin’ dog of firearms. Oh yeah, I used that.
Tori, you really have to get out into the real world. You don’t know what you’re missing.
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David, it sounds like you’ve had similar experiences as I have. I’d like to hear that gas chamber story sometime. “The Barkin’ Dog of Firearms.” I love it.
In 2 weeks at SinC St. Louis’s Forensics University, I may have the chance at firing an Uzi in full auto.I’m coordinating the shooting range event and the range has an auto Uzi. I’ll have to pay for the ammo though.
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I write about girly-girls who stop the badguy with a lipstick in the back, so no gun-research for me. Not so far, anyway. If I ever have need for one of them to pick up a gun, then I guess I’ll have to do the research, but I tend to take it as it comes. I do the research when I need the information, but not before. It’s too easy to get bogged down, it takes too much time that I could spend writing, and there are so many cool facts to learn that unfortunately have no place in the book. I’m lazy, I guess. That said, I’ve gotten stuck writing a series set in Maine, where I’ve never been, and since I live in Nashville, it’s a little more than a drive away, too. I’ve been petitioning for a research trip, but so far, no joy. If anyone is familiar with downeast Maine, give me a shout; I have a ton of questions!
by JennieB
on October 23rd, 2007 at 12:05 pm
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Jennie, I know its not as easy as it sounds, but I find it helpful to visit your settings if possible.
Part of my novel happens in Spokane WA. Thats a long way from good ole St. Louie. Well, this past spring, I had to go to northern Idaho for business. I flew into Spokane the day before and cruised around. I didn’t know there was a BIG FRIGGIN’ waterfall in the middle of downtown. It made for a nice 4 sentence conversation between my protagonist and her accomplist.
Sorry, I’ve never been to downeast Maine.
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Jennie,
Don’t feel obligated to do that gun research. I, and I suspect Will, do much of it because we like it, not because we need it.
Kevin Wignall has written a couple of great books with a hitman protagonist and he admits to never doing any research, even on guns. In one book (I think it was People Die) he just talks about the protag’s gun in very general terms. It was an automatic, I think. It certainly wasn’t germane to the plot, whatever it was.
However, if you want to have a bad guy screw a silencer onto a revolver, that gun better be a Nagant.
My point is, plenty of people write terrific books without a lot of research. Don’t sweat it. If there were rules on how to do this, hell, everybody would be writing books…
Oh, wait…
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Jennie,
I spent some time in Wells, Maine right after the service. If I can answer anything for you, I’d be happy to try.
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Jenny, David has some good advice there. I think the point is, don’t be specific about the things you guess at. (I’m not sure I’m saying the right.)
Example: I just read a thriller. This novel was on the NYT Bestseller list. She does a GREAT job from the Medical Examiner point of view. Really knows her stuff. Then she puts herself in a situation where a gun is involved. It was REALLY wrong and threw me right out of the story. Okay, 1 glitch in 400 pages, but I just couldn’t take her seriously after that.
Obviously, I was in the minority becasue it was on the bestsellers list.
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Laura’s posts seem shorter. Theo stopped reading after the 19th page.
Viva, Francona!!!
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Thanks, y’all. I wasn’t trying to hijack, really.
Will, absolutely I agree that it’s important to know - preferably firsthand - your setting. If Maine were closer, I’d be there already. As it is, I’ve set the books in a fictitious town, so at least I don’t have to worry about describing somewhere real.
David, mostly what I’m after is colloquialisms and speech patterns. Any special Maineisms you can think of. I already know about Moxie soda and whoopie pies and the I-talian sandwiches that open on top instead of along the middle, but anything else especially Maineish you can remember, that would give my narrative the appearance of versimilitude, would be helpful. Thanks!
by JennieB
on October 23rd, 2007 at 4:06 pm
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Great post, Will. I do most of my research online now, and I research as I go. But I also use firsthand knowledge wherever I can (when it’s applicable, of course). Over the years, I’ve traveled through the country, but now I live in the middle of nowhere, and don’t really have the time or funds to travel for hands-on research. That’s not to say I wouldn’t travel more if I could, but sometimes you do what you can. =o)
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Thanks, B.E. Travel is expensive. That’s why I was thrilled when I found out the Philly Scoreboard was almost identical to the St. Louis board. The practice was free and open to the public.
100 rounds at the firing range with gun rental was $45.
Sounds like a Mastercard Commercial.
100 rounds at a firing range - $45
Learning how to blow up the jumbotron - $0
Hands-on research - Priceless.
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Will,
You say this was your first time firing a gun.
How would you classify your attitude about guns before going to the range? Pro-gun, anti-gun or ambivalent?
Being a “gunnie”, I’m always interested when someone discovers the joy of shooting.
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I’d say ambivalent. I never had strong feelings about gun ownership by citizens since the bad guys will always find a way to get them.
Similar to drinking, if its not done responsibly it can be dangerous. People have to take accountability.
Thanks for reading and the comment, Rustmeister.
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Sure thing. Enjoy the Uzi, they’re big fun!
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