I grew up around guns. My father and brothers were hunters, and the deer they managed to shoot every couple of years helped to feed the family.
My dearly beloved also grew up in a family of hunters and served in the military. He’s owned a variety of guns in the many years we’ve been together. I’ve even shot them on a couple of occasions. That certainly doesn’t make me an expert on the topic.
But a couple of my characters need to be experts. Their lives depend on it. So how do I write those scenes?
That’s where research comes in. The internet is full of information, not all of it right. Thankfully, I’ve got access to experts who can verify the facts for me.
I’ve learned a few things along the way, starting with the basic stuff. Like a pistol and a revolver are two different things, and I’d better not get them mixed up. (But both are handguns.) When cops are on duty, their gun has a bullet in the chamber and the safety is off. (So they can respond quickly.) That the reason that James Bond switched from a Beretta to a Walther PPK was because the Beretta was underpowered and the external hammer could get caught on the holster.
I had to figure out the difference between an AK-17 and an AR-15 for Wolves’ Knight. (When I wrote the story, the AK-17 was still in development, so there’s no way Tasha would be able to carry one.)
Then there’s Harmony, my reluctant heroine in the Oak Grove Mysteries series. She bought Betsy, her Beretta, for personal defense. (She names everything!) She knows she’s supposed to shoot at center mass (something I didn’t know) but still insists on aiming for arms and legs.
Lori, in the next Free Wolves book, Wolves’ Gambit, is teaching me a bunch of new things. I won’t spoil the surprise now. In the meantime, let’s find out what everyone else is researching.
December 18, 2017 – Research. Post an interesting fact or facts you’ve come across researching a book.
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