Friday, October 16, 2009

Oct 16

I'm immersing myself in police procedural information. It has been pointed out that it is a weakness in my thriller. Well, I do know why. The book originally revolved around the investigation of a random murder suicide by an on-line reporter. The cop characters were added as a way to color the story and fill in detail. But, they have become an integral part of the story and now I need to really flesh them out-give their world color. I am studying details that will never go in the book- but by learning these details and building their world in my head I hope to create rounded more realistic characters for the book. cheers~ *she says over the stacks of research books on her desktop.*

2 comments:

  1. If you have any specific questions, I can ask this cop I know for you.

    You know what I notice in thriller books. No one ever mentions the small little day to day things a cop has go through. Like their duty belts. Did you know... they actually wear two belts. First there's a normal leather belt that keeps their pants up and then the duty belt goes around that. The duty belt doesn't loop through anything but is connected to the leather belt by a handful these individual snaps called keepers (http://www.copsplus.com/prodnum1190.php ).

    So, if a cop has to go to the bathroom quickly, it's not going to happen. They have to unsnap each keeper and remove them, then unhook the duty belt, find a safe place to set it aside, and finally work on the next belt buckle before unbuttoning the pants (and most cop pants I've seen are button fly, not zippered). Whew. It would really suck to be a pregnant cop.

    And now that I've blabbered on and on, I'll shut up. Have a good day. Loved your blog.

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  2. Hi Linda- I just read about the belts in one of the books- lol. But my cop is a detective-so luckily no uniform. Thanks for the blabbering on and on... I LOVE it!

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