Does anything in your story go bang? Okay. Now cross out the hastily opened doors, the firecrackers, the spontaneous combustion, and see what you’ve got left. If any of your plot occurs in modern day, likelihood is, someone just took out a gun and shot at your protagonists. Or maybe you’ve got a showdown between some angelic SWAT team and some demonic drug runners.
But pause for a minute. You’ve got guns in hand. Bullets flying. The pages are about to get splattered, and someone is going down. Do you know what guns those hands are clutching though? Do you know the gauge? The refire rate? Automatics? Semi-autos? What’s the kickback like? Any idea what the gun itself looks like? For the sake of giving your story a legitimate feel (even though, yes, I know…it’s urban fantasy or some such…guns are still guns) it helps to drop in a few educated details about this impending gunfight. Something to convey to the reader that your character knows what they’re doing when they draw that pistol whippin’.
Obviously, unless you’ve gone out to a firing range and shot a few models yourself (this not being a bad idea for those who like to immerse themselves in the writing), some of this you have to make logical guesses at. Nothing helps logical guesses though more than a little research.
So your link-doodle pleasure of the day is Firearms ID.
This site is an introduction to forensic firearm identification, and has a combination of fascinating articles on gun and ammunition manufacture, as well as historical observations of famous shootings, and even scenario playouts where you get to be the detective and try to determine who got murdered by what weapon. I know. Violent stuff. Nothing we ever want to get involved with in real life, right? But what’s that famous writing advice? I think it’s most often attributed to Raymond Chandler, and goes along the line of, “If you stuck at a point in your story, bring in a man with a gun.”
That’ll certainly spice things up, but you aren’t going to have the guy toting a six-shooter with a sniper scope on it…or if he is, then you’d best know the reason why.
I see that smile.
Ooh! This is cool, Josh! And very true, too. I’ve read several rants from agents or agent assistants complaining about how a number of historical writers don’t research their time periods (I know that’s a little off-topic, but it’s kinda along the same lines).
I’d have a hard time counting how many stories I’ve thought up but then canned because I didn’t know enough real-life details to write them without making an idiot of myself. None of them really had to do with bullets or firearms or anything like that, but this is still a good resource for future reference.
And my Boy Scout brothers should like it bunches, too. :o)
I think writing should be one of the greatest opportunities people have to learn about something new. If you’re writing a whole book about some time period, culture, technology, or whatever that you don’t know about…shouldn’t it be the most logical thing to immerse yourself in it as fully as possible? Sure, I mean for science fiction and fantasy writers there is that whole “making it all up” aspect, but at the same time, the more we learn and know, I think the richer it makes the story in the end.