3/17/2016 – What I Learn for Fiction –

We mystery writers strive for accuracy in our fiction. This need propels us to listen to experts, surf the Internet, read unusual books, and sometimes make pests of ourselves.

In pursuit of accuracy, I asked the fire chief of a large metropolitan area what exactly was the protocol in responding to an emergency. His answer added depth and reality to that scene in my novel. I paid $250 for an eyewitness account, published in 1782, of traveling in Morocco, which helped immensely when I wrote my historical novel, Shadow of the Rock. All of us writers joke about what someone would think if he read the history of our Internet searches on poisons, guns, missing persons, fingerprints, burglar alarms, DNA as evidence and similar subjects.