New York!

By Allison Brennan

First, for the fun part of this blog: winners. When I swapped blog days with David Corbett, I said I’d send five people a copy of my digital novella – in print because of a promotional thing I did for RWA and ITW. The winners are:

1. Sandra K. Marshall
2. Malcolm R. Campbell
3. Karen S.
4. Paty Jager
5. Reine

If you live out of the USA or would prefer a digital copy, I’ll send you one. If you want it in print, I have one for you! Either way, I’ll take care of it when I get back from NYC on July 11. Email me at Allison@allisonbrennan.com with your preferred format and snail mail address, if applicable.

Now, for the rest of the blog.

Again, Alex and I are connected by an unseen psychic chord because I, too, wanted to talk about e-books. (Alex, just stop getting inside my head! It’s getting REALLY creepy.) I could write thousands of words on this topic but decided that because I’m in New York City and in a fabulous mood, I’ll postpone it for another day.

So instead, about the Romance Writers of America conference.

No conference is perfect, but RWA comes pretty close. With over 2,200 published and unpublished writers in attendance (total membership tops 10,000, with 20% published,) RWA has been putting on huge conferences for years. We usually have a fantastic speaker for opening session (this time THREE fabulous authors in a panel—Steve Berry, our own Tess Gerritsen, and Diana Galbadon.) I missed it because I was having breakfast with my friend and mentor Carla Neggers, who’s among the smartest people I know.

I rarely go to workshops anymore, though there were some I wanted to hit—like my friend Candace Haven’s “Fast Draft: Writing the First Draft in Two Weeks” which MANY people told me was the best workshop they’d attended this year. (I used to write fast drafts, then would go back and edit. Now, I try but can’t. If I know there’s a problem, I can’t move forward. It’s driving me crazy.) We had authors from #1 NYT bestsellers down to aspiring writers giving workshops on pretty much anything, mixing genres, the business, e-publishing, craft, contracts, you name it. I missed them all. Time to order the audio disks for the car!

But the one thing I have always loved about RWA is the literacy signing.

This picture is less than half the room. 500 published authors selling books donated by publishers where all the proceeds go to a national literacy organization. The event is open to the public, so the authors usually send notice to all their fans. It’s vibrant and exciting and really neat to meet readers in the different cities RWA has their conferences. Thousands of readers waited in line for hours before the doors even opened. Until this year, we've raised over $690,000 for literacy. I suspect we raised over $75,000 this year alone.

I have always wished that ITW had a public signing event at Thrillerfest. Currently, we have small singings twice a day with the speakers/panelists from the morning/afternoon panels and events. That’s great—but no one from the public is allowed. (Largely because they’re generally pretty crowded.) A public event would not only give exposure to ITW and the attending authors, but promote the genre as a whole. Whether they model it after RWA or come up with their own unique program doesn’t really matter, I’m sure they’d do something equally as fabulous.

I’ve mentioned this desire to different people, and there have been differing levels of interest, and I’ll once again bring it up to someone, sometime next week as I roam the halls of the Grand Hyatt. Thrillerfest does a lot of things right and I love the conference; someday, I hope we have a signing open to the public.

Speaking of signings, as a mass market author I don’t do a lot of signings. Publishers rarely (if ever) pay for a mass market author to tour, and it’s not really cost effective to do it ourselves. But on occasion I sign locally, or with groups of authors. Or, sometimes I just attend author events, like when my daughter Kelly begged me to take her to San Francisco (2 hour drive) to hear three of her favorite authors (Libba Bray, Meg Cabot, and Maggie Stiefvater) speak and sign. She brought her favorite books with her, and bought a couple there, and even though Kelly is very shy and hates having her picture taken, I got her to pose with Libba Bray with the promise I wouldn’t post it on Facebook. So I’m posting it here:

Yesterday, I spent nearly five hours at the Algonquin Hotel—three short blocks from the Marriott where Toni and I stayed for the RWA conference—where I worked on my copyedits, had a bite to eat, and drank a glass or two of wine. I can see why it was a popular spot for writers--I could write at the Algonquin every day. Matilda is the resident cat—this is Matilda the Second.

 

After I posted this picture to Facebook, my cat Nemo sent me an email, hurt that I didn’t post a picture of him (even though he’s home and 3,000 miles away) and instead cooed over Matilda, so this is Nemo on my research shelf before my mom came over to organize my bookshelves:

 

And finally, here are a couple pictures from my field trip as a role player for SWAT training. Yes, we were tackled by SWAT. Yes, it was fun. Yes, I can’t wait to go back. But in addition to the “covered-pile” hostage exercise I was part of, I was able to observe live ammo drills/hostage rescue and close quarter drills from a catwalk, which was nearly as much fun. 

Toni and I are moving over to the Thrillerfest hotel today, but I’ll be back tonight to answer any questions you might have about RWA, Thrillerfest, book signings, or role playing with SWAT. Or anything else you feel like chatting about!

Field Trip!

By Allison Brennan

You’re probably here expecting David Corbett to challenge your mind with a smart and thoughtful essay, but we switched days because it’s his birthday and he’s out being happy. You can read his post from last Sunday here.

So you’re stuck with me today.

David is a recent addition to Murderati and after reading his first post, I emailed JT and said:

“Where'd you dig up the smart guy? Sheesh, I feel so inadequate. I think I'm going to have permanent blog-writer's block :/”

Seriously.

So I'm not David, no great insights from me today! But I want to talk about one of my favorite subjects: research.

I’m giddy about my next research trip. Tomorrow I’m participating in another FBI SWAT training session, this time as a hostage. I can’t tell you how exciting these things are for me. First, I lead a boring life. It’s all writing and kids. That’s it. So when I get to research in the field, I feel like I’ve been released from prison. But most important, there’s nothing like hands on research.

90% of my research comes from books and talking with experts—cops, feds, doctors, lawyers, private investigators, coroners, rape counselors, pilots, business owners, mechanics, you name it. For my upcoming book IF I SHOULD DIE (11.22.11) I contacted the press guy for Argus Thermal Imaging Products about air surveillance; my regular contact at the FBI for information about working with Canadian law enforcement; a trauma surgeon I met through one of the hands on training programs about triage in the field; and even my daughter’s boyfriend who rides dirt bikes to get his input about ATVs. I poured over brochures and online maps related to the Adirondacks, learned the make-up of St. Lawrence County, New York, and researched mining history in upstate New York. I even pulled out my criminal psychology books to make sure I understood the psychology behind not only my primary villain, but because there are a lot of people involved in keeping this criminal organization running, I wanted a better understanding of group psychology.

But in the end, research shouldn’t be visible in the story. I absorb what I read and hear, but I can’t put any of it on the page. Research works only in context to the story. My readers aren’t going to be impressed that I now know how to dress a wound in the field—they don’t need me describing it in detail. What they want to know is what my main character Lucy is thinking and feeling while she’s assessing how seriously Sean is hurt after falling down an abandoned mine shaft. Because she is trained in first aid, she’s not going to be thinking about step A, B, C … she’s just going to do it.

The other 10% of my research is field trips. Touring Quantico and Folsom State Prison. Being a victim in an active shooter situation. Playing hostage. Viewing an autopsy and asking questions. But my questions are different than others. I can look up the procedures of an autopsy, but I want to know what the pathologists are thinking. Do they talk about what they’re doing? Do they chit-chat? Are they formal? Do they joke? What do they do to unwind after a difficult case? Do they tease the newbies? What's their background? What are the strange cases? What do they like best about their job? Least? Pet peeves? 

Or consider how different characters view the same scene. A pathologist is going to look at a corpse much differently than a jogger who stumbles across a body in a park, so I try to view every situation from a different perspective. What does the first responder think/feel? The untrained observer? The killer? The victim’s family? What do they notice that someone else might not?

This is where the field trips really help me. I’m lucky in that I can put myself in other people’s shoes, so-to-speak. I try to understand the world from different perspectives. When I play hostage tomorrow, it’ll be running the same scenario multiple times. I can “be” the hostage and imagine that it’s real (and they way they run these drills, it feels real—I’m hyper-alert.) I can also “be” the bad guy and watch and listen and imagine why is he doing thing? What made him snap? Is it emotional or calculating? Because he’s stressed or because he wants something? And one of the my favorite parts of these drills is when, after the fact, the trainer comes through with the team and analyzes the operation. I get to listen to why decisions were made, what they were thinking, all the information they have to process immediately. If I can understand a scene from all three viewpoints—cop, suspect, hostage—I can write it.

Don’t be surprised if a hostage situation shows up in one of my upcoming stories. :)

Too many beginning authors spend a lot of time researching, then dump their newfound knowledge in the middle of a scene. BORING! Okay, okay, there are some people who like all the technical detail, and there are some authors who have made a name for themselves with involved, elaborate, and accurate descriptions of technology or science or forensic investigation. And sometimes, a bit more detail is necessary for the story—but as Elmore Leonard advises, try to leave out the boring parts.

I confess, I’ve been guilty of research dumps, usually because I learned something really cool and I want to share. Fortunately, my editor usually stops me from going overboard. And I never forget the advice of a good friend of mine, Karin Tabke, who’s married to a retired cop. It’s the details that’ll hang you, especially when you’re not an expert, so only share what’s necessary for the immediate story and move on. (But then I remember two emails I received a week apart on my book THE HUNT—one cop wrote that I got everything wrong, another cop wrote that I must have worked in law enforcement because I got it all right. Go figure.)

In the end, research needs to serve the story, not the other way around. Raise the stakes, tighten the prose, maintain the proper pacing, and be true to each character. Incorporating research is just the window dressing.

Next week I’m off for a two week trip! Not a book tour or anything fancy like that (being a mass market original author, touring isn’t an option.) But I will be at RWA and Thrillerfest, both of which are in NYC back-to-back this year. Toni McGee Causey and I are rooming together and hopefully will have time to do tourist stuff between conferences. After six (seven?) trips to NY, I have yet to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, so that’s up this time. Any must-see Broadway shows? Go-to restaurants or shops? One of those “you have to do this before you die” experiences? Are you going to one of the conferences? Bouchercon? Maybe next year?

I printed up a promotional copy of my digital novella, Love is Murder, to give away at the conferences. Comment or say ‘hi’ and I’ll randomly send five people a copy (which also includes an excerpt of my upcoming book.)

Write what you know…or maybe not

by P.D. Martin

This is my first Murderati blog and I'm really excited to be part of the gang - some great authors here!

You'll see from my 'tag' that I'm "The Aussie"; however, while I am an Aussie my books are actually set in the US. But more about that later. Given it's my intro into Murderati I thought I better actually introduce myself :) before I dive into the main part of my blog, which looks at writing what you know.

I grew up with a love of books, and was particularly drawn to fantasy and whodunits. I graduated from Nancy Drew and Famous Five (remember them?) to Agatha Christie at the tender age of eight and in grade five I wrote my first crime novella.

From there I went on a bit of a detour into maths and science, which led me to psychology at university. At this time I was also singing (yes, something totally different again), and through singing and songwriting I rediscovered my love of writing. But it was not an easy road!

After writing three unpublished young adult novels, I decided to try my hand at my other early love, crime fiction. The result was Body Count, my first published novel. Now I have written five novels featuring Aussie FBI profiler Sophie Anderson and one ebook novella.

So, now that you know a bit more about the newest addition to Murderati, I thought I'd focus on something I didn't do when starting my crime fiction series...

There's an old adage that's often talked about when you start writing: Write what you know. It's great advice, however, things don't always go to plan!

Body Count is based on a dream (well, really nightmare) I had many years ago. In that dream, I was investigating the deaths of some friends. I was me, but I was also some kind of law enforcement officer. When I decided to turn the nightmare into a book, the first decision I had to make was about my protagonist. Would she be a cop? Crime-scene tech? What I was really interested in was criminal psychology; and so I decided to follow my gut and make my heroine a profiler.

My next step was research, which revealed that profiling wasn't used nearly as much here in Australia as it is in other countries. It also seemed that the FBI was leading the way when it came to using profiling as a law enforcement tool.

So, now I had an FBI profiler (and ex-cop), but I've never been a cop or a profiler. My only link to this world was that I studied psychology and criminology at university. And to top it off, I was setting my book in the US, but I live in Australia.

So much for write what you know! At least my main character is an Aussie!

In many instances research can bridge the gap, including talking to people who are working in the field. It's an invaluable step when you're NOT "writing what you know". The location can be tricky too, even with the wonders of Google Earth and Google's street view. While these are amazing tools, it's not the same as actually being there.

I've been to America several times, but unfortunately I haven't been able to visit every location I've written about. Body Count was set mostly in Washington DC and Quantico, with a few scenes in Arizona. I managed to get to both DC and Quantico, but not Arizona.

The directions feature of Google Maps is also a great way to add in a sense of place - you can talk about your characters driving down particular streets and highways. Of course, the risk is that while Google Maps says to take certain roads from point A to point B, the locals might say something like: "You'd never take the I-10 at that time of day. Are you crazy?"

Google's features are certainly fantastic tools for novelists setting their books overseas, and it also helps that I've got a few friends who've married Americans. So when I need to check an expression or a suburb in LA that 'fits' with my character, I've got people to call on.

I love visiting the States, and during my last trip I had great fun scouting out different locations for abductions, body dump sites, etc. That trip was to L.A., where my third, fourth and fifth books are set. And I also took extensive photos and video footage of one of my locations for book 5, Kiss of Death. I even posted some of the pics and video footage on my website for readers, as part of my 'case file' for Kiss of Death. One of the videos is below - it shows where my victim was attacked and the trail she would have been running down. Please excuse my commentary!

So, while there are disadvantages of NOT "writing what you know" I think it's still possible to make it work. And on the plus side for me, any time I visit the US it's tax-deductible!

Role Playing with the FBI

By Allison Brennan

Stephen is jealous. He told me so on Facebook.

On Thursday I took the day off from writing (the day—not the night!) and participated in drills with the FBI. FBI Swat has a training program for agents and local law enforcement, and generally has a good mix of cops. The training program is for established and new agents to improve on their tactical procedures and includes class work, lectures, and drills. The more training a cop receives opens up more opportunities down the road for advancement or special assignments, so these type of programs and generally popular.

And I got to play this time!

The call (via email) went out on Tuesday asking for volunteers to play bad guys during tactical drills. Of course I replied, “Pick me!” On Thursday I headed over to the former McClellan Air Force Base for my assignment. I parked, so a bunch of firefighters training, and went that way . . . it was the wrong way, but a chivalrous fireman escorted me to the opposite end of the structure to where the feds run their drills.

I met up with Brian Jones, the FBI SWAT Senior Team Leader and Trainer (whose motto is “Failing to Train = Training to Fail.” I’d first met Brian when I participated in the FBI Citizens Academy last year. He let me blow up stuff, so he’s one of my favorite people. He’s also a fan—I gave him and his wife a book last year, and they have since bought my backlist.

The set up is multiple stations where teams of eight are run through life-like scenarios in order to improve their tactical response to common situations. The four stations this day were the “House of Pain” which is a hostage situation; traffic stops (which I believe is the most dangerous for law enforcement); searching; and serving warrants (my drill!)

I was able to observe all the stations except the hostage drill because I couldn’t see it from my vantage point on the catwalk during our “break.” But I learned tremendously from the other drills.

The guns involved all discharge paint bullets (I’m sure there’s a technical name for these, but I forget) and we’re all required to wear protective gear because being hit by the projectile hurts. There were two air force MPs running the drills with us, and they took the brunt of the hits. Both had torn shirt sleeves and bruises by the end of the day!

The searching drill—for lack of a better name because I missed the initial set-up—had a team going into a house searching for a known felon. There were two or three people hiding in the “house” and the primary purpose was to teach the team how to expeditiously and properly search the facility and stay safe. Whenever cops go into a residence with minimal intelligence, they put themselves at risk. So the drill was to give them a practical experience. Each team went through each drill twice under different scenarios (for example, the role players may be told by the trainer to be compliant in one drill, but in the next resist, or hide—or in one drill be unarmed, but in the next be armed.)

One drill had a girl hiding in a couch hide-a-bed. Just a month before, the trainer had been involved in executing a search warrant where two prostitutes hid in a hide-a-bed for three HOURS before they were found. The room they were in had been declared clear—but obviously it wasn’t. In another drill, a bad guy was hiding behind a door that was open. There was another suspect in the open room, who was dealt with appropriately, but the agents had intelligence that there were two men in the facilities, so they went down the hall to search the last room . . . then the door slowly opens and the “bad guy” (Air Force Raven Jeff) opened fire. (NOTE: I learned all about the Ravens, a special security unit in the Air Force that has only been around for about ten years. It's going in a book someday . . . )

Every team was caught with multiple injuries (probably fatalities) before the bad guy was taken (killed.)

I was up on the catwalk and I couldn’t see the bad guy, but I could see that there was space behind the door and I wanted to shout, “Look behind the door!” Don’t these guys ever go to movies? LOL.

In the traffic stops, there were multiple scenarios, but each ended in a shooting, and as I watched I couldn’t help but remember several high-profile traffic stops that ended up with cops dead.

Every drill we ran had elements taken from real-life tactical situations, so these weren’t just classroom fantasy scenarios.

Okay, now the fun part—my drill.

My group had four role players. In Drill #1, the agents had an arrest warrant but not a search warrant so they had to talk themselves into the house. In Drill #2, they had a search warrant.

I played the belligerent, white trash wife. My “husband” Larry was a drunk known pedophile. The arrest warrant was for “Billy” who was a pimp who transported an underage prostitute across state lines (a federal crime.) The prostitute was played by an 18-year-old- FBI intern, and “Billy” was really another Air Force MP.

The cops had to talk their way by me, and I didn’t want to let them in. My orders were to make them “work” for it, so they had to try different approaches. I made the first team really work for it, and it was fun. In the middle of my demanding ID, complaining, not wanting to let anyone into my house, and asking if they wanted Larry, my good-for-nothing husband (using appropriate profanity along the way), Larry would come out of the back and start swearing and stumbling and ordering me to shut the effing door. I’d push him and tell him not to effing tell me what to do (which is probably what I would do if my husband acted the same way—before I packed my bags and left. Hmm, but if I knew he was a pedophile, I’d probably be on my way to prison because he’d be dead or castrated. But I digress.)

It was usually this point that I’d swing open the door and tell the cops to go ahead and do whatever they damn well pleased, while still fighting with Larry—they had to deal with a domestic situation before the primary arrest warrant could be served. I was cuffed, searched, and questioned about who else was in the house and who had guns.

The second situation, Larry and I were in bed (asleep!) and the cops had a search warrant. We didn’t get up—they had to break in. And then search, not knowing how many people were in the house. This was a little scarier than the first scenario, and I was also cuffed, made to lie on the floor of my “bedroom” because of the unstable situation in the hall.

I learned later that our drill was also a deadly force drill. In the second scenario, “Billy” came out of hiding after the prostitute escaped from him, and he had a gun to his head.

Do you shoot him?

The primary exercise is to help cops learn and understand deadly force policy, but to ascertain their personal deadly force policy in different situations.

Do you shoot a man with a loaded gun to his head?

Yes.

Why?

Because action beats reaction every time.

During the last rotation, the trainer told the group that every time they ran the scenario where the agents were told not to shoot until the muzzle moved from the suspects head, an agent was injured (shot with a paint bullet.) Every single time. Because the suspect has the intent and “inside knowledge” so to speak, and the agent is reacting to the movement, which delays response.

The best part of the scenarios was listening to the trainer after the drill go through and tell them what they did right and wrong. For example, one team didn’t cuff or search me in my first scenario, which puts a potentially dangerous people (if I had a gun hidden on me) behind their line.

They only do this once a year in my hometown, and I hope they invite me back next time! I might be willing to get shot then.

What’s valuable for me, as a civilian, is to see first hand the pressure and split-second decisions that cops have to make in the field. It’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback, but when things are happening now and an innocent life is in danger, they have to rely on their intel and their training to obtain the best possible outcome.

I didn’t think anything could beat the morgue, but the SWAT drills surpassed it by far. And I can hardly wait to go to Quantico this fall.

For me, as an author, I gain a lot of insight not only into practical situations, but into the people involved. It’s invaluable.  And a hell of a lot of fun.

Research Day Trips

By Allison Brennan

After reading Brett’s post on Thursday and Stephen's post on Friday, I suddenly felt the urge to also talk about research.

While Brett and Stephen's research trips sound wonderful, my approach to research is a bit different. Part of this is from necessity. As a mom of five, all of whom are still at home, overnight travel is difficult. Day trips are much easier. I toured the Sacramento County morgue (which you can read more about in July’s issue of RT Book Reviews) and I participated in the FBI’s Citizen’s Academy, an eight-week course (of sorts) that many jurisdictions around the country hold. In mine, I had a wonderfully eclectic group of fellow students—a prosecutor, a bank VP, a field rep for a US Senator, a labor lawyer, the children’s home director, and the guy who owned a vehicle light company specializing in undercover cars.

I stumbled into being invited to participate in a session while researching TEMPTING EVIL. I had a secondary character, fugitive apprehension specialist Mitch Bianchi, who was tracking an escaped convict. He followed him from San Quentin (after the big earthquake that destroyed it in KILLING FEAR) to Montana. I was working on revisions and had a few questions that my regular contacts couldn’t seem to answer, so I somehow made contact with the PIO of the Sac FBI. Once I was cleared by Washington, I sent him a bunch of questions.

Low and behold—my entire set-up was wrong. Mitch would never have tracked the fugitive through multiple jurisdictions. If he had information that the fugitive was in another state, he would contact that jurisdiction and they’d follow up.

This was not good news. I was on a tight deadline—I was working on editor revisions, the book was DONE, and I was just cleaning it up. I couldn’t change his character because that would change the whole book—and I’d introduced him in the first place because he was to be the hero of the next book and his obsession with tracking this fugitive was crucial to that story as well.

I asked the PIO a bunch of questions, trying to dig myself out of the hole I’d written (thank you television) and then hit on the right question.

“Well, if an agent disobeyed orders or broke the rules by following a fugitive into another jurisdiction without following established protocols, what would happen?”

The answer? Anything from a reprimand to termination.

I love shades of gray!

Now only did this work for the book (and saved me a major last minute rewrite) but it worked for my character. Mitch doesn’t play by the rules, he’s been reprimanded many times and gone before the Office of Professional Responsibility more than once. He’s also smart, dedicated, and decorated.

So at the beginning of the next book, Mitch is off the case because of his blatant disregard of direct orders in TEMPTING EVIL, and is confronted with another difficult choice. I had not only established his character, but his initial internal conflict in PLAYING DEAD. It worked so well you’d have thought I’d planned it.

Which of course I didn’t. Because, well, you know I don’t plan out such things. Dodged another bullet THAT time.

After eight weeks in the citizens academy, I met more than a dozen agents, many of them squad leaders. Some of them were a bit bureaucratic for my taste, some of them a bit too authoritarian in their approach to law enforcement. But the majority of them were simply dedicated cops who liked their job. The head of Violent Crimes and Major Offenders was fantastic. He had fun with his job. He acted the most like a street cop, someone who probably didn’t work well behind a desk—a lot like my hero, Mitch. (But in my books, the head of VCMO is a woman.) The SWAT team leader is probably tied with VCMO as my favorite. He’s a former Marine and was sent to Afghanistan as part of an ERT to work several bombings. (And he let me blow up a coffee can in the back lot. How cool is that?) The former Texas female cop who worked closely with the Sheriff’s Department to stop child prostitution was also hugely compelling in her down-to-earth presentation on how these girls get into soliciting themselves on Craigs List. (Or, I should say, how they are manipulated and used into having their pimps prostitute them on Craigs List.) 

I got to dust for fingerprints, analyze blood spatter, and spent a day at the shooting range. (I won an award—“My Characters Shoot Better Than I Do.” I’m taking lessons from a retired cop this summer so I can, ahem, prove myself worthier than my characters. But I have excuses—after my kids were born, I stopped going to the gun range every week, and I did much better on the practice round, choking on the competitive round. And I shoot a .357, and they had me shooting 9mm. Where’s Toni when I need her, dammit?)

Anyway, being a graduate of the citizen’s academy has some perks—namely, I’m going on a trip to Quantico this fall. Perfect timing, too, since I’m launching a series in late 2010 staring Lucy Kincaid which will take place in part at Quantico. I am so excited about the trip I can hardly wait! (Sorry to rub it in, Stephen. LOL.)

Another fantastic thing about the academy is the ideas that started coming. The research I love the most is not about forensics, or shooting, or the rate of decomposition—though all that is fun and extremely interesting. But the research I love the most is people.

Why do people do what they do? What makes them tick? Why do they become cops or soldiers or FBI agents or doctors or lawyers or killers? I am hugely fascinated by human psychology. While my husband prefers to figure out how things work, I like to figure out how people work.

One young agent who specialized in domestic terrorism shared a case he’d worked where ELF (Earth Liberation Front) were claiming responsibility for setting construction sites on fire. He went through the entire investigation and how they caught them. The whole thing was fascinating largely because the agent really understood how these kids thought (and they were all older teens/early 20s.) He didn’t condone or condemn them, other than of course their illegal activities, but explained why they did things the way they did them—the psychology behind not only the crime itself, but the relations between the people involved.

He then shared a case that stuck with me. They were investigating an Anarchist terrorist conspiracy but had next to nothing. A young woman contacted the FBI and offered to be an informant. She was privy to inside information about the conspiracy that was planning on making a major political statement through bombings in Northern California. While the facts of the case were interesting, I was far more interested in why this young woman became an informant.

The way the FBI agent who worked with her talked about her, I thought he was a bit in love. (Ok, that’s the romance writer in me. So shoot me.) I started thinking about why she did what she did. What was her background? Who were her parents? How did she live? Where? I thought about writing a book very similar to the true story, but it just wasn’t working for me.

Fast forward a year.

I was writing CUTTING EDGE and my heroine is the heard of the domestic terrorism squad. I didn’t know anything about her. In fact, I thought she was a bitch and I was having a hard time dealing with her. I had a great premise and set-up, but my heroine was just not cooperating.

So I stop and thought: Who is she? Why is she a domestic terrorism agent? Why is she so confident? Why did she pick this particular focus? Who were her parents? How was she raised? What type of house does she live in? Had she ever married? If not, why? How were her past relationships with her boyfriends? What’s her relationship to her sister?

And it came to me. She’s that girl I’d heard about . . . twenty years later. I made up her backstory, imagining what type of person would become an FBI informant. Especially someone who’s raised in an environment that is naturally distrustful of law enforcement. As soon as I knew who she was in the past, I understood every action she took in the present. She was no longer a bitch--she was a bit icy, a bit callous on the surface, but with cause. And as long as I did a good job showing her motivation and goals to the reader, I believe they’ll forgive her the icy, reserved exterior.

I can’t travel a lot, or do a lot of ride-a-longs, though I long to. I live vicariously through others. I’m really good asking questions and listening to what they say . . . and don’t say. For example, my son’s former babysitter’s daughter (say that ten times fast) was in paramedic training. All I had to do was ask what she’d done that week and I had an hour long dissertation from someone who was 1) excited about what she was doing and 2) had all the information right there because she’d just gone through it. My favorite story was when she played a “hostage” during a mock high school shooting drill. As the hostage, she was actually in the room with the head hostage negotiator who was playing the bad guy, so she heard everything that was going on. (Okay, I hate to put this in writing, but boy oh boy do I wish I could have played the hostage!)

But the thing is, while I love hearing the stories, I’m not passionate about being a paramedic (or a hostage.) I’m not passionate about being an FBI Agent, or a coroner, or a private investigator. That’s why talking to people who are passionate about their jobs is so exciting. (Okay, okay, not everyone is—but my heroes and heroines need to want to be doing their job, otherwise I’m not interesting in writing their stories. Who wants to write a book about a cop who hates his job? Maybe he hates PARTS of his job, but he has to be passionate about SOMETHING otherwise he doesn’t interest me.)

It’s the human nuances that intrigue me. That’s my favorite part of research.

So in the name of research, I have a few questions if ya’ll want to share (I’ve been talking to Toni too much lately! Haha.)

What do you do for a living and is it something you love (for the most part) and why? If not, what would you rather be doing and why?

Is your passion more with your career or something you do outside your career? Why?

If you have a hobby that you spend time with on a regular basis, what about that hobby satisfies you?