We have a Winner!

My random number generator has selected the winner of a copy of Lee Lofland's book, "Police Procedure & Investigation".

Congratulations to Frances, from Pensacola. I know you'll love it.

And I've been interviewed over at the Author Exchange Blog. Drop by and say hello.

Homicide - Hussey: "Denny"

Today, Detective Hussey shares yet another of his "interesting" experiences in his early years as a police officer.

Don't forget - today is the last day to enter my contest to win a copy of Lee Lofland's book, Police Procedure & Investigation. Details on my website.

Carlisle Dennis Phillips, Denny to his friends and enemies alike, is another subject of legend and lore at the Lakeland Police Department. Denny is from a small town in western New York State called Lime Lake. It's residents affectionately refer to it as "Slime Lake". Why all the nicknames? They just happen to be part of the story.

Denny married a very nice Polish girl from his hometown and shortly thereafter moved to Lakeland, Florida where he joined the police department. After about a year, Denny and Laurie were both a little homesick, so Denny quit his job and they moved back to Slime Lake.

It didn't last too long. Denny realized he didn't belong in New York anymore. In the fall of 1987 he and his expectant bride moved back to Florida, this time for good.

In 1988 Denny was rehired at the Lakeland Police Department. It was during this time that I met Denny and we became partners and fast friends.

Denny was a marathon drinker, hard-charging party animal, and damn good poker player—we hit it off immediately. Soon we were working the Northside and making memories and legends of our own.
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One hot July night, we spotted a tall, thin character walking fast in front of a 7-11 store. The guy was sweating profusely and seemed really nervous. He was about 6'2" and weighed probably 140 lbs. His toothpick legs stuck out of his gym shorts and looked like two pieces of dental floss blowing in the wind. He wore ragged sneakers and bounced from one foot to the other, like he was getting ready to run—"rabbit"—as we used to call it.

We got out of the car and approached the stick man. "What are you doing"? I asked.

"Nothin'," he replied, shifting his weight from one foot then the other then back. "I gotta go." He almost yelled it.

"You ain't goin' nowhere till we tell ya' to," Denny told him, moving to his left in case the guy did run.

"But I gotta' go!"

"Just stand still and shut up," Denny said again.

"Twenty-nine P," I said to the dispatcher, then read the suspect's name from my notepad.

"Hey man, I gotta' go," he said, whining one more time.

"This guy is fucking stupid, I said.

"For the last time—" Denny didn't get to finish. The man spread his legs shoulder length apart and without saying another word, from somewhere inside those baggy shorts, began to excrete green feces, which ran in several rivulets down those bony legs and into his sneakers.

"Told ya' I had to go," the embarrassed man said softly.

"Oh shit," Denny said.

"Yeah, literally," I said. "Let's get the hell out of here before this guy comes back wanted and we have to take him to jail."

"No shit", Denny replied as we scrambled for the police car, laughing all the way.

"Would you quit saying that?"

Storyboard Saga - Part 5 - Plus more news

What I'm reading: New Blood, by Gail Dayton; The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson

We pause for a brief commercial interruption:

RELEASE DAY! True, it's a free read, but it's still fun. "THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PAGE" is available now from Cerridwen Press.

And this is the last week to enter my contest for a chance to win a copy of Lee Lofland's fabulous reference book, "Police Procedure & Investigation." Details on my website. Don't wait too long.

Back to your regularly scheduled blog post.


I was asked by my RWA chapter to present some of my 'plotting for non-plotters' techniques at their next meeting—which is this Saturday.

I'll bring my story board, of course. I'll be presenting with another member of the chapter, erotic romance author Lara Dien, and we're going to get together Wednesday evening to figure out what we're going to say.

And, the members usually want handouts. I like getting handouts. But now I have to create one – before I give the talk. To me, that sounds suspiciously like plotting in advance!

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I'll be working on that this week. And yes, once I have it done, I'll share. And if Lara has a handout, I'll share hers too.

As for the storyboard tracking. I'm moving forward, as you might be able to tell if you compare this picture with the one I posted the last time I discussed my discovery of this technique.


And here's my idea board.

My only new addition to the storyboard: time. I normally do this on the computer, in the master file, but I've really been enjoying being able to look at the whole book without having to search the manuscript, so I've added neon green stickies reminding me which day it is (and I'm in chapter 20, and day 3 has just dawned.

Time is always a challenge when I'm writing more than one POV character when they're not on the same page. Character 1 might be off investigating the crime, while character 2 is telling her friend about getting mugged. Character 3 might be off jogging. I'd settled into a 'routine' – each chapter began with a scene in Gordon, my cop's POV, and the second scene was from either Megan's or Justin's, and they'd alternate. You can kind of see this on the storyboard: Gordon's green, Megan is pink, and Justin is blue.

Then I hit chapter 19. I knew at some point, I'd have to deal with his attraction to the waitress, and this seemed to be when he demanded it happen. The scene carried over into the "morning after." (It was also a bit strange to have an abbreviated, mostly off-the-page sex scene after writing 6 romances). So, I was now in the morning of day 3.

Only trouble was, Megan and Justin were having dinner on day 2 in the previous scene. To keep the time continuity clear, I'd have to jump ahead to the next day. But there were critical plot points that had to be covered.

At least Megan and Justin were together, so when I popped back into their POV scene, it would be when we left off.

When I read the chapter, I realized I was asking the reader to figure out that they'd just jumped back in time to the previous night. It made more sense to flip the scenes in that chapter. The other alternative, which didn't feel right, would have been to have a really long chapter to bring Justin and Megan into the morning of Day 3. While I don't have any rules as to how long a chapter or scene should be, each scene seems to feel complete at about the 4-6 page mark.

Another possibility would have been to have added Justin's scene to chapter 19, making it a three-scene chapter.

Is any of it 'right' or 'wrong'? I don't think so. Some authors will put date, time, and place headers in each chapter or scene of their books. I find that I gloss over or ignore them, wanting to know what's happening more than where or when, so I don't choose to add them to my books. I suppose if I had a lot of threads where characters were all over, I might consider it.

Scenes and chapters don't have to conform to any given length. So, adding a third scene wouldn't be 'wrong' either. It just didn't feel right.

And that seems to be how I write. It has to flow in such a way that it makes sense to me first.

What's your preference on following time when dealing with stories where the POV characters aren't together?

Tomorrow, my guest is author Blair Bancroft, who's going to recap her special tour of the FBI from the Romance Writer's of America conference. I'm regretting not being able to go even more. You won't want to miss it.

Hiccups, Speed Bumps, Detours, and Roadblocks.

What I'm reading: The Desert Hedge Murders, by Patricia Stoltey

Somehow, there seems to be a lot of synchronicity in the blogosphere. Recently, there have been posts showing up at various sites discussing how closely an author needs to adhere to the facts.

Of course, we all want our books typo free, and accurate in terms of mechanics. When I see errors in books, I have learned enough about the process not to assume the author is solely to blame. There are copy editors who should be catching things, and sometimes, changes are made that the author isn't aware of. Some 'helpful' editor might change a foreign phrase, thinking it was wrong, when in reality, in context, it was correct.

Or, the wrong version of the manuscript goes to print. I can speak from experience there. My galley corrections somehow never made it into print in one of my books, and I'm not sure when they'll get the correct version out. That's the flip side – they're a small press, and their focus is digital books, so they can make corrections without having to sell out a 100,000 book print run.

Authors do not make good proofreaders of their own work. The eye sees what it expects, and the author has probably read the work dozens, if not scores, of times. In When Danger Calls, the head of the company, Blackthorne, Inc., is Horace Blackthorne. Yet until I saw the printed ARC, he was Horace Blackstone the first time he was introduced. I'd missed it on every read, and both my editors had missed it as well.


I was reading a book recently where a character saw the "break" lights on the cars. And someone was waiting with "baited" breath. Or the book where a character put "peddle to the metal."

How much does it take to throw the reader out of the book so far that they don't come back?


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That probably depends on how good a storyteller the author is, and how compelling the characters are.

Sometimes there are minor hiccups. If a character makes a choice, and you've got a different solution, maybe that will make you stop reading for a moment and think about it. I was reading a scene where the characters had been interrupted once too often by the telephone in the bedroom, so they took it out. Perhaps the author was trying to find a reason for his character to have to leave the bedroom, and this was his solution. In my household, we simply turn the ringer off the bedroom phone. It seems a simply way to handle the rude awakenings. Thus, when I read the 'no more phone in the bedroom' scenario, I stop for a moment to think about my solution. Does it spoil the book? Of course not. But any time you slow the read, you're giving the reader an excuse to put the book down.

Sometimes an error tells the reader the author is lazy. If you're using a real drug, take a minute to research what it looks like. People who are familiar with the medication will know if you say it's yellow when it's blue.

Why does a flight from Hawaii land at the International terminal at LAX? Last I heard, Hawaii was part of the US.

Thumbing the safety off a Glock? That's the most common error made by writers dealing with firearms. I can skip over that with little more than a snicker. I don't know much about handguns, but I do know a Glock doesn't have that kind of safety.


I also know that it's "Canada goose" not "Canadian goose," even if "Canadian" sounds better. And that those big goldfish are "koi" not "coy" (although maybe they're coy koi.)
A cell phone that has a different ring tone every time it rings? I know you can assign a ringtone for various callers, but then you'll know who they are. If the author does that, then do it all the way. Don't have the person wonder who's calling. (Or are there now "random rings" available on cell phones?)

In writing my books, which deal with aspects of law enforcement, I do my best to get it right. Knowing what you don't know is often the hardest part. Thinking you do know something and not checking the facts (like assuming all semi-automatics have a safety you can thumb off) can get you in trouble.

But what about the death of a prominent politician in a car accident that's declared due to his being drunk because the cops smelled alcohol. Excuse me? That's a real stopper for me. No autopsy? No blood analysis? Where are the media?

Lee Lofland's book, "Police Procedures & Investigation"* has a great chapter called, "C.S. … I Don't Think So" which reminds readers that television is a medium of entertainment, not reality. Yet I had an editor once tell me that if I was going to write about police work, I should write what the readers believed to be true, not the way it really was. Since they watch television and read fiction for entertainment, they expect both to agree.

I don't fully agree. I had the pleasure of sharing a ride with Detective Mark (Homicide) Hussey to the Florida chapter of the Mystery Writers of America meeting on Saturday. (As an aside, he became a grandfather for the second time that morning.) Not only did he answer my multitude of questions about police procedure, he was kind enough to read my short story for police accuracy. I feel I owe that to my readers, and if it doesn't match what they see on television, I try to find a way to explain it on the page, without stopping the action.

Harlan Coben said, "It's fiction. I get to make stuff up." But the choice of what stuff to make up might be the difference between endearing or alienating a reader. What sorts of tolerance do you have? What bothers you enough to spoil a read?

*And don't forget, I have a copy of this excellent reference book to give away in my July contest. Be sure to enter. Details on my website.

Tomorrow, my guest is author Bess McBride. She'll be talking about family. And graveyards.

It’s Not All Donuts and Paperwork

I'm proud to host guest blogger Lee Lofland today. Some of you may already be familiar with his mega-popular blog, The Graveyard Shift. Lee's bio would be as long as his post, so suffice it to say, the man has credentials. Today, he's sharing some of his experiences working in law enforcement.

It’s Not All Donuts and Paperwork

I got my start in law enforcement as a corrections officer in a maximum-security prison. In our facility, all new C/Os (corrections officers) were required to start out working the graveyard shift, which I did. My sergeant on the midnight shift was a great guy, always filling in for officers who called in sick, needed to go home early, or for those who simply wanted a night off. My boss’s generosity toward his subordinates was quite unusual for a security supervisor in the prison system.


Normally, the white shirts (supervisors wore white shirts; line officers wore blue) working the late-night shifts spent their entire eight hours trying to find things officers had done wrong so they could “write them up.”

I once saw a supervisor crawling on his hands and knees, sneaking up on an officer, hoping to catch her sleeping. My sergeant was quite the opposite. If he could help anyone out of a jam, he did. I’ve even known him to assume a sleepy officer’s post so they could take a break and gather a second wind. Working graveyard in a prison, watching people during their slumber, can be a very monotonous, mind-numbing job.




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My sergeant was a fine man, liked by everyone who’d ever had the pleasure of working with him.

I worked in the prison system until the county sheriff hired me as a patrol deputy, a job I’d had in my sights since my teens.

I’d only been out of the police academy a few months when I received a particularly disturbing emergency call from the dispatcher. She told me a male teenager had barricaded himself inside his house, and was threatening suicide. My heart sank when I heard the address. It was the residence of my former sergeant at the prison. The troubled teen was his son.

I arrived at the house and found my old boss standing in his front yard. He was in uniform, ready for work, and he was extremely distraught. He fought back tears when he told me his son was inside with a loaded shotgun. Then I asked him where he’d last seen his son, and for a detailed description of the layout of the house. He said he hadn’t heard a sound since his son forced him outside. No blast from the shotgun, which was a good thing.

I used the sergeant’s key and went inside, where I found the young man seated on the living room floor. He held the barrel of the shotgun firmly against his chin. His thumb rested on the trigger. The safety was clearly off. His knuckles white from gripping the weapon. And he was crying.


I approached the boy slowly, talking about anything that came to mind—mostly gibberish. But the small talk distracted the boy, allowing me to take a seat on the hardwood floor beside him—no easy feat for a guy my size, wearing a gun belt, a Kevlar vest, and polished dress shoes. In a matter of seconds, I was sweating profusely. Every nerve in my body stood at attention. The gadgets on my belt dug into the tender flesh at my waist.

I was uncomfortable, but I didn’t dare move a muscle. I talked to the kid for twenty minutes, or so, with my eyes fixed on the trigger and the thumb that rested on it. He’d bitten the nail to the quick.

Finally, he relaxed his grip for a second and I made my move, grabbing the shotgun barrel with one hand and his trigger hand with my other. In one motion, I slid the shotgun across the floor and handcuffed the teenager.

I sat him upright and then he collapsed against me, crying uncontrollably. I held him until the tears stopped, and then we talked. I listened to his troubles, and then I explained what had to happen next—he’d be going in for a psychiatric evaluation. I also told him to call me if he ever felt the need to harm himself again. I let him know that I was there for him, as his dad had been for me, many times.

When he was ready, we stood and went outside. I don’t think the air had ever smelled any fresher, nor had there ever been a brighter moon.

Lee Lofland, a former police detective, is the author of Police Procedure and Investigation, A Guide For Writers, a 2008 Macavity nominee for best non-fiction mystery. He is a nationally acclaimed expert on police procedure and crime-scene investigation. You can learn more about Lee at his website, or at his blog The Graveyard Shift