Hands Up and Hands On

My debut thriller, NEARLY GONE, is still six months from release. Now the real work begins... writing the sequel. Book 2 presents some unique challenges, as my protagonist, Nearly Boswell, accepts an internship in her local forensic science lab and ends up knee-deep in a series of bizarre murders. This book is taking me in some new directions, and my process so far has been steeped in research -- everything from forensics to criminal investigations to the visitation policies of our nation's most secure maximum security prisons.

In recent weeks, I've enjoyed some amazing hands-on, behind-the-scenes research opportunities, with the goal of making Nearly's next mystery as thrilling (and believable) as it can be!

Tour of the Northern VA Forensics Lab

In August, I toured the Virginia Department of Forensic Science Northern Lab in Manassas, VA, the exact lab where Nearly will become an intern in book 2. I was unable to take photos inside the building, but I had a chance to talk with firearms and tool mark experts, see inside a Latent Fingerprint Lab, peep through the glass windows of DNA and Toxicology Labs, and understand the chain of custody from the time evidence is collected, to the time it leaves the lab. Tours of the attached Medical Examiner's Facility (and autopsy suite) are no longer permitted, but I did get a much better understanding of how the M.E. and forensic examiners work together, and in what circumstances their work overlaps. The big takeaway lesson of the day was that evidence collection, body examination and retrieval, evidence processing, and the rules for retaining and/or disposing of evidence after an investigation are handled differently from state to state.


Writers' Police Academy

It was another stellar year at the Writers' Police Academy in Guildford County, North Carolina, and this year, we had a sensational turnout from the kidlit community!

CJ Omololu did hard time in the Jail Search class

This year's classes included: Building Searches, Blood Interpretation, Footwear Impressions, Fingerprinting, Use of DNA Evidence in the Courtroom, Criminal Drug Interdiction, Prostitution, Human Trafficking, Murder Typology, Fire Scene Investigation, Undercover Cops, Threat Assessments of Pre-Incident Mass-Shooters, Cold Cases, Chiefs vs Sheriffs, Gunfights, DWI/Texting While Driving, Criminal Investigation & Sexual Assault, Gangs, Underwater Recovery, Code Blue, Interview and Interrogation, Forensic Identification, How Criminals Get Their Guns, Secrets Behind The Secret Service, Women In Law Enforcement, SWAT Operations, Handcuffing Techniques, Killing With Microorganisms, and Crime Scene Lighting, Police Tools & Equipment, Jail Searches, and more...

Hands-on and live demonstrations included K-9 Demos, Vehicle Extrications, Hazardous Devices Bomb Detonation Demo, Fire Arms Training Simulations, Driving Simulations, and Felony Traffic Stop Demonstrations.

Guest speakers included NY Times Bestseller Lisa Gardner, world-renowned DNA expert Dan Krane, and forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs, author of the series that inspired the hit TV show, Bones.

Fingerprinting Class

Live Nighttime Demonstration of a Felony Traffic Stop

Live Hazardous Devices Bomb Detonation Demonstration

Presentations and signings by Lisa Gardner & Kathy Reichs
(pictured left to right, Elle Cosimano with Lisa Gardner)

Live EMS Crime Scene Response Demonstration 

Fire Scene Investigation Demonstration

Anywhere can be a crime scene -- even the WPA Banquet!
(pictured left to right, Kate Bassett and Shelli Johannes-Wells)

Ride-Along with Guilford County Sheriff's Office

Elle rides-along with Deputy Rodney Walker

Four hours in the passenger seat of a patrol car, even on a slow night, was an eye-opener! Deputy Walker answered all my questions, from procedural and technical inquiries to the more personal/emotional aspects of his job. In that brief span of time, we visited a trailer park to fulfill an outstanding arrest warrant, issued a traffic citation, responded to a report of a domestic dispute, clocked radar, visited the field office, and provided support to another deputy on patrol. Deputy Walker also gave me a stern lecture on not taking on unknown (and potentially dangerous) individuals as hotel roommates. After seeing the photo from the Banquet (above), I guess I can understand why.


Want to conduct research for your own story, and not sure where to start? Nervous about contacting your local forensic lab or requesting a ride-along with your local sheriff's office? Want to know more about WPA? Point and shoot your questions about finding hands-on research opportunities here!

Creative License: When NOT To Research

Confession: I'm an ex-academic. I languished in a Ph.D. program for years, endlessly researching an uninspired dissertation that I ended up never finishing. My long experiment with graduate school is a story for another post, I guess ("Why Pursuing a Ph.D. Should Be a Calling, Not a Fallback Option During an Economic Recession." Or, "Why You Should Cut Loose Your Safety Net -- Because It's Not So Safe!")

In those years I spent training to be a literary critic and a scholar, I developed a facility for research. That's good, right? Yes. I knew how to find information, and fast.

But I also developed a certain defensiveness.

In grad school, we were always on the defense, fortifying ourselves against professors who probed for intellectual potholes, or opportunistic young colleagues eager to knock down our arguments in a seminar and score a few points for themselves.

Or maybe it wasn't like that at all. Maybe I simply had a luxury of time back then to overthink, and to worry, and this is what sent me scurrying to the library day after day after day.

That need for research eventually carried into my fiction writing. First I wrote historical novels (not published), which might have still been that unwritten dissertation, in new clothes.

Then I wrote a mystery (Tokyo Heist) which centered on worlds that interested me greatly, but that I knew little about, initially: art conservation, the Japanese yakuza, Vincent van Gogh, Japanese woodblock prints, manga . . . if I didn't know about it, I was determined to find out about it and put it in my book!

With all the research I had to do, it's no wonder that book took eight years to write.

That pace is unsustainable, of course, for an aspiring career novelist. So when I had to write my next mystery -- with a book contract and a deadline -- I knew I didn't have the luxury of researching every detail.

For my forthcoming Latitude Zero, I chose a topic a little closer to home for me -- bicycling, a sport that I do -- and a country, Ecuador, where I once lived and worked. However, as I rounded out my main character's world, I realized I still had to do some research. (How do bike mechanics work? How are professional racing teams organized? How has Ecuador changed since I lived there over a decade ago?) But this time, I saved most of my research for after the first draft. I tried to get the story straight before I worried too much about facts. This saved me hours -- maybe weeks or months -- of research that was not needed, research I might have been tempted to shoehorn awkwardly into my plot.

I also found creative freedom in writing this book by letting go of the need to research every last detail myself. I had experts in various fields read the manuscript and vet facts or descriptions that I was worried about.

And a few things, I let go of completely.

I have a scene, for example, where a character is trapped in a shipping container with a whole bunch of bikes. In the past, worried about getting this key scene right, I would have arranged to see a shipping container packed with bikes up close. Not impossible. There's a bike shop here in Boston that packs up containers with bikes to send overseas, and they're always looking for volunteers. I volunteered at an art museum as part of my research for Tokyo Heist, so I thought I would do similar hands-on research with this book.

It wasn't easy. I tried on four separate occasions to get to a bike container load so I could see what it looked like firsthand. Family obligations got in the way every time. I was not a parent when I drafted my first book. Now I am. I don't have the luxury of time to immerse myself in every aspect my main character's worlds, as I had done before.

Beta readers looked at the scene -- and said it was gripping. I finally saw the light. I didn't need to research the life out of that scene. It was enough for me to watch a video of a shipping container bike load, to study some pictures of how the containers were locked, and then go write the scene. Readers were not likely to complain that my portrayal was not realistic. After all, how many people have been locked in a shipping container with 400 bikes? I'm guessing not many. If anyone came forward to accuse me of inaccuracy ("being trapped in a shipping container isn't like that at all!"), they'd be few and far between. So I decided to give myself some creative license and make up the experience myself. And it was fun!

In that spirit, towns in my book -- once real -- were demolished, and rebuilt as fictional entities. This freed me from the need to go out and check road signs and intersections and travel times from point A to point B. And after fruitlessly looking for a charity bike ride that my main characters might embark on, I made one up from scratch, including a route and all the logistics.

I still think research is important. Incorrect facts can pull readers right out of a book. And I still have a fat binder of research that I did for this new book -- and I still ended up venturing into unknown worlds, because I love to explore and to learn. But I've also learned to be more focused, more selective, in my information-gathering. We can let research take over, or become an excuse for not writing. As novelists, we have the license to make up a whole bunch of stuff. We should embrace our creative freedom -- and run from the temptation to over-research!

What about you? Do you tend to do too much research? Too little? How do you find a balance? When in the process do you do your research?

PS . . . have you entered SLEUTHAPALOOZA, our biggest giveaway yet? Help us celebrate our two-year anniversary and enter to win, or help spread the word! 

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Diana Renn grew up in Seattle and now lives outside of Boston with her husband and young son. Her first novel, TOKYO HEIST (Viking/Penguin) came out in 2012. Her next YA mystery, LATITUDE ZERO, will be published by Viking in July 2014. She is also the Fiction Editor at YARN (Young Adult Review Network).