How Not to Get Arrested Breaking Into Your Own Home – Guest Post by AJ Scudiere

There I was, about to start writing my second novel, but a great abyss had opened between me and the story.

When I wrote my first book, I clung tightly to the adage “write what you know.” I know science—biology, medicine, physics—and my first book, Resonance, is about scientists and magnetic polar reversal. It was a sound decision and a fun story with a deeper underlying message about family and the choices we make. But my publisher and I decided to swing wide for the second book.

Vengeance is a thrill ride about a young woman getting revenge on the mafia hitmen who killed her family. There’s always a ‘what you know’ portion of any story. I knew investigations (FBI character) and I knew characters not cleanly divided into good and bad, but I didn’t know the heart of my main character.

Sin is a martial artist, which I knew next to nothing about. I was a dancer. I know how to sew ribbons onto pointe shoes and how to stage a modern dance so there’s no part where everyone sticks their butt to the audience (yeah, that’s a thing.) So having a martial artist for a sister is CRAZY helpful!

Suddenly, I needed to know how to break into a house and strangle a man twice my size. And (maybe I hated myself?) one of the three main characters uses guns. A lot. And very well. I hadn’t really held a gun since . . . Brownies? And though I got my marksman badge, that was for a lightweight rifle. I don’t think there’s a patch for 9mm street guns with silencers.

I never expected to become “Research Girl” but I really am a whiz at it now. I started the way most of us do. I combed the internet, read everything I could, and watched YouTube videos. I kept a notebook.

After I did all this reading, I realized that I had tons of information I couldn’t really use. For example: I had figured out how to get weapons on planes. But TSA regulations change like the wind; would my methods still work next week? I researched home security systems and how to re-wire them without setting them off. But again, if things changed, I would have a very dated story. (Think of reading about a character dropping another off at the airport terminal! Or (haha) using a cool, new Blackberry!)

So I went outside and figured out how to break into my own home. Sure I could break a pane of glass or pick a lock, but I wanted something for a super secure home that would leave the owner unaware they’d been breached. I climbed a tree, stretched across a branch and plopped onto my roof. With no grace, but I showed myself it was plausible. It was at this point that I gathered some interesting data about being up there.

From the roof you can see into the neighbor’s house. You can see the elderly Mrs. Miller pointing at you while she’s on the phone. So I walked over to the edge of the roof and waved at her. Then I yelled. She’s hard of hearing on a good day, so thank goodness she was coming outside. I told her it was just me and listened as she said, “No, I guess we don’t need you. It’s the neighbor girl. . . no, I have no idea why she’s on her roof. Thank you.”

Blue lights averted, I looked around and found my roof vent. I removed it . .  . and dropped down into my attic. No one includes home security on their roof vents and every home has them. I was in.

I realize that not everyone has it in them to climb a tree and wiggle through a vent, but the more you can actually experience, the better writer you’ll be. The view from even a single-story home goes on forever. The shingles hold heat and feel like sharkskin, even through jeans. This is the texture that makes a story come alive.

I also needed to know how to deliver a good hit. So I took out some aggressions on a punching bag rather than a person. I registered how the hit reverberates up your arm, what it takes to ‘punch through’ the target. Then, using my kitchen knives, I stabbed to death a handful of watermelons and cantaloupes for this book. But I know what kind of force it takes now.

I also went to the shooting range, my research well in hand here. But I made a mistake. The line for the desk was long, and the two customers in front of me were tedious to even listen to. So when I got to the front, I was a bit . . . cranky. I asked the gun guy, “What would you carry to assassinate someone?”

To his never-ending credit, he returned volley. “Is it worth spending the rest of your life in prison?”

Answering as my main character, Lee, I said, “Yes,” and watched as the gun guy’s hand slid along the underside of the countertop. He was reaching for the panic button.

So I panicked! I dug into my large bag, which made him more nervous. Which is not good. But I was quick. I had a print copy of my first book at the ready. It was part of my planned intro before I had to listen to the numbskulls in line in front of me. I nearly shouted, “Look! I’m a writer! It’s for fiction.”

Once the gun range guy realized I wasn’t an actual menace to society, he happily informed me how wrong I was about what guns to carry. He located a truly ambidextrous gun—most are right-handed—because what if my character gets shot? Hurt? He has to be able to use his left hand to fire back. I later found and practiced a two-handed method.

I visited Van Nuys Gun World a good number of times. Wanting to be sure that what I wanted my characters to do was physically plausible, I tested it out and developed quite the reputation at the range. I was the crazy blonde girl who turns the human-shaped targets around and draws in the outlines of the organs. Yes, you can put a neat hole in someone’s lungs. Or trachea, if you can immobilize them.

So I can now, with accuracy, shoot two guns at the same time. I can’t use a 9mm in each hand because I’m 5’3″ and, well, a dancer. But I did it with .22s, and I know with practice accuracy can be achieved with both hands simultaneously.

A big problem is that, if the topic isn’t something you studied and lived, you don’t even know what you don’t know. On my own, I would have given my lead a variety of guns. Instead, he should carry all the same gun. So if one jams, he just tosses it. He’s not carrying any useless ammo now either—every bullet fits in every gun. I had NOT considered that.

I also had to outfit my characters. Having seen the movie Bowling for Columbine, I knew a single person in relatively normal looking clothing could be carrying an arsenal.

I just had to figure out how Sin and Lee would do it. I stapled more than I stitched, because I wasn’t actually going to assassinate anyone, but I figured it out. I borrowed my sister’s sais and her kamas (martial arts weapons and figured out what kind of carpenter loops or pockets they would need. Where did they have to be kept to not get in the way, but to be easy access.

I gave Lee an ankle holster (I bought one on the cheap—you have to love the things I write off for taxes!) and then figured out that my pants were totally in the way. I cut a slit in them, then added a flap like a pocket. No more lifting your pant leg to get your gun. Nope, lift leg, grab gun. Setting your leg back down leaves the gun in your hand with a tension holster. My husband thought I was completely crazy. (He still does.)

I wrote Vengeance, the first draft pouring out of me so fast my head spun. And I thought I was done. I went on to write God’s Eye, about the battle for a soul and the choices of good and evil. Then Phoenix—a firefighter with a fire and a missing brother in his past. For God’s Eye, I read and did historic research. For Phoenix, I found a fire station and lived at the house nearly twenty-four hours a day for four days. For The Shadow Constant, I learned about plantation restoration and the kinds of machines Big Oil would kill to keep off the market. And all the while, the fans told me that I was wrong about Vengeance. They insisted Sin and Lee weren’t done. It turned out they were right.

I needed a police ride-along for Retribution (Book 2 of what is now The SIN Trilogy). Sadly, doors were closed. PR departments wouldn’t return my calls. Some offered an academy for the public, but only six months from now and only on Tuesdays. In the end, a friend of a fan came through and I wound up with a much, much better ride-along than anything I could have found on my own.

I did 24 hours of ride-alongs with the police station and was granted personal tours and interview time with detectives, the dispatch director, evidence collection, street cops and SWAT. Ultimately, the research changed the story, as it always does for me. I knew only after that time in the PD that Sin wasn’t just using the police force as cover, she was a cop in her bones. She fit in, already the kind of person attracted to this kind of work. Nick, her direct boss, became fleshed out after that ride-along. He became real, complicated and conflicted.

Yes, you can write whatever you want . . . if you are writing only for yourself. I was online in a writer’s forum discussing exactly the need for research like this, when one person said, “But really, if it’s a good story, who cares?” Laughing, I took a screen shot of a message. A fan had written to me just the day before, just these two lines. “In the middle of Retribution, love it. Glocks don’t have manual safeties.”

Sigh. I know that. Did I not put the addition of the safety into the book? Did I put it there and it got edited out because the editor thought, “who knows that?” I wrote back to my fan about the ease of adding manual safeties to Glocks and how a good number of officers do, and why Sin would do it. I still have a fan.

So now I’m writing Justice, Book 3 of the SIN Trilogy, and I have new things to learn. Why did I put a character in a newly built subdivision? This means I now have to learn how to break into two-story homes, with neighbors ten to fifteen feet away . . . and no big trees. I’m off! I’m a writer, I have research to do.

Recommended Articles:
Vengeance – a Review
Retribution – a Review
AJ Scudiere Interview – Characters, Inspiration, and Fear
Them’s Fightin’ Words – Guest Post by AJ Scudiere