Research Tips for Strengthening the Suspense Threads in Your Novel

by +AneMulligan  @AneMulligan

Sandra Orchard is the award-winning author of Deadly Devotion and Blind Trust with Revell Publishing and of many novels with Love Inspired Suspense. Her stories have garnered several Canadian Christian Writing Awards, a Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, and a Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense. She and her husband of 25+ years live in the heart of Niagara, Canada, not far from their three grown children and two adorable grandchildren. Learn more and check out the special bonus features for all her novels on her website or connect on Facebook

RESEARCH TIPS FOR STRENGTHENING THE SUSPENSE THREADS IN YOUR NOVEL

Since books and movies are fraught with inaccuracies when it comes to police and forensics etc, it’s easy to perpetuate those in our own stories. And to be honest, when I ask my go-to detective or my go-to former FBI agent questions, they’ll often say it’s fiction, you can fudge it to work. But…

The more you know about the elements in your story, the more authentic you can make them sound.

If you write in your contemporary novel that she smelled cordite after a gun was fired, every reader who knows anything about guns will know that you haven’t done your research—not the impression you want to make.

So where do you get your information? 

The internet is most writers first stop. You can input just about any question into Google’s search engine and get hundreds of thousands of answers. Some that might even be right.

But don’t let the internet be your only stop.

Other fabulous secondary sources include training manuals and autobiographies. They are great references and provide tons of inspiration for actual scenes you might use in your book.

When I wrote my upcoming release, Identity Withheld, which has a firefighter hero, I read a firefighter’s training manual and watched countless YouTube videos of fires to see how they travelled and to see what firefighters were doing and to hear what was going on. I often Google sounds and listen to them over and over so I can describe them.

Another great thing about the internet is that it makes it easy to connect with primary sources. Professionals in various fields, from police to lawyers to weapons experts, have started websites or yahoo loops to answer writers’ questions. A couple of my favorites are The Graveyard Shift and the Crime Scene Writers’ Loop.

But don’t be afraid to call or email professionals directly. While researching Identity Withheld, I spoke to volunteer firefighters, full-time firefighters, a retired fire chief, a paramedic and a retired fire marshal. Each provided different insights that proved vital to crafting the story. And all were eager to share their knowledge.

If you can visit such professionals in person, all the better!

Seeing and handling and smelling and otherwise experiencing the things you wish to include in your book is invaluable in depicting it in a gripping way. The Writer’s Police Academy was such an opportunity for me.

I did the same Firearms Training Simulator that recruits do and I’ll tell you when I shot a hostage taker in the head and saw his brains splattered on the wall behind him, in the uncomfortably realistic interactive video, I nearly went ballistic on the cop who commended me on my great shot.

But whew, afterward, could I ever accurately write about what goes through your mind and body in moments like those. And I had a far better appreciation for the internal conflicts my characters might deal with as a result.

Locally, you could visit a shooting range or participate in a citizen’s academy.

Be bold.

Thanks to being bold, I was able to meet my heroine’s “colleagues” at the St. Louis FBI headquarters while visiting the city to research the backdrop for my next mystery series with Revell.

The FBI has a unit dedicated to providing assistance to authors and movie producers. There is a formal process for seeking assistance, which you can read about here: http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2008/october/a-guide-for-writers-authors-and-producers-1

My contact has been fabulously helpful and arranged for an on-site interview while I was in St. Louis. The Special Agent and media contact I met while there were incredibly generous with their time, and patient in answering my questions and offering insights into how they operate.

It will be another year before that story hits bookshelves, but in the meantime, you can check out how I incorporated my fire investigation and witness security research into Identity Withheld:

WITNESS IN HIDING

After exposing an illegal adoption ring, newly named “Kara Grant” is promised safety in Witness Protection. But someone has found her—and wants her dead. If only she could trust the handsome firefighter who catches her fleeing from a suspicious fire. Jake Steele seems to think she’s guilty of burning her own home. But how can she tell him who she really is and what she’s been through without bringing danger to the widowed father’s door? Yet with the criminals fast closing in, taking such a risk might be her only chance at survival. Because the price she’ll pay for her silence could be her life.

As a special bonus, Deadly Devotion, first book in Sandra's Port Aster Secrets will be offered in free e-format on October 16th for one day only.

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Breaking In- Debut Author Sandra Orchard

Sandra Orchard was the 2009 Daphne DuMaurier Award of Excellence winner in the unpublished category and sold to Harlequin’s Love Inspired Suspense the following year. She lives in rural Ontario, Canada where inspiration abounds for her novels set in the fictional Niagara town she's created as their backdrop. Married with three grown children, when not writing, she enjoys hanging out with family, brainstorming new stories with fellow writers, and hiking or kayaking in God's beautiful creation. Visit her at her website.

How did you come up with this story? Was there a specific 'what if' moment?

The idea for the series came from wondering how believers who are undercover cops reconcile the bad things they’re obligated to do in the execution of their assignments with their faith. For the first book, I explore the question what if an undercover cop finds the perfect woman, but can’t tell her who he really is or what he does for a living? Worse than that, what if his mission threatens her safety and he can’t tell her?

Did anything strange or funny happen while researching or writing your book?

Yes, actually. Even though I had an agent who was prepared to submit the story to LIS for me, on a whim I entered the first fifty pages in the 2010 Golden Heart. I’d never entered that contest before and wasn’t sure what to expect. What I didn’t expect was to have the entry

disqualified by one of the judges for being in the wrong category! Needless to say, it was very satisfying to see the judge proven wrong.

Every novelist has a journey. How long was your road to publication? How did you find out and what went through your mind?

I’d been writing fiction for almost six years, when I got “the call”. It was actually an email. My emails are preprogrammed to go to different folders. So when I saw that I had a new email in my Agent folder the day after Labor Day—the day my agent sa

id the editor would give us her response to my manuscript—my heart sank. I figured that if I’d gotten the contract my agent would call. So…I read all my other email before I even opened the folder!

Do you ever bang your head against the wall from writer's block? If so, how do you overcome it?

Oh yes. I check email, surf the net, eat, match socks, complain, lament, complain. Oh wait…you mean how do I break out of it? Well, that’s a topic for a whole other blog. (Sept 19^th at Seekerville to be exact.) But I’ll tell you that one of my most consistently reliable methods is to jump ahead to a scene that I can visualize and start writing from there. Oftentimes, things will present themselves that allow me to work backward.

Do you consider yourself a visual writer? If so, what visuals do you use?

No, I’m the kind of reader who skips over all those details about what kind of clothes characters are wearing etc. I wouldn’t know a Prada from a you name it. That said, I do search out photos that depict my hero and heroine and then keep running notes as to hair and eye color etc. so that my green-eyed blond heroine isn’t brown-haired and brown eyed by the end of the book…unless of course she’s going undercover!

Novelists sometimes dig themselves into a hole over implausible plots, flat characters or a host of other problems. What's the most difficult part of writing for you?

Pacing. Once I know the suspense plot, I want to rush through and make it happen, but in the process I tend to neglect the romantic thread.

How do you overcome it?

I write in layers. I get the suspense plot down. Then I go back and look at how it can be stretched out in order to layer in more romantic tension and character development.

Where do you write: In a cave, a coffeehouse, or a

cozy attic nook?

I have a small office with a u-shaped desk and along one wall there’s a nine-foot long counter with cupboards beneath and a bulletin board above for storyboarding.

What does a typical day look like for you?

I take my dog for a walk with my neighbor, have breakfast, and do devotions, then my days are pretty much dedicated to the various aspects of writing, whether that be writing a new chapter, revising a finished one, writing a blog or writing marketing copy. I break for lunch, and sometimes my afternoons are spent doing chores or enjoying my grandbaby or visiting shut-ins or getting together with writing buddies to brainstorm ideas. If not, I keep going the same as the morning. After supper and spending time with family, I often read—fiction, or nonfiction on writing craft or marketing. My most productive writing time for “new material” is usually between 10 pm and midnight after my internal editor has gone to bed.

Some authors report writing 5-10 thousand words a day. Do scenes flow freely from your veins or do you have to tweeze each word out?

Except for those magical midnight hours I mentioned in the last question, I have to tweeze out each and every word. Although… if I move out of the office and write with pen and paper, the words often flow better, probably because my brain doesn’t slip into edit mode. But… it takes me so long afterward to type up what I’ve written, because I edit as I go so that the net result for the time is about the same.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve heard?

Write what you love to read, where your heart is, not to the ever-shifting market.

Do you have any parting words of advice?

Remember what Winston Churchill said, "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." And enjoy the journey!

Deep Cover is the first book in my Love Inspired Suspense series, Undercover Cops: Fighting for justice puts their lives—and hearts—on the line.

IDENTITY: GUARDED

Maintaining his cover cost undercover cop Rick Gray the woman he loved. Sweet Ginny Bryson never really knew Rick. He never gave her the chance. Not then, and not now, when he's back with a new alias to gather evidence against Ginny's uncle. The man's crimes led to Rick's partner's death, and Rick wants justice to be served. But his investigation is stirring up trouble, and Ginny is smack-dab in the middle. Someone wants Ginny to pay the price for what her uncle has done. But how can Rick protect her without blowing his cover, jeopardizing his assignment...and risking both their lives?

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