APRIL HENRY, WRITER
  • Home
  • Past News
  • Bio
    • Goodbye, 2021
    • How my Apple watch saved my life
    • Masks for Covid-19
    • In the name of research
    • Why I write scary things
    • Roald Dahl Made Me a Writer
    • Fun Facts about April
    • Questions teachers often assign
    • 10 Reasons I Love Martial Arts
    • Learning to Fight Back
    • Dear Teen Me
    • My Parents >
      • My Dad, Hank Henry >
        • Witnessing Nat King Cole's Greatest Hit
      • My Mom, Nora Henry >
        • My Mom and the Round Rock
    • My great-grandfather, the killer
    • I come from a long line of criminals
  • Books
    • For Teens (and Adults) >
      • Future books
      • Girl Forgotten
      • Two Truths and a Lie
      • Eyes of the Forest
      • Playing with Fire
      • The Girl in the White Van
      • Run, Hide, Fight Back
      • The Lonely Dead
      • Count All Her Bones
      • The Girl I Used to Be
      • Blood Will Tell (2nd in the Point Last Seen series)
      • The Body in the Woods (1st in the Point Last Seen series)
      • The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die
      • The Night She Disappeared
      • Girl, Stolen
      • Torched
      • Shock Point
    • For Adults (and Teens) >
      • Lethal Beauty (3rd in the Mia Quinn series)
      • A Deadly Business (2nd in the Mia Quinn mystery series)
      • Matter of Trust (1st in Mia Quinn series)
      • Face of Betrayal (1st in the Triple Threat series)
      • Hand of Fate (2nd in the Triple Threat series)
      • Heart of Ice (3rd in the Triple Threat series)
      • Eyes of Justice (4th in the Triple Threat series)
      • Learning to Fly
      • Circles of Confusion (1st in Claire Montrose series)
      • Square in the Face (2nd in the Claire Montrose series)
      • Heart-Shaped Box (3rd in the Claire Montrose series)
      • Buried Diamonds (4th in the Claire Montrose series)
    • Foreign Covers
  • Events
    • Calendar
    • About My School Visits
    • A Sneak Peek at a School Visit
  • Fun
    • FAQ
    • Does Your Character Need a Job?
    • Girl, Stolen Alternative Covers
    • I Get Letters
    • Blob on the Side of the Filing Cabinet
    • Books I Like
    • JB's Cinnamon Rolls
    • Vanity Plates
    • Diary of My First Book Tour (From 2000)
    • 1999 Interview with James Lee Burke
    • 1997 Interview with Carol Shields
    • Oregon, the Writer's Toronto
    • Stealing From Myself to Create A Character
    • Panties in a Twist
    • Heteronyms
  • Write
    • How to get an agent
    • Videos with writing tips
    • Writers writing during Covid-19
    • Tips for writers
    • Story starters
    • Write what you know?
    • What if you get stuck?
    • More tips about writing
    • Need to create a fake social media profile?
    • How to start a new book
    • My daughter is 14 - how can she be published?
    • I'm a teen writer-can you give me feedback?
    • Student Writing
    • How to get it right
    • Questions about writing from two teens
    • Should I pay to be published?
  • Blog
  • Contact

How—and why—to get the details right 

“Ah!” Next to me, Hannah screamed as she was stun-gunned by one of our captors. For a brief moment, I was relieved that he’d chosen her and not me. (Forgive me, Hannah.) But soon the prongs were pressed against my neck and I was the one screaming.

At that moment, it was hard to believe I’d actually paid good money to be there. Hannah and I weren’t really kidnap victims. Instead we were taking onPoint Tactical’s Urban Escape and Evasion class. Past participants have included Navy SEALs and special ops folks from various federal agencies. Hannah and I were the first novelists to attend.

The first two days were spent in a hotel room, learning how to pick locks, improvise weapons, get out of zip ties and handcuffs, fend off attack dogs, create fake IDs, and more. The third day we were taken hostage: handcuffed, hooded, duct tape slapped over our mouths. Our captors wore ski masks and carried long guns.
We had to use everything we’d learned first to escape, and then to avoid the ten hunters looking for us. We had no idea who they were, but they had our photos, and they knew the route we would take.

Urban Escape and Evasion was the most intense (and useful!) research I’ve ever done, but I research everything. Is it true that a metal potato peeler can be used as a screwdriver? Yes. Is it really possible to saw through zip ties with your own shoelace? Not unless your captor is using skinny zip ties never meant to restrain a human.
To create a fictional world that’s feels real, you need to do your research. Here’s how I approach researching my mysteries and thrillers.

Read
Reading is the first step. In The Lonely Dead, a character died on the Oregon Trail. To understand how she would talk, I read a half-dozen Oregon Trail diaries.
When I interviewed a DNA expert for Blood Will Tell, I didn’t start with “explain DNA to me.” First I did a lot of reading and then asked specific questions about Y-STR DNA.
Reading is also useful for adding sensory details about something you personally wouldn’t want to experience. I have googled phrases like “I almost drowned” or “when the dog bit me” to find first-person accounts.

Ask
People like to talk about their jobs or hobbies. If I’m just looking for general information, I first do some reading and then take someone to lunch or coffee and ask questions like:
  • What was your funniest case? Scariest? Favorite?
  • What was the biggest surprise about your job? Something you didn’t expect?
  • What’s the best part of job? Worst?
  • What’s one thing TV or books always gets wrong?
I also present specific problems. For The Lonely Dead, I asked a therapist friend what she would do if a teenage patient claimed she could talk to the dead. For The White Van, which comes out in 2020, I asked my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructor what a concussion felt like.

Where to find sources? My local chapter of Sisters in Crime (misters welcome as well) has experts speak monthly. I’m a member of the online group Crime Scene Writers, which has lots of retired law enforcement personnel willing to answer questions. And I’ve had good luck emailing experts I find online.

Try it yourself
Your imagination can only take you so far. When I was writing Girl, Stolen, which is about a blind teen, I purchased a collapsible white cane and learning basic caning technique. I also spent a day at The Guide Dog School for the Blind. At the end I was blindfolded and told to harness a guide dog using only my sense of touch to guide me. We won’t discuss how my first attempt ended with me harnessing the tail end of the dog.

In The Girl I Used to Be, the handcuffed main character is being chased through the woods by the person who killed her parents 14 years earlier. So I went to a park with a wooded area, donned a pair of handcuffs, and started running. It turned out to be fairly easy. The only downside was that day the normally quiet park was full of other runners. Interestingly, most of them didn’t notice my handcuffs.

In my upcoming The White Van, two girls are being held hostage in an old RV parked in the back of a wrecking yard. I talked the City of Portland into letting me tour abandoned RVs they had towed off the streets. Using various household items, I tried to open a Phillips head screw, the kind that’s used to fasten RV ceiling vents. And I visited a pick-n-pull wrecking yard to see what might be lying around on the ground to be used as a weapon. (Lots of things, as it turns out!)

One small but deeply meaningful way to try things yourself is to go about your normal day while seeing everything through the eyes of your character. A cop or an assassin is going to notice totally different things than you do.

Take a class
​
A class can give you in-depth knowledge you can’t gain any other way. Last year I spent a week in Wyoming at Launch Pad, a course for writers creating works about science and space.

I’ve also taken classes in firearms, knife fighting, knife throwing, close combat, self-defense, blind self-defense, and active shooter response. Many of these classes were held by martial arts schools. I’ve attended the FBI Citizens Academy, the Writers Police Academy (held at a real police and fire academy), and gone on ride-alongs with officers. I’ve taken classes with teenage volunteers for Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue. And I recently became certified in wilderness medicine because a character in an upcoming book has extensive first aid experience.

​Don’t rely on your best guess, making stuff up, or using something you saw on TV. You owe it to your readers to get it right by reading, asking questions, and experiencing things yourself. And research will make your book so much better!
  • Home
  • Past News
  • Bio
    • Goodbye, 2021
    • How my Apple watch saved my life
    • Masks for Covid-19
    • In the name of research
    • Why I write scary things
    • Roald Dahl Made Me a Writer
    • Fun Facts about April
    • Questions teachers often assign
    • 10 Reasons I Love Martial Arts
    • Learning to Fight Back
    • Dear Teen Me
    • My Parents >
      • My Dad, Hank Henry >
        • Witnessing Nat King Cole's Greatest Hit
      • My Mom, Nora Henry >
        • My Mom and the Round Rock
    • My great-grandfather, the killer
    • I come from a long line of criminals
  • Books
    • For Teens (and Adults) >
      • Future books
      • Girl Forgotten
      • Two Truths and a Lie
      • Eyes of the Forest
      • Playing with Fire
      • The Girl in the White Van
      • Run, Hide, Fight Back
      • The Lonely Dead
      • Count All Her Bones
      • The Girl I Used to Be
      • Blood Will Tell (2nd in the Point Last Seen series)
      • The Body in the Woods (1st in the Point Last Seen series)
      • The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die
      • The Night She Disappeared
      • Girl, Stolen
      • Torched
      • Shock Point
    • For Adults (and Teens) >
      • Lethal Beauty (3rd in the Mia Quinn series)
      • A Deadly Business (2nd in the Mia Quinn mystery series)
      • Matter of Trust (1st in Mia Quinn series)
      • Face of Betrayal (1st in the Triple Threat series)
      • Hand of Fate (2nd in the Triple Threat series)
      • Heart of Ice (3rd in the Triple Threat series)
      • Eyes of Justice (4th in the Triple Threat series)
      • Learning to Fly
      • Circles of Confusion (1st in Claire Montrose series)
      • Square in the Face (2nd in the Claire Montrose series)
      • Heart-Shaped Box (3rd in the Claire Montrose series)
      • Buried Diamonds (4th in the Claire Montrose series)
    • Foreign Covers
  • Events
    • Calendar
    • About My School Visits
    • A Sneak Peek at a School Visit
  • Fun
    • FAQ
    • Does Your Character Need a Job?
    • Girl, Stolen Alternative Covers
    • I Get Letters
    • Blob on the Side of the Filing Cabinet
    • Books I Like
    • JB's Cinnamon Rolls
    • Vanity Plates
    • Diary of My First Book Tour (From 2000)
    • 1999 Interview with James Lee Burke
    • 1997 Interview with Carol Shields
    • Oregon, the Writer's Toronto
    • Stealing From Myself to Create A Character
    • Panties in a Twist
    • Heteronyms
  • Write
    • How to get an agent
    • Videos with writing tips
    • Writers writing during Covid-19
    • Tips for writers
    • Story starters
    • Write what you know?
    • What if you get stuck?
    • More tips about writing
    • Need to create a fake social media profile?
    • How to start a new book
    • My daughter is 14 - how can she be published?
    • I'm a teen writer-can you give me feedback?
    • Student Writing
    • How to get it right
    • Questions about writing from two teens
    • Should I pay to be published?
  • Blog
  • Contact