A Kick in the Pants

by Teresa Burrell, Author of Legal/Suspense Murder Mysteries

When I read a novel and I can feel the emotions that the characters are feeling I just know that the author has felt that at one time or another. Likely, in a very different setting, but I expect with the same heartache or pleasure, depending, of course, on the emotion. Sometimes you can feel the passion through the page, or the pain.

The venue for my novels is juvenile court. The subject matter is often child abuse. When I get into a part of the book where I’m dealing with a situation where a child has been abused, it’s easy for me to write from a “place of pain” because I’ve worked with so many of these cases. I have felt their pain.

But I go to a happier place to clear my head and think of evil plots. And sometimes to get past my “fear” as Drew Kaufman so eloquently described it in his last blog. Here is where I go. I took this photo yesterday on my daily walk. This inspires me, relaxes me, clears my head for more great ideas to come, and for just a brief moment in times washes away the fear.

 

I’m so fortunate to live in paradise and I try to go here every afternoon and rejuvenate after sitting at the computer for hours plotting and planning murder (for my books, of course).

Do you have a special place to go to deal with life’s problems, get a good kick in the pants to get you rolling again, to alleviate your fears, or just to feel? This place does all of that and more for me.

Now, if I could just get this view from my home...

A Writer Walks Into a Strip Bar. . .

Joining us on Thursdays is Teresa Burrell: author, attorney, and child advocate. We all know her from a previous publisher, crime fiction conferences, or geographical proximity. She's smart, funny, charming, and one of the hardest working authors we know. And her passion is evident in the mysteries she writes. Here's Teresa in her own words:

Do you ever get irritated when you're reading a novel and something strikes you as just plain wrong? It could be a fact, or a scene, or a behavior. I don't know about you, but it throws me right out of the book. While my mind is struggling with what the scene should really be, I lose track of the story line.

I recently read two different books by very good writers and the legal scenarios were incorrect. One was a courtroom scene that wasn't at all like real life. The other, even more painful, was where the legal premise was incorrect. That's just unfair to the reader because the recipient of this information will often walk away thinking what he or she read is "the law." Sure, we're writing fiction, but I believe we have a responsibility to make our facts, our scenes, our characters both realistic and accurate.

This is not to say you have to know everything there is to know about what you write. You do not need to be a lawyer to write legal fiction, a doctor to write medical fiction, or in law enforcement to write a police procedural. But if something is crucial to your story, you do need to have an expert consultant.

I believe this to be true of every part of your novel. For example, my latest manuscript has a scene in a strip bar with a lap dance. It's not meant to be graphic, so I don't need a lot of detail, but I feel like I need to set the scene correctly. Now, I've never had a lap dance but I did go to a male strip bar once for a bachelorette party so I have some knowledge beyond what I've seen on television. I started calling my male friends, the ones I knew had received lap dances, and I've gained a whole lot of insight--much more than I cared to know. Research can be a lot of fun.

As a reader, what happens to you when you come across something in a novel that you know to be incorrect? Does it ruin the story for you? Do you ignore it and go on? Do you think the author has a responsibility to be accurate? Does it keep you from reading books by that author again?

As a writer, you often hear, "Write what you know." This is the reason I write legal suspense and not romance novels. . .