I can now make it official: David Morrell, the author of First Blood and creator of Rambo, will be writing the foreword to my Writer’s Digest book, The Writer’s Guide to Weapons: A Practical Reference for Using Firearms and Knives in Fiction. Continue reading
All Knife Articles
On Weapons and Crime Fiction
Coming from a family of sportsmen and women, I got to know firearms and knives at an early age. This has benefited me when writing about them in crime fiction. This also made me a picky reader when it comes to depictions of weapons in fiction. It seems some have either never handled a weapon or based everything off Hollywood movies. Continue reading
Knives for UK Serial Killers
In the first of what I hope to be a recurring segment, UK author Richard Butchins has the helm today to discuss how he selected the weapons featured in his crime novel, Pavement. The piece, due out in September but available for pre-order now, focuses on a loner who turns to killing.
What’s interesting to me – and hopefully others – is the thought process that goes into assigning a character a certain firearm or knife. Plots in thrillers and crime fiction pivot on firearms and knives. Their selection can be very important. I detail my own step-by-step process in my upcoming book from Writer’s Digest. Continue reading
What, Exactly, is a Switchblade?
I was reading a thriller last night where a character popped open a switchblade to slit the throat of someone pinned in a car wreck. (Took a lot of guts to do that, chump.) There’s nothing wrong with that passage, but it made me wonder if writers and readers know what it is that makes a knife a switchblade.
Switchblades’ Two Key Features
When most people picture a switchblade, they imagine something like this Shutterstock pic:
What are Armor-Piercing Knives?
You’ve heard of armor-piercing bullets, but what about armor-piercing knives?
The term “armor-piercing” is a little loaded to begin with, something that seems to make perfect sense on the surface but loses ground when the technical layers are peeled back. What type of armor is being pierced? Is it on a person or a structure? How is the piercing blow delivered? Is there a guarantee of it working every time or just some of the time? When does McDonald’s stop serving breakfast on the weekends? These are questions that aren’t apparent right off the bat. Continue reading
The Writer's Guide to Weapons 