On Writing Knives: Don’t Confuse Switchblades with Assisted Openers

June 3, 2015September 3, 2015 / Ben / Leave a comment

Can you tell just by looking whether this is a switchblade or an assisted opener? Most people can’t. Click the pic to find out why. (Image via BLADE)

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It’s my lucky day, because the hits keep on coming. Lee Lofland hosted my guest blog post about the differences between switchblade and assisted opening knives over at The Graveyard Shift. Check it out for an interesting analysis of knife laws and current events as they relate to fiction. Continue reading →

Assault Weapons vs. Assault Rifles vs. What You’ve Heard

May 18, 2015March 11, 2016 / Ben / 8 Comments

When it comes to researching firearms for a story, don’t go by looks. One of these is a genuine assault rifle, and it’s limited to military use. The other is a model any U.S. civilian with a clean record could own, and is not an assault rifle. Can you tell the difference? Leave a comment with your guesses. (Photos via Colt and Gun Digest)

One of my favorite crime writers, Benjamin Whitmer, author of my pick for the best crime novel of 2014, Cry Father, made a post on his website today that caught my eye. It mentions a bit about politics and the president, two subjects I try to avoid on this blog, but I couldn’t ignore his excellent point about the terms “assault weapons” and “assault rifles.”

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What I Learned On My Recent Trip to Jail

April 28, 2015September 3, 2015 / Ben / Leave a comment

I found myself deep below the city streets of downtown Minneapolis on Monday last September, shoulder-to-shoulder in an underground city occupied by 800 of my fellow blaze orange Minnesotans. None of them were there for deer hunting, though.

The sign on the wall, the one near the line of new arrivals waiting to make their one free phone call, read “Hennepin County Jail.” That was before one of the high-risk inmates pressed his face against the glass of a window a few feet away and peered in at me. Oh, and my aunt. Continue reading →

What, Exactly, is a Switchblade?

April 28, 2015March 11, 2016 / Ben / 4 Comments

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: