Jimping: The Secret Shortcut for Choosing Characters’ Knives

/ Ben / 4 Comments

Jimping: Not a Dance

Even though it sounds like yet another dance move I’ll never try without a few drinks (joke’s on you, suckers, I don’t drink), “jimping” is not at all related to limping, jumping or even pimping. When we’re talking about writing knives in fiction, jimping is the row of toothy grooves roughly located where the handle meets the blade. Like blade tangs, jimping is an overlooked part of choosing a knife for a character.

Here’s a look at what I’m talking about. This is my Benchmade Nimravus Cub II, my favorite fixed blade knife in fiction and reality.

What is Jimping Writing Knives Fiction

“Jimping” is sometimes spelled as “gimping,” although the first version is how I’d write it.

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

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m16 vs ar15

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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How Gun Smoke Can Shape a Scene

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Gunsmoke Shooting Writing Tips

Handguns usually kick out more smoke per shot given there isn’t a long barrel to trap the smoke as it dissipates. This is especially true with cheap ammunition. Generally speaking, if your character can afford or has access to premium ammunition, there won’t be as much smoke because the powder burns cleaner. In that way, the amount of smoke might be an indicator of who the character is in a gunfight scene. Scrappy characters using cheap ammo would be surrounded by more smoke, and professional gunfighters would be clouded in less. (Photo by milan6 via sxc.hu)

Crime writer James Pierson dropped a question into the comments on the What’s that Smell? Cordite vs. Gunpowder vs. Propellant article, and I thought it’d be helpful to turn it into its own post. As always, I’m happy to help with any writerly questions on guns and knives. Just leave a comment or use the submission form.

Here’s James’s question:

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What’s a Good Cop Knife?

/ Ben / 1 Comment
Protech automatic knives

Here’s a shortcut: Just write in a Protech automatic knife. Protech makes great automatics (aka switchblades in the modern era) that would work well in almost any scenario in fiction. Of course, the shortcut to the shortcut is to keep it simple by writing “knife” and leaving it at that. Remember to keep depictions equally generic. (Photo via BLADE magazine)

The post What’s a Good Cop Gun? attracted a nice chunk of traffic, so I figured it needed a follow up post about “cop knives.” That’s not a term I’ve heard used often in fiction or writing groups, but for the sake of this post let’s assume it means “a knife a law enforcement character would carry as an everyday tool.”

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What’s that Smell? Cordite vs. Gunpowder vs. Propellant

/ Ben / 64 Comments

TLDR: Avoid depicting cordite, use gunpowder as a default, reference propellant to look like a smarty pants.

Gunpowder propellant cordite fiction writing

Modern gunpowder (aka propellant) doesn’t always look like a powder. It’s still OK to call it gunpowder when writing, though.

When articles debunk common firearm tropes in fiction, they usually mention how the “smell of cordite” isn’t in the air after a gunfight. Cordite’s heyday as the substance that makes a gun go bang started in the late 1800s and ended with the close of World War II. That means scenes set after 1945 wouldn’t include cordite.

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