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:
In a classic episode of The Simpsons, Ned Flanders takes two bullets to the chest. The pious neighbor walks away unscathed, all thanks to a Bible and a piece of wood from the ol’ rugged cross under his shirt.
Although the show is meant to be satirical, it’s a scene played out with a straight face in the rest of fiction, most notably the crime genre. A character is seemingly shot to death, only to stand back up thanks to a convenient object beneath the clothing that “stopped the bullet.”
So how close is this to reality? Is it possible for this to happen? Continue reading
The Writer's Guide to Weapons 