Image via Colt
I was enjoying a novel the other day until a character switched an AR-15 (pictured above) into fully automatic mode and started blasting away at bad guys. Thing is, AR-15s don’t have a full-auto mode. It’s time to clear the waters, because this is only one of the misconceptions. Continue reading
Not every shotgun or rifle uses a pump, right? Right. So what’s that thingy (for lack of a better term for now) worked back and forth that’s sort of like a pump when characters use fully automatic and semi-automatic rifles and shotguns? Continue reading
Writerfolk, whenever you get the itch to write in a character dramatically pumping a shotgun in a story, stop. Come up with a different method of intimidation. I know you’ve seen it countless times in movies and TV shows, but as @abnersenires so eloquently stated on Twitter, it’s the wrong kind of smooth move.
@benjaminsobieck Ah, yes. Dramatically pump loaded shotgun with one in chamber, lose a round. Smooth move, ExLax. 😛
— Abner Senires (@abnersenires) February 6, 2015
Nothing says “you’re screwed” like an electric viper pit of red lasers snaking across a character’s body in fiction. These beams of light preview right where a shot would hit, a reminder of the few seconds the character may have left to live.
It’s a nice effect for writing showdown scenes between the damned and double damned, but what exactly are these devices called? Continue reading
Magazine or clip? Many writers, and people in general, trip up on this area. They almost always reference the wrong one – “clip” – to describe that detachable rectangle that holds ammunition.
The Writer's Guide to Weapons 