In honor of Independence Day, and because one of my beloved readers read about it in my post from a couple of days ago, thought I’d already started writing it, and Googled it (looking at you, Ty!) I present the threatened promised first installment of a new, recurring feature on Sense of Adventure: Firearms for Fictioneers.
If you write fiction the odds are good you deal with firearms. Let’s be candid: many writers for prose, television, and movies do so really damned badly.
I’m here to help you do it right. The natural first question to ask is, why bother?
That, in turn, morphs into several questions. So let’s start hitting them:
Why bother listening to this guy?
I know a lot about firearms.
There’s also a lot I don’t know about firearms. I do know the right questions to ask, and I know where to get good answers. And I have enough knowledge to have some ability to evaluate whether I’m getting the straight goods or not.
Please understand: I am not the Pope of firearms. I do not claim expertise. I am certainly not infallible.
I’m a Gun Nerd. I’ve been fascinated with guns my whole life. I’ve handled them, shot them, been trained by professionals in using them (formally and informally), and extensively studied their history, use, design, and construction.
I’m also a professional fiction writer, to the tune of nearly 100 novels and I don’t know how many short stories. Of those yarns, most have been action-oriented. It’s a good bet that most of them involved guns.
When I write, I like to get things right. Not just about guns, of course. I don’t always succeed. I know it. If you read my stuff, you know it. But I try my best.
Which brings me to the next iteration of our question.
Why bother getting guns right?
Some people love guns. Some people hate guns. Whichever camp you or your readers fall into, I offer three answers to the question:
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You may not need to bother.
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Why risk looking sillier than you have to?
- Because you care about your craft.
You may not need to bother.
A couple years ago a member of the writers group I’m privileged to belong to submitted a draft for an urban fantasy novel that writer was pitching. It was a pretty good book – as you’d expect from the author – and the series has subsequently appeared and sold, I’m told, quite well.
Who the author is and what the series is I don’t feel appropriate to reveal.
As I read the manuscript one thing jolted momentarily me out of frame: it was written in first-person, and the narrator used a rifle. Described as just that: “a rifle.”
As a dedicated Gun Nerd, my first reaction was, “Wait, what? What kind of rifle? Semi-auto? Bolt-action? Lever action? What caliber? What brand? What model?” And so on – the questions can roll on endlessly.
Then the sensible reader and writer in me (I can’t really separate the two, and haven’t been able to since I got serious about writing in my mid-teens) kicked in to remind me: The narrator is a nice, respectable, whitebread female college student. She has neither experience of guns nor interest in them. Somebody hands her a gun and says it’s a rifle. That’s all she knows, and all we need know.
It wouldn’t be in character for our heroine to know or say more than that she’s shooting a rifle. So the writer … got it right.
Years ago I read a criticism that Ernest Hemingway, in his novella “The Old Man and the Sea” got the species of shark that bedeviled the eponymous Old Man wrong. That species supposedly couldn’t have been where the story took place at that time of year. The critique also mentioned why that was a faux pas: Hemingway made a point of it. He specified the shark breed. And turned out to be wrong.
Hemingway liked to think of himself as manlier-than-thou, and he liked to show off. (Respectable writers never show off in their work. Sadly, I’m not a respectable writer. So I’m guilty of showing off too. But because I’ve got know-it-all-itis, not that other thing.) And he assed accordingly. Had he just said it was a shark, and let it go at that, there’d have been no issue.
So if you just want to call it a gun, or a generic such as rifle, shotgun, pistol, revolver, and let it go at that – fair enough. Do that.
Why risk looking sillier than you have to?
We know you’re on the Internet. If you’ve put anything out there in the world for the public to see – publishing a novel or story, say – you know that when readers catch you in a mistake, they’re willing to point it out. They love to point it out.
Indeed, some people apparently exist solely to tell you in exquisite detail precisely what kind of a CLUELESS M0R0N!!1! you are.
You can’t please everybody. To try is to churn out the blandest mush. I know that. And no matter who you are, how good you are, how painstaking you are, people are going to write awful things about you online. Terrible, awful things.
You may think you don’t care about those people. You may really not care. Still … on the whole, wouldn’t you prefer to keep the abusive emails and Amazon.com reviews to some kind of unavoidable minimum?
As I said above, I try to get things right. I try hard. And at least sometimes that wins me slack. I’ve had readers on active military duty write to me when I made some mistake about their particular specialty. And what they’ve generally said has been, “We know you’re trying to get things right. So we thought you’d want to know you didn’t.” And tell me how. And I was grateful for the correction.
Which kind of criticism would you rather get?
Because you care about your craft.
If you go into more detail than just writing, “it’s a gun” – if you specify your character is using a 9mm, say, or an AK-47, or a Heckler & Koch MP5SD6 with retractable buttstock, 3-round burst trigger group, and an integrated suppressor – and you get things glaringly wrong, it damages your story. It detracts from the illusion you’re trying to create.
Such mistakes are gratuitous. You can choose to stay safe, at a low level of detail. There’s nothing wrong with that. Sometimes, as in the above example from writers group, it’s the only right way to go about it.
If you choose to go into greater detail, and fail to do the work to get it right, how is that not willful ignorance?
Please, respect your craft and your readers enough to get it right. At least, to do your best. You’re serious enough to try to master your tools, yes?
And that’s why bother.
Sometimes writers get even the simplest things wrong about guns. I’ve read stories where the authors – smart, widely knowledgeable, extremely proficient authors – couldn’t tell a rifle from a shotgun. Which is like confusing a Volkswagen bus for a Greyhound. If you’d like to avoid that fate, see the upcoming installment Firearms for Fictioneers #3: Whatchamacallit?
Yes, #3. Because the next installment, Firearms for Fictioneers #2: The First Thing You HAVE TO Know, will concern a topic even more important than basic firearms categories. Stay tuned to find out what that is.
That’s all for this time, kids! Play nice. And if you can’t play nice, play safe. And if you can’t play safe, for God’s sake don’t tell me about it.
If you found this blog post useful or interesting, or know somebody who might benefit from it, please share it: cut and paste: http://victormilan.com/blog/2010/07/05/firearms-for-fictioneers-1-why-bother, or use the buttons below.
Got questions you’d like answered? Got comments? Please leave a reply below, in my VictorMilan.com Forum, or email me at FirearmsFictioneer @ victormilan.com!
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And now, the obligatory boilerplate legalese.
Disclaimers!
The above material, and all connected material, is presented for entertainment purposes only. Literally.
This is not a how-to column or site for anything but writing about firearms, and how to research information about firearms. It does not offer information on how to make them, modify them, sell them, buy them, or anything else. Especially anything illegal. It will not. Do not ask.
Any information presented on the use of firearms in this feature is intended to concern and for use in fictional presentation only. The sole exception is Firearms for Fictioneers #2: The First Thing You HAVE TO Know.
I disclaim expert status in firearms or pretty much anything else.
Read at your own risk.
Q: Should you accept uncritically any opinion or information I offer on this site, or anywhere, ever (or indeed, anything, ever) as Gospel truth? A: No!
I affirm that the information I present here is correct to the best of my knowledge and belief. Which might be flawed. You are responsible to do your own due diligence.
I will do my best to get it right when I’m wrong. I’m always eager to learn. Please help me do so. I welcome corrections, additions, and comments, via email, in my VictorMilan.com Forum, or in the comments section below.
Please be kind: uncivil discourse is liable to get you deleted or even banned. Also it turns out to be a bad idea to be arrogant and rude if you’re wrong. Trust me. I know this.
Don’t post or email me illegal stuff. Ever. Period.
And last, but far from least, I present to you:
Rule Number One. On this website, and any under my control, what I consider suitable or unsuitable is subject entirely to my caprice. It is my inclination and desire to let discourse flow freely. But my sites are mine, and if I determine that any content is unsuitable, or any commenter or user undesirable, they’re gone. I need not explain.
Thank you. Please persevere and keep reading despite all the above.
- Do you want to risk looking sillier than you have to?
Popularity: 15% [?]
…posted a link on Facebook. There’s (I guess, technically, that should be “there’re”) a few of my contacts there who *might* check it out…
Thanks, Meowlin!
It all helps. It’s all appreciated.
I remember reading a Robin Cook thriller a while back in which one thug asked another thug why he carried a cannon like a .356 magnum. Coulda been a typo I guess, but that typo made it past any number of people before it got into print.
I write a short story a long time ago in which I described the character using a 10mm handgun. Someone who read it went on and on about how stupid I sounded when I said that, because everyone knows it’s 9mm, not 10mm. *sigh* Even when you’re right, someone will think you’re wrong.
But as a writing note, one thing I’ve become increasingly aware of in my own writing, and in the writing of others, is how details change what your story is *about*. This is especially true of technical details. If I lovingly describe the guns every character uses, including what makes that particular firearm different or more useful in specific situations, then my story is *about* guns. No matter what the characters are doing with them, the real point of my story is the guns.
Sci Fi does this a lot. If I spend a lot of time talking about orbital mechanics, then no matter where my characters are actually going, the story is about orbital mechanics. Peter Watts brilliant book Blindsight is a prime example. That story is about the biology of self awareness, and its impact on how a species functions. Sure, it’s also an action/adventure story about five people confronting an alien threat, but that’s not what it’s *about*. It’s about self awareness.
So, while getting the details correct can really improve a story, control of how much detail you use is just as important.
I’ve mentioned this before, but you did this beautifully in Cybernetic Samurai. When the heroine cocks her Uzi a second time as a threat, you have a single unfired shell pop out and roll across the floor. You didn’t give me a paragraph on WHY this happened. Just a mention of that (quite accurate) detail on how guns work.
So that scene wasn’t about her Uzi. It was about what she was doing with it.
I look forward to episode #2. I know that if I had a firearms question for one of my books, I’d ask you.
First off, let me thank Ty for his cogent comment by utterly humiliating him and pointing him out to everyone as a Wizard Writer, whom you Will Be Hearing From.
You’re welcome.
I find it uniquely gratifying to be criticized when I get something right. There’s a blog post in there about a particular incident in the past. Maybe this afternoon, once I get the real writing did.
You make an excellent point: excessive technical detail of any sort can take over a story. It’s reminiscent of the Golden Age of Science Fiction (which, in reality, is “twelve”), when certain authors, allegedly including Isaac Asimov, claimed that developed characters were extraneous to the story, inasmuch as they distracted from the “science” in the “science fiction.”
It seems to me there’s a continuum here. Finding just the right amount of detail to put in without overwhelming the story (or your reader) is yet another of those balance-finding issues that so seem to dominate my life these days. It can be really hard when it’s a subject about which one’s enthusiastic.
Of course, as a writer, I’m always having to resist a tendency to dump everything I know about my situation, my world, and my characters into my prose in a great steaming mass.
As for Cybernetic Samurai, thanks for the kind words.
And, uh, if Michiko actually had an UZI, I screwed up.
An UZI uses the blowback method to cycle – recock itself after every shot, for you non Gun Nerds. It fires from an open bolt, meaning if a round is chambered, it is cocked. She couldn’t rack the action because it’s already locked back. Not without going through some convolutions, anyway.
How’s that for a Gun Nerd mea culpa? Anyone interested, should ye exist, please follow the handy link to find out what “blowback” and “open bolt” mean. And thank your lucky stars for Wikipedia, which spares you being bored stupid by my efforts to explain the terms…
That said, at some point I may undertake just such an explanation on Firearms For Fictioneers. But that’s pretty in-depth, so we’ll see.
Bringing up an interesting point. To me, anyway. How far shall I string Firearms For Fictioneers? It’s premature to consider that, of course. But since that’s never stopped me before … I can only spin out so many columns of basic firearms facts before, well, I’ve covered them all. Do I continue to delve into greater detail?
I want to hear you on this – that’s everybody, not just Ty. Because it’s reader response or lack thereof that’s largely going to guide my fumbly fingers.
Oh – in reference to the “virtual handguns” used by the character in that über-cool Too Human game you showed me Saturday, what they reminded me of were indeed the virtual-particle weapons used in John C. Wright’s flawed yet brilliant Golden Age trilogy.
And yes, the game’s title appears based on Friedrich Nietzsche’s book, Human, All Too Human.
You’re right about the mythology behind Too Human. I’d love to do a novelization of the game. That cool.
We’re in for a bang-up time here with Vic’s explanations. We’ll be able to take stock of the situations we create, then shoot for the moon. It’ll be a blast learning how we can up the caliber of our writing and with that ammunition, give our words a real charge. No one wants to be a dud, so this is the place to get a real bang for your buck.
I have no idea if it was an Uzi, honestly. I just remember that it was a submachinegun of some kind, and I used uzi as a generic placeholder.
Exactly the sort of thing you are warning people NOT to do.
Glad to be the example of failure.
Noble of you. Thank you.
I doubt you get much chance to serve as an example of failure. I’ve met you. And also your wife.
Anyway, I don’t think you did fail.
First off, it seems to me using a “generic placeholder” in the “comments” section of some obscure blog is far less heinous an offense (if an offense at all) than doing so in a published work.
Second, I just checked, and I used the even more generic “submachine gun” in the section you mention, as far as I can ascertain. And that was the part I got right.
Actually I’m right proud – of that. Remember my little lecture above about when the POV character doesn’t know much about guns and doesn’t care to? Totally Michiko. (Christ, I hope I didn’t miss something key.)
As far as I could tell, she took the SMG off a dead guard. The bad news is, I think these particular guards were toting Japan’s own SCK-65. Which is still shit-for-blowback. Just like the Uzi. So my self-criticism session above would still apply.
[...] for years about a recurring column I originally thought to do here (yeah, like that’s worked out so well) called Vic Milán: Action Guy! Which would basically wage the War Against Crappy Action/Adventure [...]