He's Back...Le Carre...The Eyes Don't Have It

Thriller Guy has returned from vacation. It was cold there, not winter, but when you get high enough it's pretty much always cold. The hunting was not great, more of a matter of winnowing down the places where something isn't, rather than where it is. Hiking all day, MREs for chow, sleeping on the ground; TG is getting too old for this type of fun. Maybe it's time to hang up the boots – desert, jungle, mountain – all of them.

A bright spot. TG always packs a book. When you're humping eighty pounds already what difference does a paperback make? You're strapped into the webbing of a C130 and you're too old to have an iPod so you need something to break the monotony. In this case it was an advanced reading copy of the new John Le Carre, Our Kind of Traitor. Due out in October.

Of course TG loved the early Le Carre's. What thriller aficionado didn't? Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The Spy Who Came in From the Cold; Smiley's People. You know the ones. But the last three or four, TG just couldn't get into them. Very sad. Had the man simply gone off the rails? Or was it TG himself, grown old and too stupid to catch the brilliance? Very troubling.

TG is happy to report that the new book is terrific. Because of the usual contractual rules, the blog review will have to wait until the publication date, but the cast of characters include a Russian mobster, an Oxford history professor who becomes entangles in a spy operation and the usual back stabbing, ass covering, double crossing perfidy in the upper levels of the secret world that Le Carre does so well.

How Not to Write

And now, back to those less brilliant than Le Carre. TG recently read an author who must remain nameless (one of these days TG is going to start naming names and then the shit is really going to hit the fan), a man who has been around for years and retains the affections and dollars of millions of readers. A man who long ago stopped writing his own books, a description that fits at least ten bestselling authors. TG feels that in most cases the fact that these old bull writers quit writing their own books is a good thing because, in general, the co-authors or ghosts who do the actual heavy lifting are actually better writers than the originators of many series. But this is not always the case.

The book in question was not particularly good overall, but one small pice of crappy writing kept grating on TG's nerves. The descriptions of a character's eyes. This is often a sore spot with TG, but in most books he usually lets it slide because from personal writing experience he is aware that, for some reason, it's a tough thing to do. TG solves this problem by seldom writing anything much to do with eyes, and when it seems necessary, keeping it damn simple. But the particular book under discussion had so many references to eyes, and most of them were so bad it began to threaten TG's veritable sanity. Here are a few, garnered from a quick riffle through the pages:

“The drummers eyes lit up.” OK, that one and variations thereof is so common we can let it go.

“Her violet eyes beamed with relief.” Ditto on letting it slide. Not sure how eyes can beam, with relief or any other emotion, but...

“his eyes red with anger.” Not possible, but you get the point.

“His eyes nearly shot flames of anger.” Ugh. The word “nearly” makes it particularly odious.

“...he hissed, a rabid glare to his eyes.” Wha? Terrible. Villains who hiss are another thorn in TG's side.

“She eyed him with daggers...” Laughable. Terrible, terrible. Really, you could cry if so much money wasn't involved.

“He calmly stared back at her with probing eyes that danced above a deep scar on the right side of his jaw.” TG hates eyes that dance. And twinkle.

“Gutzman's eyes inflated like balloons.” This seems to mean the Gutzman was surprised. TG was certainly surprised. The image was almost too horrible to contemplate.

And finally, this beauty. A writer this bad should be taken out, buried to the neck and stoned by an outraged community of writers, made up of those who write by night, toiling honestly away to get something, anything published by an industry that is so crass, so greedy they will publish, seemingly unedited, the work of a hack who is an embarrassment, really, a travesty of what we should consider decent writing, not even good, much less superior, writing, not even workmanlike (a word often applied to TG's writing, and one that he is happy to bear) but writing so bad as to be laughable if it did not stray so close to criminal. A book that will, rest assured, land squarely on the best seller list. Shame, shame, publishers. You that have no shame. 

“Only his eyes hinted at a personality quirk, dancing constantly in a pirouette of emotional intensity. They twitched with anger as they focused on the woman.”

Dear God, spare me. Oh, what a picture that paints. It's enough to make TG quit the whole business.

That's two careers TG has lost in the course of one blog entry.

Appel Here...

Thriller Guy is still on “vacation.” A recent rather cryptic note from him refers to some very inhospitable conditions and indicates that he isn't sure when he will be back in mufti, sitting at his desk reviewing fictional derring do. Our best wishes go to TG and our hopes for a speedy, and more importantly, a safe return.

Continuing my fact-finding research to Custer's Last Stand on a lighter note...

After returning from the battlefield, I had a night to kill before flying out of Bozeman the next day. I decided to drive around, check out Bozeman and have dinner. It being a Sunday night, the town was dead, though I cannot attest to the fact that it might be just as dead on any other night. The only action I saw was a group of teenagers in an empty mall parking lot who appeared to be kicking and beating a victim who was on the ground. A closer drive-by showed that rather than kicking someone to death, they were playing a game of hacky-sack. In my defense, I can only say that the same group of kids in my neighborhood right outside Washington, DC would most assuredly have been up to no good.

There were few places open for dinner, so I was happy to come across a Japanese restaurant whose name I no longer remember. This was in 1987, well before there were sushi joints in every town in America, so I was curious how this restaurant ended up in a small town in the wild west.

I went in and found no other customers, only a young Japanese girl who was working on what appeared to be her homework on one of the empty tables. With a big smile, she escorted me to a table and handed me a menue. Her greeting was a jumble of English that was unintelligible, but decidedly enthusiastic. The menue, and the restaurant itself, proved to be pretty generic Japanese, which was fine with me. I went for the sushi and one of those Japanese iceberg lettuce salads with the strange orange dressing. Dinner was fine, unremarkable except for the older man and woman who while obviously making my dinner kept peeking out of the kitchen at me. The daughter, for that's who I decided she was, hovered close, making sure my every need was met. It was all slightly weird and a bit uncomfortable as no one else ever came in.

After indicating that I was finished, I asked for the bill. At which point the older Japanese couple, dressed in what looked to me to be standard Japanese garb, marched out of the kitchen bearing an unordered dish, which was placed reverently on the table in front of me, with much smiling, bowing and clasping of hands. The older gentleman said, in extremely broken English what sounded to me like, “Special for you, Cowboy.” I couldn't help laughing at this because while Thriller Guy could easily pass for a rough rider, I am more the small, intellectual type who looks totally ridiculous in a cowboy hat. But I appreciated the sentiment.

The dish consisted of two iceberg lettuce leaves, on which were two mysterious globs of something; pale white, sort of jiggly, totally beyond my ken. I decided the lettuce was part of the dish, so I rolled each around the glob and ate it. Not bad. Luke warm, kind of squishy with an odd taste which I could not identify. The three Japanese, formed up in a line at the end of my table, watched my consumption with a sort of bated astonishment. When I finished off the leaf and its mysterious filling, they all clapped their hands, smiling and chattering among themselves and bowing in my direction.

“Very good,” I said. “What exactly was it?” not really expecting to understand.

They looked back and forth for someone to come forth who could actually speak English; when no one appeared, the older lady said, “Tess-teek-a.” I acted like I understod while she repeated it a few more times. I smiled, bowed to everyone, paid my bill and drove back to my motel. Yes, you've probably figured it out by now, but it took me a few minutes to work it out.

Test-teek-a. Test-teek-a. Testicle.

I know that are plenty of people who have had them deep fried or cooked in some manner, but I'll bet there are damn few of you out there who have had them sashimi style. I'm pretty sure I'd never order them on purpose, but the entire experience felt right, like I had held up the honor of America.

Special for you, Cowboy, indeed.

In the Realm of the Dead

Thriller Guy is heading out of town in a few days so he's turning the writing chores over to his alter ego, Allen Appel. TG will return soon, but now he must go pack his kit with extra socks and his desert cammos, a few high-powered weapons and all the ammo he can squeeze into the side pockets. It's always better to have too much than not enough, and where TG is headed the probability is high that even too much might just not be enough.

Thank you, TG. I'll keep your space warm while you're out of town. Good hunting.

My old pal, mentor and teacher Bhob Stewart sent me a Publishers Weekly review of a new book on General George Armstrong Custer and the Battle of the Little Big Horn: Bloodshed at Little Bighorn: Sitting Bull, Custer, and the Destinies of Nations, by Tim Lehman. Bhob knows of my interest in the subject because he edited, critiqued and generally ripped apart my second novel in the Alex Balfour series, Twice Upon a Time. Bhob, for me, is that invaluable resource every writer should have: a veteran writer and editor who was willing to help out his less experienced brethren, and by help out I mean go over a rough manuscript line by line, offering criticism, corrections and withering sarcasm in the hopes that what has been written can actually be shaped into something readable and good. I don't care how famous, rich and powerful a writer becomes, everyone needs a Bhob to keep the work honest and free of bullshit. Because this help has meant so much to me and all of my books, I try to pass along this service to others in the business. It takes time and effort, but we should all do it for each other because in the world of real publishing, it is, quite frankly, us against them. That's the writers against the editors, publishers, agents, sales people, marketing idiots, bookstores and everyone else who isn't a writer. About the only people who are your real friends are the wonderful copy editors and fact checkers who go over your work and make you look like you know what you're doing.

The Custer book, Twice Upon a Time, is set in America. After the first book in the series, Time After Time, came out and was nicely reviewed in the New York Times the publisher was besieged with requests – well, maybe besieged is too strong a word -- but there were nineteen requests for copies from film producers around the world. Copies were duly sent and all decided against a film project because, and this was a consensus among them, it would be far too expensive to film a reenactment of the Russian Revolution. The message was clear: set the next one in America and choose a smaller war.

So here it was, America, circa 1876. There were cowboys and indians and Custer, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman and many other luminaries of the time. The hero, Alex Balfour, time-traveling historian, would interact with this fascinating world and solve one of the great historical mysteries: just exactly what happened on June 26, 1876, when Custer decided to lead his 700 men into battle against three thousand, well armed Lakota and Cheyenne warriors.

I love doing research. When writing this series I revelled in the sheer pre-Internet days of reading real books, spending days at various libraries and drowning myself in period details. I was drunk on knowledge, which I then distilled into what I hoped was an exciting story with fascinating characters. And since I made a little money on the first book I decided, after all my reading, to go to the site of my climax, what is now called the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.

I flew into Billings, Montana, rented a car and drove 65 miles SE to the park. Along the way I saw fabulous scenery, made my way almost blind through a massive hoard of locusts and began to understand what the true poverty of an indian reservation really looks like.

The Battlefield park stretches along six or seven miles of moderately flat land with a river, the Little Bighorn, running along the southern edge. The land is mostly covered with tall grass and bushes. It is rocky and forlorn. You drive your car along a roadway that has markers where you can stop and read about the actions that took place there. The act of driving, getting out, reading, then driving to the next stop is tedious; I soon tired of it. I had studied the period and the battle for a year and I knew the story. Or at least I thought I did.

I drove to Last Stand Hill, which is just what you would suppose it to be, the site of the 7^th Cavalry's last stand against Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull and their mounted warriors. There were few other people in the park and the only other cars were far away: This is what it looked like:

Those people weren't there at the time. Through the windshield it is dull and uninspiring. I pulled to the side of the road and climbed out of my car. I don't remember the date, but the weather was overcast and cool. I was wearing a jacket. The only sound was a light wind as it ruffled the grass. I am a man of some imagination, but I am not given to over-dramatization in real life. I have few spiritual beliefs, no particular God. I certainly don't believe in ghosts. You can see this coming, can't you?

Down the slight hill to the right of this photo are the graves marking where Custer's men fell around him. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and leaned against the car. And then, I can hear them, the shouting, the shots, a bugle, faintly. But of course it is only the wind. Then I can feel them, somewhere down in the ground where they were buried, where they died. They feel, to me, unsettled. Lives unfinished. Pushing at the earth around them. I find that I cannot walk away from the car, cannot move closer; I cannot tread on them. They need to be left alone. It feels wrong to be here, voyeuristic. I got back in the car and left.

Later I would dream about that moment and hear again the faint call of the bugle. Later still I would write the last paragraphs in the novel.

“That night he held her and slept. And dreamed.

He was running. Easily, effortlessly. The tall prairie grass was a bright green sea washing over small red, yellow and blue flowers that grew tangled within the grass. He could feel the prairie, the grass and the flowers, and the wind that came cold and sharp down out of the surrounding hills, carrying the smell of old snow and tamarack pines.

He was in a valley, surrounded by black hills, beneath a brilliant blue cloudless sky.
It was as if he were all sensation, seeing and feeling with a clarity undimmed by thought. A faraway herd of buffalo moved at the end of the valley. Two antelope, white tails held high, leapt from a stand of high grass on his right, leapt and fled at his approach.

In the distance a troop of men on horseback rode up a grassy hill, away from him, and he ran after them and heard the faint call of a bugle, drawing the men away, drawing him toward them. There was a great freedom in all of it, and he was as much a part of it as the grass and hills and the sky and the animals, and they were a part of him. The clear clean wind poured in, filling him and he was giddy with the joy of it.

This time it was a dream, he was sure of it. Dreams were flowers and deer and buffalo. The past was heat and dust and grasshoppers.

This time it was a dream.

This time.”

Bhob Stewart's excellent blog about the comic's industry and much more can be found here.

Send me a true life story where you too felt the presence of the dead and I'll send one of you a signed copy of Time After Time.

Stupid, Like a Publisher & The Vagaries of Fate

The International Thriller Writers organization recently released their prizewinners at this year's Thrillerfest. They are:

Best Hard Cover Novel:

THE NEIGHBOR, Lisa Gardner

Best Paperback Original Novel:

THE COLDEST MILE, Tom Piccirilli

Best First Novel:

RUNNING FROM THE DEVIL, Jamie Freveletti

Best Short Story:

A STAB IN THE HEART, Twist Phelan

Also receiving special recognition during the ThrillerFest V Awards Banquet:

Ken Follett, ThrillerMaster

in recognition of his legendary career and outstanding contributions to the thriller genre.

Mark Bowden, True Thriller Award

Linda Fairstein, Silver Bullet Award

US Airways, Silver Bullet Award (Corporate)

Thriller Guy was stunned to see that he had not read or reviewed any of these books. How could this have happened? TG has no idea. Mistakes were obviously made somewhere. But TG assures one and all that these books are quite probably excellent, so put 'em on your list, Thriller Readers.

One name did strike a note with TG, and reminded him of a day many years ago...

TG's alter ego, Allen Appel has written many books, among them a little gem, From Father to Son: Wisdom for the Next Generation. This book, first published in 1993, was the originator of the entire genre of parenting gift books. It stayed in print for many years and sold quite well. In 2001, Appel was contacted by his editor at St. Martins, who were the publishers of the little book, and told that the NBC Evening News had asked them if they could run an interview with Appel as a Father's Day feature on June 11, the interview to be conducted at their studios in NY. Appel's editor and the marketing person at St. Martins (both were around 14 years old, or seemed so) in all their publishing wisdom decided that the cost of this venture – around $40.00 train fare – outweighed the possible results. So they had turned NBC down.

Unbelievable, no?

Appel informed the two idiots at St. Martins they were nuts, got on the phone to NBC and told them he would be glad to do the interview. They said fine.

Appel showed up at the studio at the appointed time and was whisked into the makeup chair and made to look fabulous. After makeup Linda Fairstein swept into the green room, accompanied by a posse of minders, assistants and marketing folk. At that time Fairstein was still the head of the sex crimes unit of the Manhattan District Attorney's office and had written three or four of her mystery series starring Manhattan prosecutor Alexandra Cooper. She was being interviewed about her most recent novel. Appel sat quietly, trying to choke down a very dry bagel while the Fairstein army, all of them in constant motion, barked orders on cell phones, studied sheafs of papers and held important whispered conversations with their boss who never removed her cell phone from her ear. No one even said hello.

The interview went off without a hitch. Appel held up his little book, chatted amiably and charmed the world.

That night, back at home, Appel and his family counted down the minutes to the Evening News.

Fifteen minutes before 7:00, Timothy McVeigh, the Kansas City Bomber was executed. Officials had not announced that the execution was eminent. The event led, and dominated the news show.

Appel's piece never ran. Actually, that's not true, a few weeks later a fan from Australia sent an email saying he had seen it on a program at three AM in the morning.

Linda Fairstein's piece probably ran somewhere. She has gone on to quit her job as a prosecutor and pen a total of 12 books in her extremely successful series.

Whenever TG is assigned one of her books he gives her a respectful, if not very enthusiastic review.

Questions, Questions

First, this Public Service Announcement.

Anybody who works the thriller genre should take note of the multi-part series of articles focusing on the world of anti-terrorism forces in America now being published by the Washington Post. If you don't take the Post, check it out at TopSecretAmerica.com. The series has been two years in the making and while the complicated intertwining connections may be too dry for most thriller readers, any writer worth his salt needs to know this information. Yes, you are writing fiction, but you'd better get the underpinnings right if you want Thriller Guy to not come down hard on your mistakes.

Now back to our regular blather, where TG is working with his alter ego, Allen Appel, on an extensive project. After being hounded by his writer pal, Larry, Appel has decided to put the first of his renowned time travel novels starring Alex Balfour up as a Kindle edition. First published back in the Paleolithic era (1985) there is no handy Word file (who knows what computer, if any, he was using in those days: Eagle? Atari?) so Appel is having to scan in the original hardback and use an OCR program to turn it into an editable file. What a pain in the ass. A competent typist could probably retype the book in less time than the scanning takes, but Appel is a two-finger man who can't touch-type so that option is off the table.

But here's the interesting point, which leads to a question, or rather several questions. In the course of scanning the material and fixing the inevitable flubs that the OCR process produces, it quickly became evident that Appel is a better writer now than he was those many years ago. The book is good, but here we find the author making many of the same mistakes that he rails about on this very blogsite: The use of the various forms of get/got, words repeated within a paragraph, to name just a few. These are sins we all commit, but these shortcomings should be taken care of in the rewrite process. Here's the question, or one of the questions: Should Appel bother to rewrite the manuscript for this version? Who knows what he might start changing if he dives into the pages and begins tinkering? Where does it end? Thoughts, anyone? And this is not strictly confined to Appel, as the questions will apply to other authors as they turn to the task of putting up e-editions and the like.

More interesting, though, are two other concerns. When writing a first draft, Appel just plows along, not bothering with writerly niceties, which leads to blank spaces left to be filled in later and sections marked FIX!. Also of concern are cliches. Appel believes they are fine in first drafts when he doesn't want to take the time to come up with an original way of description; he marks these offending passages and goes back in the first rewrite to fix them. (Appel does seven complete rewrites on every novel.) But, as we all know, errors will be made, resulting in the following paragraph in Time After Time:

“Alex jammed his hands into his pockets and found a surprise. Gloves. A pair of leather fur-lined gloves. Alex held them to his face, smelling the leather and feeling the smooth softness of the high-quality hide; imagining the former owner, some dissolute younger member of the pridvorny who had pawned his coat before heading off to an evening of vodka, women, wild Gypsy singing, and then later perhaps flinging himself off one of the many bridges of the city onto the frozen Neva. Alex sighed for his imaginary doomed young Russian as he slipped on the gloves. They fit like a glove.”

While Appel was writing the para the first time, he came to the end and thought about the last sentence...how could he describe how well the gloves fit? Like a second skin? Nope. Like they were made for him? God, no. So he just wrote, They fit like a glove. and appended a note. Cliché! Fix!

Who knows where that note went? Through rewrite after rewrite the sentence hung in there, somehow passing unnoticed, hiding, probably snickering to itself behind its gloved hand, and sure enough, it made it into print. Small matter, you might think. Think again. The book was extensively reviewed from the New York Times on down, and all of the reviews were pretty much glowing, except 85% of them, or so, had a line something like...”The writing is solid, except for the occasional cliché. At one point Appel's hero slips on a pair of gloves and remarks, “They fit like a glove.”

Oh, the horror.

So this time through, Appel was going to fix the damn line. He sat and thought, and thought and you know what? He still couldn't come up with anything good. So he simply wrote:

“They fit perfectly.”

OK, not fabulous, but it gets the job done. In fact, TG himself is unable to come up with anything better. So here's what we'll do, all you hot-shot writers out there. See if you can come up with something better. TG will run the best of the entries and he will have Appel send the winner a previously owned, personally autographed paperback copy of this fine book.

And stay tuned, in the next installment regarding this scanning/OCR process, Appel will discuss a HUGE, TOTALLY EMBARRASSING MISTAKE he made in this novel which he will fix...or perhaps not. No one has ever caught this goof, and Appel has sworn to go to his grave with the offending error unrevealed. But here is an opportunity to right this grievous wrong. But should it be fixed?

Or should it remain, a mystery for the ages...

The Science of Rewrites, Geography and Good Reads

Weighty Matters

Thriller Guy was recently reading a review of a new book on touch, the name of which escapes TG who is too lazy to look it up, and found a piece of info that fits right in with one of his rules of good writing. Scientists discovered that when giving test subjects a document to review and edit on a clipboard, those subjects who had the heaviest clipboards did better work than those who had lighter. They seemed to feel, at least psychologically, the work was “weightier” and more important, so then worked harder. While not advising writers to go out and buy heavy clipboards, TG feels very strongly that rewrites are always best done in hard copy. Initial rewrites are fine on screen, but before any piece of writing leaves a writer's hand, it should have been printed out, edited with pen or pencil, reentered and then printed out and gone over at least one more time. Words on screen have no weight; words on printouts have a presence that demands attention. And final copy should be on better paper than early drafts, literally heavier and brighter than cheaper paper. Writing is serious stuff, hard work and important. Treat it thusly.

Mistakes

When TG was a brand new reviewer, he used to become upset by geography mistakes in thrillers. Syd Jones over at Scene of the Crime always asks his interview subjects if they have ever made any mistakes in setting for which readers have called them to task. The answer is almost always yes. This is something that most novelists dread, almost as frightening as making a gun-related mistake. (See entry below.) And yet, these mistakes are common, though over the years TG has noticed that they have become fewer and less egregious. TG lives in Washington, where an inordinate number of thrillers are set (Note to publishers: TG is heartily sick of seeing covers of thrillers featuring night photos of the Capitol Building. Please, is there no other, cleverer way of saying “Washington?”) Since TG lived in the District of Columbia for many years and now resides nearby, he is acutely aware of these geographical mistakes. One of the worst was when a writer had his hero come out of the Pentagon, go to a coffee shop across the street and then walk down the Mall to the Washington monument. Sorry, there are no coffee shops across from the Pentagon and the hero would have had to walk through the Potomac River to get to the Mall. Terrible mistake. TG has long ago stopped mentioning such errors in his reviews, but it is not wise (publishers, trust me on this) to send out a book that has errors that annoy the reviewer. So thriller writers, when you have a character set out to walk, ride or fly from one location to another, be very very careful.

Recommendations

Mike Lawson is an author who always gets his geography right. Mike has a series set in Washington that stars Senate investigator, political fix-it man Joe DeMarco. DeMarco has a crappy office deep in the bowels of the Capital building and answers only to his boss, John Fitzpatrick Mahoney, Speaker of the House of Representatives and Washington's premier political puppet master. The five books in the series, in order are: The Inside Ring; The Second Perimeter; House Rules; House Secrets; House Justice. There's no reason to read them in order, though TG suggests that you do so, that way one will keep DeMarco's various problems straight. One of the significant joys of the series is the colorful Speaker Mahoney, a Tip O'Neil politician whose outsize flaws approach if not encompass criminality.

While TG has enjoyed every one of these books, he feels that in House Justice, the most recent, Lawson is straying into a “problem” that often besets successful series writers at about this point in their work. Justice is a bit too long, a bit too complicated and a bit too serious. TG would counsel Lawson, not that he's asking, to ease up a bit both on DeMarco and on himself in his next entry in the series. Often it's a good idea to take a break and write a stand-alone (for a writer it can be a good idea, publishers hate it when a tried and true money-maker abandons a cash cow, even for one book) just to get back a little perspective on what was enjoyable about a character and setting in the first place.

Whatever Lawson does, TG will be looking forward to it. For those who want to see how good a Washington thriller can be, check him out. And you can be assured Joe DeMarco never, ever, takes a stroll through the Potomac River.

Blow 'Em Away

Every book Thriller Guy reads has someone getting shot -- gunfire, snipers, up close and far away. Virtually everyone of them has the victim being knocked back, out of their shoes, generally ass over teakettle (how's that for an old-time phrase?) It's bullshit, and TG is tired of it. Thriller writers! Stop it! TG knows you love these action scenes, and he also knows that 99% of you are just regular guys with no expertise in firearms and particularly no expertise in actually shooting another living, breathing human being. You've done your research by watching Hollywood movies and they are totally bullshit.

TG hates to get into this gun stuff. Every writer I know who mentions a gun, shooting, ammo or anything to do with the above is courting a letter (email these days) from a gun aficionado who is eager, nay, frothing at the mouth to set the author straight. Usually these letters are vituperative, to say the least. But TG is also heartily sick of his beloved thriller writers perpetuating this stupid Hollywood myth. Listen up: people who are shot don't get knocked back. And they sure as hell don't get knocked out of their shoes.

Those of you normal humans who have no interest in the subject are now advised to tune out and head over to your favorite other site, whatever that may be. This is going to go on for awhile. Those of you who are interested, or who have a professional (writerly) interest, keep reading.

Just from the last three books I have read, and these are excellent books:

“The force of the bullet had knocked him off balance...”

“He saw the smoke and fire explode from the barrel of Foster's nine. Then the blockheaded cop was flying backward and crumpling to the floor next to Shannon's feet.”

“The force of the bullets lifted her off her feet and she flew face first into the pool.”

TG could go on all night. This sort of thing is in every one of the thrillers TG reads. Here's a small piece of an essay by Joel L., known to readers of this blog as the fellow that TG is helping with writing a thriller. (BTW, Joel is roaring right along with his book and doing an excellent job.) Joel has extensive knowledge of firearms.

“But no way will any of these lift someone off of their feet. Period. Hollywood is terribly guilty of this, and has for years. Writers are too. One author had in his story two guys being ambushed, great scene. Only problem was one when they were shot, they were flying 'out of their shoes, or off their feet when hit. This stuff just doesn't happen that way. Remember that every 'action' according to Newton, has an 'opposite and equal' reaction. Thus, if the bullet or shot has enough force to lift someone off their feet, the shooter would have an even greater force applied to them. There are very strange physiological reactions to getting shot however, but that is not what was described. Sometimes, when the adrenaline and endorphins are really cranking, someone might not be aware that they are hit, or at least not aware that they were hit by a bullet, until after the fight. Sometimes a person can be ambling along and get shot by a .22 in the foot and die from shock and another person can be in a raging fight and take multiple hits from a .357 and keep going. It astonishes me how hard people will fight to hold onto this myth. Not even a Barret .50 sniper rifle, which can penetrate stone walls or engine blocks, can ‘lift’ someone off their feet. Don’t believe me? Take a look at Mythbusters video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCzD5uhSViY”

Then Joel cites a real life lawman who has written extensively on the subject:

Commander Jeffry L. Johnsons article:

(TG gives a big hand to Commander Johnson)

P1 Exclusive: The truth about handgun knockdown power

By Commander Jeffry L. Johnson

Long Beach Police Dept., Detective Division

Special contributor to PoliceOne

There is undoubtedly no other myth more perpetuated and closely held (even now) by many law enforcement professionals than what I have previously referred to as the “Demonstrative Bullet Fallacy,” or in plainer terms, the idea that any handgun of any caliber has “knockdown power,” in that the sheer size and force of the bullet can knock a person down. Closely related is the myth that bullet size — rather than shot placement — can determine or ensure a “one shot stop.” Both are inaccurate, unscientific, and dangerous, and have no place in the training of law enforcement professionals.

Not that any of this is new information. This fact has been generally known for about six hundred years or so. Notable intellects such as DaVinci, Galileo, Newton, Francis Bacon, and Leonard Euler all studied physics and ballistics, as did many others. It was Newton’s research that led Benjamin Robbins to invent the ballistic pendulum in 1740 (the first device to measure bullet velocity).

There is no mystery here — the truth has been documented time and again. So how is it that we still don’t get it? One word: Hollywood.

Ever since Dirty Harry came along with his .44 Magnum hand-cannon, when someone gets shot in the movies or on TV (and don’t forget video games) two things happen: 1) the victim is thrown back convulsively, through windows, off balconies, etc. and 2) there will immediately emerge a geyser of blood spewing forth from the wound, leaving no doubt that this person has been shot, and pinpointing exactly where the bullet has struck.

Many firearm and shooting magazines picked up on the idea as well, discussing and propagating the pseudo-scientific idea of handgun “knockdown power” and “one shot stopping power.”

The Truth

The Federal Bureau of Investigation Firearms Training Unit published a concise yet insightful report that speaks directly to this issue of firearm wounding ballistics and the misconceptions that have surrounded this area.

These so called [knockdown power] studies are further promoted as being somehow better and more valid than the work being done by trained researchers, surgeons and forensic labs. They disparage laboratory stuff, claiming that the “street” is the real laboratory and their collection of results from the street is the real measure of caliber effectiveness, as interpreted by them, of course. Yet their data from the street is collected haphazardly, lacking scientific method and controls, with no noticeable attempt to verify the less than reliable accounts of the participants with actual investigative or forensic reports. Cases are subjectively selected (how many are not included because they do not fit the assumptions made?). The numbers of cases cited are statistically meaningless, and the underlying assumptions upon which the collection of information and its interpretation are based are themselves based on myths such as knockdown power, energy transfer, hydrostatic shock, or the temporary cavity methodology of flawed work such as RII. (1)

The truth is, the whole idea of handgun knockdown power is a myth. It simply doesn’t work that way. The FBI report further clarifies:

A bullet simply cannot knock a man down. If it had the energy to do so, then equal energy would be applied against the shooter and he too would be knocked down. This is simple physics, and has been known for hundreds of years. The amount of energy deposited in the body by a bullet is approximately equivalent to being hit with a baseball. Tissue damage is the only physical link to incapacitation within the desired time frame, i.e., instantaneously. (2)

The report cites previous studies that have calculated bullet velocities and impact power, concluding that the “stopping power” of a 9mm bullet at muzzle velocity is equal to a one-pound weight being dropped from the height of six feet. A .45 ACP (45 auto) bullet impact would equal that same object dropped from 11.4 feet. That is a far cry from what Hollywood would have us believe, and actually flies in the face of what even many in law enforcement have come to mistakenly believe.

The FBI report also emphasizes that unless the bullet destroys or damages the central nervous system (i.e., brain or upper spinal cord), incapacitation of the subject can take a long time, seemingly longer if one is engaged in a firefight.

Failing a hit to the central nervous system, massive bleeding from holes in the heart or major blood vessels of the torso, causing circulatory collapse is the only other way to force incapacitation upon an adversary, and this takes time. For example, there is sufficient oxygen within the brain to support full, voluntary action for 10-15 seconds after the heart has been destroyed. (3)

More often than not, an officer firing at a suspect will not immediately know if he or she has even struck the target. The physics are such that the body will rarely involuntarily move or jerk, and usually there is no noticeable spewing of blood or surface tearing of tissue. Often there is no blood whatsoever. (4)

That is why military surgeons and emergency room physicians take great time and pains to carefully examine gunshot victims for any additional small holes. Often that is the only indication the person has been shot.

Personal Experience

But let’s be real here. I can cite numerous additional academic and scientific sources that support this article, but I know how cops think. We’re not always the most trustful of academics, especially when it comes to our street survival. So let me add my own personal experience to the data. Please allow me to go beyond the cold facts and share with you why I know what I’m telling you is the truth.

In the mid-1980s I was involved in my first shooting as a police officer. But to give the story context, I must go back to 1982 when I graduated from the Long Beach Police Academy. The first thing I was told by experienced training officers I trusted and looked up to, was to “get rid of that pea-shooter 38 they issued you and buy a real gun with some knockdown power!” Although we were issued .38 caliber revolvers, we were authorized to carry a number of different caliber weapons on duty, the largest of which was the 45 Long Colt.

The .45 Long Colt round next to the diminutive 9 millimeter.

Imagine my surprise when I was confronted by a suspect armed with a shotgun in a dark alley and my Long Colt didn’t live up to its billing. I fired five rounds at the suspect. It wasn’t until I fired my last shot — intentionally aimed at his head — that he went down. I can’t begin to relate to you the surprise and horror I felt when there was absolutely no outward indication I was hitting my target. It was the kind of situation cops have nightmares about.

What actually happened? I fired five rounds at a distance of about twelve feet. The first one missed completely. The second struck his upper leg and broke his femur. The third struck him in the shoulder/chest. The fourth round hit him dead center—in the heart. And of course, the fifth was a headshot. Three of the five rounds created fatal wounds, though only one had immediate results.

Needless to say, I was pretty shaken by the whole thing. Not by the morality of what I’d done; the suspect had already fired at a bystander and taken a hostage earlier. He was also high on PCP. That wasn’t my inner struggle. What shook me was how unprepared I felt; how totally off guard I was taken by what occurred. No one ever told me it would be like that. The reality was contrary to everything I thought I knew about deadly force.

That experience more than any research or study is the reason is why I am writing this article. Police officers risk getting into shootings every day; we need to know the dynamics of how a shooting incident may unfold. It will affect our equipment, tactics, and most important, our mindset. We need to know that rarely will one shot incapacitate an assailant. We further need to be able to explain this when our fellow officers are involved in shootings where multiple shots are fired. The public honestly believes it’s like the movies. Why would we ever need to fire twenty or thirty rounds to subdue an armed suspect? Problem is we can’t teach it or explain it until we understand it ourselves. (5)

Footnotes:

1. Patrick, Urey W., Federal Bureau of Investigation, Firearms Training Unit, “Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness,” p.13. (1989).

2. Ibid., p.9.

3. Ibid., p. 8.

4. Newgard, Ken, MD, “The Physiological Effects of Handgun Bullets: The Mechanisms of Wounding and Incapacitation” (1992).

5. For you visual learners still unconvinced, I highly recommend viewing the Discovery Channel MythBusters segment, “Blown Away,” (Brown Note Episode, Second Season), where the knockdown power myth is visually and scientifically debunked once and for all.