I don’t have writing acquaintances to talk to (I get most of my Writing Life viewpoint from authors’ blogs), but I’m willing to bet most of us enjoy research. Even a straightforward contemporary romance novel requires people, places, and things. If the book is set in a real city, the writer needs to know about that city. If it’s a fictional city, it still needs to be based in the real world. Research can go down a whole lot of rabbit holes. The first book I wrote, actually, grew directly out of research for a seminar I took in graduate school.
Writing something with a crime or investigation component levels up the research complexity. One of my works-in-progress involves a sexual assault (don’t worry, the launch post will contain a clear content warning). The assault occurs in Los Angeles in 2017 in my story universe timeline.
So, what did I need to know? Basics of police investigation procedure; tools available; statute of limitations; basics of crime-scene forensics. I did very minor research for my early novel MILLION DOLLAR DEATH. For A FEW KISSES AGO, I did a bit more. The crime in the later book was open-and-shut: there were witnesses and video footage. The crime in my work-in-progress is very different.
Because of those other, earlier projects, I knew about things like arrest, arraignment, and bail. How long before a criminal case comes to trial, under what circumstances the average schedule might get wonky - those were things I looked up before but had to revisit because a lot of stuff has gone through my brain since 2012, and even since 2018.
If I have a point, I guess it’s that learning never stops. I write fiction, so there will always be a little bit of flex. But on the off chance a law-enforcement professional picks up one of my books (one of those that deals with a crime or with law enforcement generally), I don’t want them going “That’s Not How It’s Done!!”
And wow, some interesting things come up. I’ve just learned that the term ‘twilight zone’ may have been coined in a 1923 court ruling concerning the admissibility of polygraph evidence. (Frye vs United States)
The crime and investigation in this particular work-in-progress are not the primary plot; it’s a romance novel, not a mystery. The bad guy is known from chapter 1. But simply knowing whodunit is not enough in the real world. An arrest may be made on little more than ‘that’s the guy’ but without evidence it’s not likely to proceed to arraignment, much less to trial.
My bad guy is rich and influential: that’s another hurdle for law enforcement. He has a team of lawyers and is a high flight risk. Before the cops propose to take him to jail, they need to be sure they can keep him there. Also, statutes of limitations are a real thing; only in January 2017 did it become possible (in California) to prosecute felony rape committed more than one year prior to the arrest. That means a serial predator like my bad guy may have a long string of victims, but can only be tried for the most recent one. All of that plays into the way my main characters live through 2017, and how their relationship evolves.
As with all my books, there will be a happy ending. Unlike most of my books, my main characters have to live through a lot they can’t control. They can’t affect the outcome of this big awful thing that’s happened. All they can do is help each other, love each other, and keep talking. Which is what a good relationship requires anyway.