moragmacpherson (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
moragmacpherson) wrote2011-09-25 12:57 pm
moragmacpherson) wrote2011-09-25 12:57 pm
Writing About Guns: Resources (meta and non-political)
Last night ![[info]](https://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=3)
snickfic was kind enough to rec my SPN/Discworld crossover A Grand Sneer and had some lovely things to say about it (thanks, btw). Being insecure, not having looked at it in, well, a long while, and wondering how I've grown as a writer since, I went back to see if I really had done some of the things in it that s/he'd mentioned. I only got to the end of the first chapter before I face-palmed:
Oh, Self, you were so naive back then. Semi-automatic, Dean's Colt m1911 is a semi-automatic, which is a whole other thing. (This is why rereading your own work is always a dangerous thing). Then again, it was my first Supernatural fic and as a writer I started out in two fandoms (Buffy and Doctor Who) whose canons are notoriously anti-gun (penalties range up to "being flayed alive onscreen" for villains who show up with them). So for a long time I didn't really need to know about guns, and not being the type who much cares for guns in the real world (I'm a knife/aluminum baseball bat kind of girl), I had little to no interest in researching them. Leading me to write things like the above. **Cringes**
Bad Self. Research is always important. Especially when you start expanding into new fandoms.
As you can see above, I got into Supernatural (coming up on my two year anniversary here) and then Inception (I've been very quiet over there so far, but I don't just ship Arthur/Eames, I regatta it, so if you write Arthur/Eames, then I've probably read at least one of your stories and then was an evil person who didn't leave a comment). Now I'm in the middle of creating an Epic Supernatural-Inception crossover 'verse (more on that later, but the timeline alone has been called "obscenely detailed'). And it's an inescapable fact that if you're writing Supernatural or Inception, especially if you're writing tight third or first person POV, you're going to wind up writing from the POV of someone who knows a lot about guns and in fact, uses them on a regular basis. So they really should be using the correct terminology. And the correct guns (props, especially recurring ones, are extensions of the character).
Which means research. Fortunately, if you're someone like me who knows virtually NOTHING about guns, you can start writing with a due-diligence level of technical precision with just two different resources:
The Internet Firearms Database - Your new best friend. Fans out there who LIKE guns have gone and identified every firearm they can in pretty much every movie or television show you can imagine (and television shows are often updated when new weapons appear in new episodes). This is how you learn that Dean's pearl handled handgun is a Colt m1911 while Sam's is a nickel-plated Taurus PT92, which is a Brazilian-made imitation of a Beretta 92, which is a weapon that shows up in almost every mook's hand in Supernatural, but which the Winchesters themselves never use. Thank you so much, people who update that.
Now that we know what they're firing, now we need to know: how do they work?
Dream A Little Bigger, Darling - the Inception Fic Writer's Guide to Firearms bychn_breathmint - This incredibly thorough (and highly entertaining) tutorial covers not just gun safety, gun anatomy, how different kinds of semi-automatic handguns fire differently, but how bullet wounds work, bullet types, stances, and some tactical movements and routines that your gun users might take for granted. Does Dean Winchester know how to "slice the pie"? If he doesn't, then he really should. It also answers the pesky question of "Why can't all the boys wear thigh holsters all the damn time?" Thank you so much for writing it - but it shouldn't be pigeon-holed into Inception fandom alone.
snickfic was kind enough to rec my SPN/Discworld crossover A Grand Sneer and had some lovely things to say about it (thanks, btw). Being insecure, not having looked at it in, well, a long while, and wondering how I've grown as a writer since, I went back to see if I really had done some of the things in it that s/he'd mentioned. I only got to the end of the first chapter before I face-palmed:"Get back!" shouted Dean, pulling his pearl-handled automatic out of his belt and taking aim.
Oh, Self, you were so naive back then. Semi-automatic, Dean's Colt m1911 is a semi-automatic, which is a whole other thing. (This is why rereading your own work is always a dangerous thing). Then again, it was my first Supernatural fic and as a writer I started out in two fandoms (Buffy and Doctor Who) whose canons are notoriously anti-gun (penalties range up to "being flayed alive onscreen" for villains who show up with them). So for a long time I didn't really need to know about guns, and not being the type who much cares for guns in the real world (I'm a knife/aluminum baseball bat kind of girl), I had little to no interest in researching them. Leading me to write things like the above. **Cringes**
Bad Self. Research is always important. Especially when you start expanding into new fandoms.
As you can see above, I got into Supernatural (coming up on my two year anniversary here) and then Inception (I've been very quiet over there so far, but I don't just ship Arthur/Eames, I regatta it, so if you write Arthur/Eames, then I've probably read at least one of your stories and then was an evil person who didn't leave a comment). Now I'm in the middle of creating an Epic Supernatural-Inception crossover 'verse (more on that later, but the timeline alone has been called "obscenely detailed'). And it's an inescapable fact that if you're writing Supernatural or Inception, especially if you're writing tight third or first person POV, you're going to wind up writing from the POV of someone who knows a lot about guns and in fact, uses them on a regular basis. So they really should be using the correct terminology. And the correct guns (props, especially recurring ones, are extensions of the character).
Which means research. Fortunately, if you're someone like me who knows virtually NOTHING about guns, you can start writing with a due-diligence level of technical precision with just two different resources:
The Internet Firearms Database - Your new best friend. Fans out there who LIKE guns have gone and identified every firearm they can in pretty much every movie or television show you can imagine (and television shows are often updated when new weapons appear in new episodes). This is how you learn that Dean's pearl handled handgun is a Colt m1911 while Sam's is a nickel-plated Taurus PT92, which is a Brazilian-made imitation of a Beretta 92, which is a weapon that shows up in almost every mook's hand in Supernatural, but which the Winchesters themselves never use. Thank you so much, people who update that.
Now that we know what they're firing, now we need to know: how do they work?
Dream A Little Bigger, Darling - the Inception Fic Writer's Guide to Firearms by
chn_breathmint - This incredibly thorough (and highly entertaining) tutorial covers not just gun safety, gun anatomy, how different kinds of semi-automatic handguns fire differently, but how bullet wounds work, bullet types, stances, and some tactical movements and routines that your gun users might take for granted. Does Dean Winchester know how to "slice the pie"? If he doesn't, then he really should. It also answers the pesky question of "Why can't all the boys wear thigh holsters all the damn time?" Thank you so much for writing it - but it shouldn't be pigeon-holed into Inception fandom alone.