Hey, guys. Today we have a guest post by Dan Chamberlain, about something I know little to nothing about; gun wounds. I hope you find it as educational a I did. 

Let’s talk about gun shot wounds, shall we?  So you want your fiction to be believable, but you don’t want it to be so graphic that it will turn your readership off. You want to strike that balance that gives the reader the shiver they’re looking for without having the gorge rise in the back of their throat. The devil is in the details.

Here are a few rules a writer should consider if they want their violent fiction to be both realistic and gritty:

#1. A handgun is not a construction crane. It cannot fire a projectile that will lift a human body – even a child’s – off the floor and fling it back against a wall or out a broken window.

#2. Entry wounds are generally (I’ll provide an example of when this is not true) the same basic size or diameter as the bullet. Given the elasticity of skin, often times the entry wound is considerably smaller than the diameter of the bullet.  One cannot look at the entry wound and surmise the caliber that made it, except in poorly written fiction or Hollywood scripts.

#3. The exit wound is generally (I’ll provide an example of when this is not true) larger in diameter – and often much more delightfully gruesome than the entry wound.

As for number one above, that old unbreakable law of physics that reasons for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction comes into play here. If a bullet imparts incredible force on a body, that same force must be imparted in the opposite direction as the bullet is leaving the barrel of the gun. Therefore, if we see a body picked up and flung against a wall due to the impact of a bullet, the shooter would be experiencing roughly the same force against their arm. Imagine the comedy there. Enough said.  Don’t make this mistake.

         Number two is a little more difficult. Unless we are shooting naked people in our books, bullets must first penetrate clothing before getting to the flesh. Depending on the article of clothing worn, a lot of things can happen to the bullet before it enters the body. We’ll talk about this momentarily.

Number three is my favorite topic because with the exception of number one, it is the most often abused in fiction. Bullet wounds are a study in themselves. A blog post can never do justice to the topic so I urge writers of fiction to do their research. This essay is merely to shed light on the topic so one’s fiction is more authentic and doesn’t immediately mark the author as a fraud.

         High-powered rifle caliber bullets are capable of doing great internal and external damage. Some handguns are capable of delivering enough energy to cause similar damage as well, but normally, the handguns used in most fiction are not in that specialty category to replicate rifle energies. Our most popular contemporary handguns are the 9mm Parabellum, the .45 ACP (automatic Colt pistol), the .357 Magnum, the .38 Special, the .380 ACP and the .44 Magnum.

I won’t take each caliber and dissect the damage it can do as there are plenty of articles one can research on these rounds. I suggest you Google Ed Sanow and see what comes up. What I’ll do is approach the topic from the standpoint of someone who has witnessed bullet wounds from several of these rounds and attended the autopsies of the victims who suffered them.

Most bullets used today in defensive situations (I’m omitting war as the ammunition used in war is technically designed to be less damaging than that used in law enforcement or civilian applications) are designed to expand when contacting flesh and bone. This expansion is supposed to cause greater lethality and a more abrupt cessation of combat. At handgun velocities, many bullets perform as designed, but certain factors can come into play, which have an impact (pardon the pun) on what the wounds are going to look like. 

A bullet with a hollow nose – more appropriately called a “Hollow-Point,” is designed to expand like the petals of a flower. It can become clogged with cloth as it passes through various articles of clothing and fail to expand. I only mention this because it’s nice to know and knowing it, can make you seem like a more knowledgeable writer.

If you watch slow motion video of handguns firing, you will see a significant amount of expanding gas from the explosive forces propelling the bullet as it exits the barrel. I mentioned earlier about exceptions to the entry wound being the same size or smaller than the projectile. This is one of those cases. If your victim was executed with the muzzle of the gun placed against the skin of the head or body, these explosive forces can create an entry wound that is sensational! But there are always exceptions. It doesn’t always happen. Sometimes, the gases enter the body and dissipate inside without making the entry wound any larger than the diameter of the bullet. 

On contact wounds to the head, with say a .45ACP, or .380 ACP or other “low pressure” rounds, there will be an expansion that occurs under the skin between the skull and skin that causes a temporary bulging of the flesh. What you may see there is an imprint of the muzzle of the weapon surrounding the entry wound that may help you identify the weapon used. Keep this in mind if you want to play CSI at the scene. However, if the expanding gases just under the skin and against the skull cause tearing of the flesh, you will often see a “star” pattern of rips and tears, referred to a “Stellate” pattern. Google this and you will see photographs that illustrate it. These can be quite dramatic, or they can be very small, depending on the round used and its relative power.

The reason exit wounds are often described as gaping is largely due to a temporary wound cavity being created by the hydrostatic forces generated as the bullet passes through flesh. If the bullet has sufficient force as it exits, so that this temporary cavity is still being generated, it will manifest itself in a much larger wound than the diameter of the bullet would suggest. 

As in the case of entry wounds, of course, there are always exceptions. If there is a tight article of clothing holding the flesh in place at the point of exit, such as a heavy leather belt, a bra strap or some such item, the exit wound can often resemble the entry wound. In cases like that, an autopsy is the only 100% court-approved way to tell which directions the bullet was going when it entered and exited.

This is just touching on the topic. 

         Since this is an essay, and not a book, I’ll stop here. My primary concern is that a writer be authentic, and not rely on Hollywood for their knowledge of gun shot wounds. Nothing will turn a knowledgeable reader off more quickly, than to discover their new author is a fraud. I take pride in the many 5 Star reviews of my books by people who understand guns and gunshot wounds. Authenticity will always beat the other guys when it comes to sales.

Good luck, and good writing.

Daniel C. Chamberlain is a career Law Enforcement professional as a police officer, a Chief of Police and a Special Agent with AFOSI. After retiring from Criminal Investigations, Dan embarked on a second career as a registered nurse. Dan has been a feature writer for national circulation magazines and is a bestselling author. His novels can be found on Amazon here.

I am super behind on my Marvel movie watching, let’s just get that out of the way. I’m trying to have more fun, though, and not focus so much on being productive all the time. So I’m doing what I always do when I need to make a change in my life. I use my bullet journal.

I’ve got this whole list of movies I want to watch in my bullet journal, and I’m trying to get to them one by one. That’s how we finally ended up watching Deadpool.

It was a great movie, I absolutely loved it. Please be aware, it’s hugely inappropriate. Like, I’ve never seen a movie so inappropriate. This is, in big bold letters, not a movie intended for children!

I will probably do a blog post eventually about doing vulgar, sex and violence well, but that’s for another day. What I want to talk today about is this one speech right near the end of the movie. This speech from Colossus is fairly well known at this point. I’ll paraphrase it here, but here’s a link to the full thing.

Being a hero isn’t a twenty-four hour, lifelong thing. Usually, it comes down to just the decisions you make in just four or five minutes.

This just struck me as so true! But it’s not, not really.

There will be moments in our lives when we are called upon to do heroic things. Some friends of mine and I had such an incident when I was at summer camp. A fellow camper passed out during a hike, and we had to two-person carry her out of the woods. I don’t say this to brag. There was another camper and two adult leaders with us. It was a team effort, but I was proud to be part of that team. I also don’t say this to brag, because I’m sure that you have a story like that. If you’re a police officer, doctor, firefighter or EMT you have stories like that every day.

But being a hero isn’t always about these big, life or death moments. Sometimes it’s just being a good person.

It’s not the decisions we make in those 4 or five minutes that show who we are. It’s our everyday decisions.

People who help out a stranger who’s short at the coffee shop.

People who help their neighbors take something heavy to their car.

People who pick up trash, even if it’s not theirs.

People who are patent with older people, and other people’s kids.

People who mow their neighbor’s grass, instead of calling the city when it gets too high.

People who don’t judge others about their parenting, housework, yard work, day jobs, hobbies, or really any other lifestyle choice that doesn’t harm anyone else.

While this is important to keep in mind for your everyday life, it’s also important to remember when you’re writing a character.

It’s likely that your main character will have many huge moments where they’ll have to be brave on a grand scale. Their lives will be in danger, and they must risk themselves to save others. That comes up in almost every book.

What we as writers should remember, is that while these moments are defining, they aren’t the only ones. How a character acts towards her fellow man every day will often show more of who they are, and what sort of hero they are than any heroic four or five minutes.

Seven pieces of short and flash fiction, showcasing the days of seven very different people. You will find a busy librarian, a lonely man with a guitar and a woman who finds a dream crashing in her brain.

Get it here now.

Have you ever been watching a show or reading a book, when something terrible happens to a character? And you just can’t stop laughing?

This usually because this character has been set up to suffer and you know that it’s coming. You even want it to happen. It can be a bad guy, but more often it’s a good guy who’s experiencing a momentary fit of assholery. It’s a lot of fun to read, and a lot of fun to write. So we’re going to talk today about setting up a character to suffer.

Make them deserve it.

Suffering is the root of all humor. Usually, other people’s suffering, unless you’ve had time to heal. But suffering is always funnier when you don’t feel sympathetic for the person who’s suffering.

Make other characters warn them

Suffering is also funnier when the person who suffers is being oblivious. If you have a smarter character, this is the time they should try to warn the impending victim. Have someone tell them that something bad’s coming their way, but maybe not how it’s coming. Better to simply have someone in the know behave in a worried manner. Extra points if the impending victim is unpleasant to their would-be protector.

Make it not the main character’s fault

I’m assuming that you want your main character to be likable. Even if they’re an antihero, your reader should still like them.

A reader will like someone who does bad things to good people. But a reader will not like someone who picks on an easy target. And when you’re setting up someone to suffer, they’re a truly easy target.

Make it poetic justice

Setting up someone to suffer works best when the punishment makes sense. Poetic justice is almost always funny. Like the urban legend about the hunter who throws a stick of dynamite, only to have his dog retrieve it for him. Or the person who steals what they think is a shopping bag of gifts from an old woman on the bus, only to find it was a dead cat the lady was taking to the country to bury. A lot of urban legends deal with poetic justice, and for good reason. It’s funny and satisfying. We all love a good example of Karma, after all.

At least so long as it’s not biting us.

Why does this still work, even though its telegraphed?

Up until now, one thing has been pretty clear, setting up someone to suffer is usually not subtle. You can see it coming like a heavy lady in stretch pants. So, why, is it fun, when we know it’s happening?

Part of it is making sure that the person deserves it, as we discussed above. But the other part is that there is an element of surprise. We know that something bad is going to happen to this character. That’s not in question. The question is, how are they going to suffer? They’re going to get it in the neck, sure, but how?

Lending a spark of comedy in any story is useful. Setting up someone to suffer can help get a laugh out of any genre.

Let’s say you and your friend both break your leg. It was a freak accident, you were hit by an ice cream truck. Anyway, that’s not the point. You and your best friend are both laid up.

I bet that you both have very different reactions to this.

Maybe one of you works outside the home and is in danger of losing their job. Maybe one of you has kids that need looking after, and it’s hard to do that. Maybe you were really active, and this hits you hard, but your buddy is cooler with hanging out on the couch for a couple days.

The point, of course, is that everyone reacts to bad situations differently. And if you’re writing for your characters, it’s important to keep this in mind.

How someone reacts to one of the many curveballs that life will throw at them depends on a thousand different factors. It’s important to remember that it has nothing to do with strength or weakness. Most of it has to do with perception.

Of course, if you’re writing about a cast of characters reacting to the same thing, it would be grossly unrealistic to have them react the exact same way. Here are some things to consider when crafting a character’s reaction to a crisis.

What was lost?

A crisis is rarely about the actual incident. It’s about the loses that it causes.

Let’s say, for example, that there’s a great fire in your story. Fires are a good example because they can happen anywhere. So, let’s say we have a fire wherever your characters are. What can your character lose?

Maybe one character is a tavern owner. She might lose everything. Maybe your character doesn’t live in town, but his lover does. Or maybe your character is a loner who hates everyone, but really needed to get new horseshoes from the blacksmith.

How important was that thing to your character?

Obviously, in the example above each thing lost had varying degrees of significance to the person who lost it.

Maybe the tavern owner inherited the place from a mother she hated, and she’s thrilled to be free of the place. Maybe the loner needed to get to a faraway kingdom to see his sick daughter, and now his horse is ill-equipped.

What else might they lose because of this accident?

One of the worst things about a crisis is that the effects ripple through our lives. It’s never just the crisis. A housefire means you’re homeless. It might mean for one person that they have to move in with a relative out of state. They have to leave behind their job and friends. It might mean for another that they have to get a crappy efficacy apartment. They’re forced to let go of their beloved pets. For even another, it might mean they’re sleeping under a bridge and they’ve lost everything. Every bad thing has ripples. Think about what those ripples might be for your characters.

How well can they recover?

As described in the example above, different people will have different abilities to cope with a crisis. Usually, that ability comes down to money, but that’s not the only factor. Family relations are important as well. But it might also come down to just how willing to adapt and change someone might be.

What can your character do, financially and emotionally, to recover from this crisis? Knowing that is going to go a long way toward understanding how they’ll react.

Someone with a decent fund stashed away and lots of mental flexibility, for instance, might bounce right back from losing their home in a fire. That’s because they have the means to make a new home somewhere else. Someone who was barely getting by as it was will be, of course, hit much harder.

How many times have they been hurt or lost something before?

No matter how strong someone is, we all have a breaking point. We can all only get up so many times before we just don’t have it in us anymore.

At the same time, if someone has never experienced a loss before, it can hit much harder. Understanding your character’s past, even if it’s not something that’s explicitly discussed in the book, is essential to crafting a realistic reaction to a crisis.

Do they have anyone depending on them?

Knowing that you’ve got someone depending on you makes a difference in a crisis. Not only are you dealing with your own losses, but you’ve got to take care of theirs as well.

Having someone else who depends on them might make your character stronger. It might make them freak out even more because they’re worried about this person who looks to them for support. It might also make them focus so much on this person they protect that they don’t care properly for themselves. Whatever their response, it’s not something to overlook.

Do they have someone else they can depend on?

Now, let’s flip that around, and look at the character who’s being looked after. The child, elderly parent, sick spouse. How do they feel, knowing that the person they depend on now has this burden on their shoulders? Do they trust the person whose care they’re under? Do they want to step up and take a more dominant role? If their caregiver has always been the strong one but is now breaking, is this the time that the dependent character is going to stand up?

It might be. Because that’s the thing about a crisis. It brings out the worst in people, sure. But it also brings out the best.

I’m not a big jewelry person. I like it well enough, I just don’t seem to enjoy wearing it. I have a few things. A tigers eye bracelet. A necklace with a sand timer. A few assorted stretchy bracelets. There are only three things that I wear every day. The first is a tiny yin-yang symbol, silver and about the size of a dime. This symbol means a lot to me. I think it’s the absolute truth of the universe that there is nothing bad without some good and nothing good without some bad. The second piece is my fit bit. It’s not jewelry, it’s a piece of technology. And I use it all the time. The final piece is my wedding ring. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what this little band means to me.

These things mean a lot to me, and people who are used to seeing me every day recognize them. If I’m not wearing one of them, there’s probably a story behind why.

We can tell a lot about people based on these little accessories, these pieces of metal that we chose to attach to ourselves. In most societies, they require no explanation. A wedding band, a set of dog tags, a Star of David, a Cross. These all mean something basic about a person. They give us information and insight into who that person is.

The symbols don’t tell the whole story, of course. A set of dog tags means that the person has been in the service, or loved someone who did. It can’t tell you if they served honorably. A wedding ring means marriage, but it can’t tell you if it’s a happy marriage or not. A symbol of faith might represent one of the faithful. Or it’s just a family heirloom passed on from someone who the wearer loved.

As a writer, we can use these little symbols to show the reader our characters without telling them about them. A wedding ring, worn by a woman who is never seen with a husband raises questions. A set of dog tags worn by a man with scars on his face tells a story all by itself. A cross, scratched and dinged, hanging from the neck of a woman pointing a gun at your main character, certainly tells the reader that there’s something more to the person.

The trick is to use them carefully. You want these little symbols to tell only part of the story. You don’t want them to be a gateway into telling when you wanted to show. Here’s an example of what I mean.

Cody saw her looking at the set of dog tags, and tucked them under his shirt before she could see that they didn’t have his name.

That sets something up that you’re going to explain later. It’s a mystery to keep the reader guessing. You want to know whose name is on that dog tag, right? And why Cody is wearing them if they weren’t his?

You see how these tiny details can make a

Today is a special day. It’s a special anniversary, at least for me. It’s the anniversary of the day that I started writing the story that originally became Woven.

I tell the story every year about how it was the story of Woven that helped me become a writer again. So I won’t go into that again.

I want to talk today instead about perseverance.

I’ve been writing Woven for four years now. In four years I’ve published two books in the series and written four. I’ve gone through all the ups and downs of publishing, and continue to do so. All along the way, I’ve never had faith in myself.

I never thought I would finish the rough draft for Broken Patterns.

I never thought I would finish the book once I started editing it.

I never thought I would find a publisher.

I never thought I’d sell a copy to anyone but my relatives.

But I kept writing anyway because I decided that writing was worth it, even if I never got published. Writing is still worth it, even though I’m still not making any money doing it. Making money has never been the point, after all.

It’s always been about the story. It’s still about the story, four books later. It will always be about the story.

Keep writing your stories, my friends. Keep trying, keep sending your stories out to agents and publishers. Keep writing, even if you don’t think it will go anywhere.

Because the story is always worth it.

I’ve moved a lot in my life. Like, a lot a lot. And I hate it every single damn time. I always lose things, and they’re always the things I like best. One time I got a whole box of DVDs stolen. I always hurt myself and it always takes up way more time than I think it should. And, of course, I’m a writer and avid reader. So, the majority of my house is full of books, notebooks and assorted bits of paper.

You never really realize how much paper weighs until you’re trying to move a house full of it.

As someone who’s moved as often as I have, I’ve naturally learned a lot about the process. And I always say that the easier the rest of your life is, the more time you can spend writing. So, allow me to share with you some moving tips that I’ve picked up along the way. Hopefully, if you’re forced to move at any point in your life, my hard-won lessons might help you.

Start packing before you find a place.

As soon as I realized I was going to be moving, I started packing. Obviously not things that I needed daily, or even things I thought I might need in the next two months. I started packing away things like my basement, and all my holiday decorations. I pack anything I could that I didn’t use in my day to day life before I even knew where I’d be unpacking it.

The reason for this is simple. There’s a lot more in your house than you realize, and it’s going to take more time than you realize to pack it all. So the sooner you get started the better. Especially since you don’t know how quickly you might have to move once you find a new place.

Don’t clean as you go.

I know, that doesn’t sound right. But here’s the thing. If you’re vacuuming and moping before you move all the boxes and furniture out, guess what? You’re going to have to vacuum and mop all over again. The same goes for washing walls and cleaning out the bathroom. It’s better to wait until everything is out of the old place and start cleaning then.

The FlyLady is always right.

Just as I was realizing I was going to have to move, the Flylady sent out an exceptionally well-timed email about moving. She suggested using her Crisis Cleaning method to pack your house. If you don’t know what her Crisis Cleaning method is, click here. Basically, you pick three rooms, work for 15 minutes in each room, then rest for 15 minutes. I did this almost the whole time I was packing and cleaning my old place. It really helped me not hate the whole process.

Schedule the movers as soon as possible.

I didn’t realize how quickly movers got booked before I tried to schedule them for the last week of June. I actually ended up having to delay my move another week because I couldn’t get anyone in time. So, as soon as you know when you’ll need the movers, book them.

There’s no better time for an audiobook or podcast.

There’s no getting around the fact that moving is boring! Straight up, I hate packing and cleaning. There were a few weeks when I was doing almost nothing but packing and cleaning. So I passed the time listening to podcasts and audiobooks. Music is great, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not as entertaining as a story.

Drink your water

I was moving during a heat wave. Like an actual, there was heat index warnings every damn day heat wave. So I was super careful to drink water all the time so I didn’t, you know, die.

No matter when you’re moving, though, you need to be drinking your water. Moving is usually more exercise than people are accustomed to getting unless you’re in the habit of working out for several hours a day on the regular. So, don’t neglect your water.

And don’t underestimate the restorative power of a good strong cup of tea.

Use small boxes

I have a lot of books, duh. And books are heavy, also duh. That’s why it’s so important to use small boxes when I’m moving. Boxes that are small enough to be light enough for me to carry without pulling a muscle. Yes, this does mean I might make more trips to the car or moving truck. But at least I won’t throw my back out. Because trust me, if that happens, you’re done moving. Whether you’re done or not, you’re done.

Be aware of your pets at all times

Even if your pets are super chill, they might not be while you’re moving. All the activity, all the commotion, all the strangers in the house on their territory, moving their stuff will mess with the most laid-back animal. (Because you know, it’s all their stuff, not yours.) A cat or dog might well take the opportunity to take off for a few days, expecting you to be there when they come back and things will be calmed down. And you might not be.

My dog and cat spent lots of time in the bathroom while I was moving. They weren’t happy with me, but at least they didn’t vanish.

Give yourself some grace.

When I realized that the movers weren’t going to be available until after my original move out date, I called my landlady and asked her for a few extra days. When the movers didn’t show up until six in the evening, I did it again. At both times, my landlady was totally cool with it.

I could have been totally anal and insisted upon getting everything done by the original date. I could have knocked myself out and worked around the clock to get out even faster if I wanted. I could have saved myself some money, too, and not hired movers.

But I didn’t do any of that, because I couldn’t afford to devote all of myself to this move. I have a book launching this month, on the 13^th. I have another book I’m editing. I have a day job, and the desire to not throw my back out.

I gave myself the grace I needed, in other words, to get done what needed to be done in the healthiest way possible. Remember, moving is a huge job, stressful physically and emotionally. I left a whole different version of myself behind at my old house, and that was an emotionally taxing thing.

Even if you’re moving for the best of reasons, it’s emotional. So give yourself some grace.

So, what do you think? What’s the best moving tip you’ve ever heard? Are you moving any time soon? Let us know in the comments below.

It’s the official launch day for Virus!

I feel like I’ve done a lot of launch days in the last few years, and they never stop being exciting.

We’re having a Facebook launch party tonight, in case you missed it. Here’s a link to the party.

And, just in case you haven’t read them yet, here are links to the first three chapters of Virus. So if you just found me, this is what the fuss is about. Episode One is right here, and here’s Episode Two and Three.

Don’t forget, Seeming and You Can’t Trust The AI are both on sale for 99 cents for the week. This will be the last time they’ll be on sale until the holidays. So grab them now.

I’m so glad that you’ve come with me this far in Sennett and Godfrey’s story. There’s so much more to come.