{"id":23689,"date":"2014-06-12T00:01:59","date_gmt":"2014-06-12T04:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=23689"},"modified":"2014-06-11T20:39:17","modified_gmt":"2014-06-12T00:39:17","slug":"rachel-howzell-hall-five-things-i-learned-writing-land-of-shadows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2014\/06\/12\/rachel-howzell-hall-five-things-i-learned-writing-land-of-shadows\/","title":{"rendered":"Rachel Howzell Hall: Five Things I Learned Writing Land Of Shadows"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Los Angeles Homicide Detective Elouise \u2018Lou\u2019 Norton catches a case: a seventeen-year old girl is found hanged at a construction site. Lou\u2019s partner, Colin Taggert, fresh from the Colorado Springs police department, assumes it\u2019s a teenage suicide. But Lou doesn\u2019t buy the easy explanation. For one thing, the condo site is owned by Napoleon Crase, a self-made millionaire\u2026 and the man who may have murdered Lou\u2019s missing sister thirty years ago.<\/em><\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

As Lou investigates the girl’s death, she discovers links between the two cases.\u00a0She’s\u00a0convinced that when she solves\u00a0the teenage girl\u2019s\u00a0case she will finally bring her lost sister home. But as she gets closer to the truth, she also gets closer\u00a0the killer.<\/p>\n

I learned many things while writing this story, but here are the most important:<\/p>\n

JUST CUZ IT\u2019S INTERESTING, I DON\u2019T GOTTA TELL YOU EVERYTHING.<\/h2>\n

<\/strong>\u2018Damn, will you just SHUT UP?\u2019 I\u2019ve thought that any time That Guy\/That Girl cornered me and proceeded to tell me everything he learned about a newly-discovered millipede in the forests of Peru and goes on and on about I-don\u2019t-even-know-what-the-HELL-he-or-she-is-talking-about. And it started all because I asked ONE question about the ant creeping across the slice of cantaloupe.<\/p>\n

We writers can be That Guy\/That Girl. Because murder and forensics and cops\u2026 Interesting! And so, as I learn stuff like how blood changes over the course of a week or the psychological profile of the typical serial killer, it\u2019s all so cool and my first reaction is: This will be great in Chapters 6, 15, 26, 33 and 70! <\/em><\/p>\n

But I\u2019ve learned to grab the imaginary spray bottle, give myself a spritz and a firm, \u2018No!\u201d Cuz talking about everything is boring. Get in. Get out. Skip the parts people skip.<\/p>\n

WHEN IN THE PRESENCE OF REAL-LIFE POLICE, AND I ONLY HAVE TEN MINUTES TO ASK QUESTIONS, DON\u2019T BE DUMB ABOUT IT.<\/h2>\n

<\/strong>Cops are busy. And they don\u2019t like spending time talking about their day-to-day to us twee writing assholes. So, if a cop is sitting there, not chasing nuts and felons, and is willing to talk to me, I\u2019ve learned not to ask them about the type of gun they carry or what a radio code means or what\u2019s in their patrol car. Those details can be found on the Inter-webs or learned by watching good television shows.<\/p>\n

I learned to ask good questions, especially of female cops. And since Lou is a girl, I asked those lady cops very nosy questions. Un-Google-able questions, like, \u2018If you\u2019re at a crime scene, and it\u2019s going on the third hour, what do you do when you\u2019re on your period?\u2019 Un-Google-able. Or, \u2018Your partner Bruno is a man. You\u2019re married. But you\u2019re with Bruno all day. He\u2019s watching your back, and you\u2019re watching his back, and umm\u2026 Is it natural that you wanna, you know, stop sometimes at the Travelodge over on Century Boulevard, the one near the airport, and umm\u2026 you know?\u2019<\/p>\n

Un-Google-able.<\/p>\n

IT\u2019S EASIER TO WRITE A COP WITH NO LIFE OUTSIDE OF DEAD BODIES AND GLOCKS.<\/h2>\n

I read stories involving these cops a lot. And these stories have many readers. Good reviews. TV series, even. But I discovered that I didn\u2019t want to write that cop. Nor did I want her to be explained simply by the type of music she listens to or what she pours over ice. I set out to create a character that reflects my friends, women, me. Yes, music and liquor, but also religion, politics, family relationships, boxers or briefs, M.A.C. or Estee Lauder, Foxxy Brown or L\u2019il Kim.<\/p>\n

Lou is more than murder police. She\u2019s married, is a daughter, has lost her sister, has BFFs, reads bad romances, and loves BBQ ribs and wine. How do I incorporate all that without going overboard? Yeah, that\u2019s the rub. But Lou is worth the trouble, and she\u2019s more interesting now\u2014kind of like leather bags getting better as they\u2019re scraped and battered by life.<\/p>\n

READING CHANDLER, DASHETT, CONNELLY, MOSLEY AND LEHANE HELPED \u2013 BUT ONLY HELPED A LITTLE WHEN CREATING A FULLY-REALIZED FEMALE DETECTIVE.<\/h2>\n

<\/strong>I didn\u2019t want Lou to be John Rebus with ovaries nor did I want her to be Bridget Jones with a Glock. I wanted her to be a contradiction wrapped in a riddle trapped in a conundrum of steel and puff pastry. Crime: it\u2019s a man\u2019s world. And fictional men, just like men in real life, have more privilege than women. Don\u2019t make that face. It\u2019s true. And white <\/em>men definitely have more privilege than black women (psst \u2013 Lou\u2019s a black woman, if you didn\u2019t know that by now). Unlike Harry Bosch, she can\u2019t go off the grid, curse out her superiors, smoke in the no-smoking zone\u2014not if she wants to keep her job. Because they physics of her world and our real-life world are the same. She has to show up and take deep breaths and constantly prove to the Bosches and Spillanes of the crime-fighting world that she belongs, that she won\u2019t faint at the sight of blood, that her boobs won\u2019t keep her from hammer-fisting a nut with a knife.<\/p>\n

THERE\u2019S SOME SCARY CRAP OUT THERE.<\/h2>\n

<\/strong>As a crime writer, I lift the city\u2019s skirts to see the ugly so that I can then write about it. And boy, oh, boy, what the city has under her skirts.<\/p>\n

However!<\/em><\/p>\n

Just because I\u2019ve come across horrid, wicked shit doesn\u2019t mean that I have to write it. In my humble opinion, too many writers engage in torture porn, stories that get off on cruelty against the females in their stories. Some writers would argue, \u2018Hey, it happened in real life. And you<\/em> have dead females in your<\/em> books!\u2019 True dat\u2014and I\u2019ve read that same article in the newspaper about that monster who did those awful things to those women. And yeah, the victims in my novel are<\/em> female. But I aim to report, not glorify their deaths. Reflect and not bask in the ways they\u2019ve died. Sometimes, I\u2019ve learned, you gotta just say, \u2018Hell naw, I\u2019m not writing that.\u2019<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s me. You do you\u2026 you sick f#&%.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Rachel Howzell Hall lives in Los Angeles. Her new mystery LAND OF SHADOWS (Forge) featuring Detective Elouise \u2018Lou\u2019 Norton is available everywhere!<\/p>\n

Rachel Howzell Hall: Website<\/span><\/a> | Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Land of Shadows: Amazon<\/span><\/a> | B&N<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles Homicide Detective Elouise \u2018Lou\u2019 Norton catches a case: a seventeen-year old girl is found hanged at a construction site. Lou\u2019s partner, Colin Taggert, fresh from the Colorado Springs police department, assumes it\u2019s a teenage suicide. But Lou doesn\u2019t buy the easy explanation. For one thing, the condo site is owned by Napoleon Crase, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23689","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-6a5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23689"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23692,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23689\/revisions\/23692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}