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SWAT, or How do I do that?
Up early, house to myself. I gave Jon his pain meds and gave him the option of sleeping in, he took it. He’s managed to injure the foot, on the same leg as the knee that is recovering from surgery. We’ll be calling his doctor tomorrow. But this theme of leg injuries is becoming tiresome.
I am still not done with SKIN TRADE. But I realize part of the problem is me breaking another of my own rules. The one about not doing major rewrites until you have a finished draft. I do need enough rethink to know what characters will be where, though. Maybe, just go back and add that chapter in the courthouse, that I was going to put in, but I got distracted by the bad guy showing up, and it never got written. I didn’t think I needed it. But funny thing about skipping chapters that I’ve planned on doing, I often find I have to put them in, because without them something further down the road doesn’t work. So, maybe that’s it, just put in that small chapter, then see if what I’ve got written falls into place. Just have to decide if Sanchez is with Anita and the rest of the SWAT, or if he went ahead with the other team. Don’t scratch your heads, Sanchez is a new character. If I’ve used his last name for someone else, it’s accidental, and I’ll choose a new name. But, he’s probably the only character that really may need to be moved around for the climatic fight scene. Other than that, I’ve just got to rough it, until I finish my research. Every time I think I’ve researched enough to do a particular scene, I discover that, nope, I don’t have all my ducks in a row, or more like, I did have, but one of them keeps flying away. Sigh.
There are so many reasons I do a lot of the SWAT stuff off screen. The more I know about how they work, the more I despair of getting it right. I think I’ve done enough research, then I come on a situation that teaches me, yet again, that I just write fiction about this stuff, I don’t know how it works. I do my best, but if you give me a tactical situation, I will do my best, but I don’t have the training. Interestingly enough, Anita is the only person in the van that doesn’t have much formal military, or police training. So, she and I are a little lost, because I have to write the scene like the men in charge know a heck of a lot more than either Anita, or I, about how to manage a group of men in a life threatening situation, and think like a SWAT officer. The only saving grace is that I have hours, or days, to write and rewrite, so that I can save as many lives as possible, and accomplish the goal of the mission. In real life, you have seconds, maybe minutes, to make decisions that would freeze most people in their indecisive tracks. I’ve been paid the compliment, more than once, that I think like a cop. When it’s a cop saying it, that is high praise, indeed. Though, the one police officer, that cautioned me that if I kept living at yellow alert I was going to burn out, was interesting. I am trying to heed that wise advice. But, though I may, sometimes think like a cop, I do not think like a tactical cop. That is a different mind set, and it is not mine. That’s why these scenes are harder for me. It’s not just training, or lack there of, but literally I don’t think this type of police work is as close to my natural thought processes as others. Interesting, and I think, true. Of course, that little epiphany does nothing to help this scene be easier to write. Sometimes knowing why you’re having trouble with a scene can make that light bulb go on, and you have your "aha" moment, and suddenly it all falls into place. This revelation just makes me wish I had a SWAT guy on speed dial for questions. But first, write the scene out, then ask your expert. I’ve found doing it the other way, wastes both my expert’s time and mine. Rule number something; try to weed out the stupid questions before you get to your expert. Rule number something else; there are no stupid questions if you really need to know the answer.