What do writers and forensic scientists have in common?

[pbray]

Curiosity. Because the field of forensic science is changing so rapidly, curiosity and the desire to continually keep learning new things is considered an essential trait of a good forensic scientist.

It's also extremely helpful if you're a writer. At the current moment I'm researching the history behind the Human Genome Project (particularly the politics), requirements for a career as a high school science teacher, the history of the Military Tract of Central New York, and looking for first hand accounts of women police officers from the late 1970s/early 1980s, just to name a few. I need to know more about DNA analysis as well, but that's such a broad field that I need to frame my questions first before I go digging.

Resding: Just finished Forensic Casebook: The Science of Crime Scene Investigation by Ngaire E. Genge. It's a good introduction to the field for those considering a career in forensic sciences, and also appropriate for fans of mysteries and crime shows such as CSI as it includes numerous examples showing when they got the science right, and when they got it wrong. Showing how quickly the field moves, since this book was published in 2002 it's already out of date in some areas, but still worth reading.

Comments

[elizabeth-welsh.livejournal.com]

This must be a real challenge, since your book will have to be limited to whatever technology fits the timeframe it's written for. When advancements come so quickly, it would be easy to include a procedure that didn't exist if you go back only a few years. It never ceases to amaze me the little details readers pick up on in a book. "Oops that game came out six months after this story is supposed to take place," or "How could she have used an open bed MRI in that year when it wasn't in hospitals for two more?"

I cannot wait to read the results though. Hats off for taking on such a challenge!

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Readers will catch you every time.

In my mind the story is set "present day", but if it stays in print I'll have the Sue Grafton effect, where what was cutting edge when she began her Alphabet series is now archaic in 2007.

I'll have some wiggle room in that this is an alternate Earth story, rather than a straight mystery. But I still need to get as many of the details right as I can--the more solidly built the "real world" underpinnings are, the easier it will be for readers to accept the fantastic additions to that reality.

Thanks for the encouragement. Hopefully my agent and editor will share your excitement when I'm ready to pitch the idea to them :-)

[elizabeth-welsh.livejournal.com]

I don't see how you could miss, now that you're starting to get better known. As someone who's trying to get to the official stage of writing, though, it is interesting to think you still have to pitch the idea. I'd hate that. I keep having accidental novels -- ideas that form and must be put to paper before I have time to tell anybody, let alone pitch something. I think I'd probably end up pitching a half-written manuscript. If you're thinking I'm insane, you're right.

Out of curiousity, did you have an agent before you had a publisher, or after you'd already found someone interested in printing your book?

[pbray.livejournal.com]

For my first novel, I sent queries to numerous publishers and agents, and eventually found an agent who took me on. She sold the book to Zebra for me, then promptly left the agenting business :-)

As a published author, it was easier to find my next agent, whom I've been with for the past ten years. Jennifer Jackson arcaedia was my agent for the remainder of my historical romances, and was instrumental in helping me make the switch to epic fantasy.

For my first romance I sold based on a completed manuscript, then the rest of my romances were sold on proposal, which is generally three sample chapters and a synopsis. For my first fantasy I also had a completed manuscript, since it was such a huge genre switch, along with a detailed outline explaining how this was the first book of a three book series, which brought me an offer for all three books from Bantam.

For the current series I was back to submitting on proposal--three chapters and a detailed outline of each book in the proposed series.

I know many authors who are happy writing books that they've sold based on sample chapters and a high-level outline. And I also know authors who find this approach too stressful, and that they do their best work if they write the entire book first, and then try to figure out where to sell it. It's really a matter of figuring out what works for you.

Hope this wasn't too long-winded.

[elizabeth-welsh.livejournal.com]

No, as always it was very informative. I suspect I will be the entire book type. Also, I almost never complete an outline on paper. It exists only in my head. I usually jump right in and research as I go. I finished the first draft of my last accidental novel in 44 days, which just goes to show that I'm slightly on the psychotic side of prolific.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

44 days is crazed, but also awesome!

oh, I forgot to mention

[elizabeth-welsh.livejournal.com]

I love the alphabet series, even though, as you say, some of it is archaic. I think that Kinsey Milhoun is so quirky that I can't help myself. Obviously the time stuff isn't a problem for her, and I doubt it will be for you. Even so, you seem to be putting in the kind of effort necessary to avoid any pitfalls.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Ooo, that sounds like a fun book! :)

[janni.livejournal.com]

I think scientists in general and writers have curiosity in common.

One more reason I want to rant when writers and artists talk about how they're right brained and not analytic and just can't handle that hard math and science stuff.

Scientists never do this. They tend to have interesting fiction on their shelves, to dabble in the arts, to generally be at ease with the idea that their fields of research are just one of the many things they're curious about.

[elizabeth-welsh.livejournal.com]

I've always thought the right brain, left brain stuff was a little weird. I've taken some of those personality tests. I always come out smack-dab in the middle, and the person who administered it looks at me like that's weird. But I believe a well-rounded individual should have all sorts of interests, and that curiousity should continue as long as you're breathing.

[janni.livejournal.com]

But I believe a well-rounded individual should have all sorts of interests, and that curiousity should continue as long as you're breathing.

Yes, yes, yes!

And the right brain/left brain stuff doesn't even hold up under study, as I understand it.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

>>But I believe a well-rounded individual should have all sorts of interests, and that curiousity should continue as long as you're breathing.

And these are exactly the type of people I want as my friends. When I tell people I'm going back to school this fall to take a course that may or may not be of any practical use to me, the kind of people I like to hang out with are the ones who say "Cool!"

The people who say "Why would you want to waste your time like that?" are the ones I can't fathom.

[jennifer-dunne.livejournal.com]

They're probably also the ones that think it's important to watch every episode of American Idol, every week, and discuss it in detail with all their friends the next day.

Because, you know, that's a PRODUCTIVE use of your time.

[elizabeth-welsh.livejournal.com]

They're probably also the ones that think it's important to watch every episode of American Idol, every week, and discuss it in detail with all their friends the next day.

ROFL, yeah, productive use of time -- though maybe it is if you're studying the rudest possible comments one can make to another, in which case an American Idol/Weakest Link cocktail is called for. I'm not even sure if Weakest Link is still on.

I've never had a Simon-type character. He blows my mind really. He is completely rude and entirely self-serving, and yet seems to have built a successful career on his bad behavior. **Scratches head** Go figure. What ever happened to more flies with honey? It makes both sides of brain hurt just thinking about it.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

The people who say "Why would you want to waste your time like that?" are the ones I can't fathom.

It must be very boring to have that attitude toward life. (Not that I didn't encounter it a lot back when I was at university, majoring in English lit ...) I mean, what fun is life if you're not learning new things?

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's entirely the writers' and artists' fault, though. Around here, anyway, we've been through long periods of the arts' being regarded as an expendable frill in education, and most of us are informally taught throughout our lives that maths and science are difficult, that they require just oodles of brainpower, while art and drama and creative-writing classes are scoffed at as "bird courses" in university and considered "hobbies" for both kids and adults. Proponents of arts education have had to resort to the instrumental rationale that kids who are involved in the arts do better at maths and science (according to a number of studies) to plead their case, when the truth is that (as elizabeth_welsh points out) you need all those areas of knowledge to be a well-rounded, thinking, learning person.

It's certainly true that scientists seem to be more willing to dabble in the rest of life than anyone else is to dabble in science.* I've even had articles on veterinary medicine with epigraphs from Julius Caesar.**

* But don't forget Tom Stoppard and Connie Willis.
** The epigraphs were misquoted, but you have to admire the authors for even thinking of using them.

[elizabeth-welsh.livejournal.com]

while art and drama and creative-writing classes are scoffed at as "bird courses" in university and considered "hobbies" for both kids and adults

I was a music major in college (which seems like a century ago at this moment) and the major actually required students to attend a course called "Career Planning 101." What is this you asked? Just what it sounds like -- a course to help you figure out what you were REALLY going to do with your life. In it we took "aptitude exams" and did questionaires to find where our interests lay. We also did the stupid right brain/left brain test (coincidence there, huh?) What did it say I was most suited for? IT COULDN'T DECIDE! Basically, it said I could probably be anything my little heart desired -- completely not helpful, especially given the fact that I would never have taken it if I hadn't been forced to. Two months into the course, I was so frustrated that I talked to the professor at great length. She eventually signed me out, saying I'd tested out of it to satisfaction, so I could get my absolutely useless associates degree.

It is sad when even a trumped-up test is fickle. I joked for a long time that I was voted (by a computer) most likely to succeed at the great, ambiguous "SOMETHING".

What did it all REALLY mean? My head is filled with useless trivia on a thousand subjects that makes me very good at trival pursuit and little else. After this thread today, I think I must be incurably curious about everything.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we had to take all those tests in junior high and high school, and as far as I can remember they never yielded useful results...

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Au contraire! I learned how to beautifully bubble in circles with a number 2 pencil, a life skill that has served me well... err, no, wait.

Yup, it was all crap.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

::snork::

[jtglover.livejournal.com]

YOU ARE THE KIND OF STUDENT TEACHERS ONLY DREAM OF. I'm just saying. When I taught history (and now, when I teach patrons about library research), it's a good year when you have one student as interested in the course subject as you seem to be.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

:-)

Well, I wasn't as well-prepared a student when I was 18, but I'm a tad older now, and just as I don't want the instructor to waste my time, I see no reason to waste his.

I can hear jpsorrow chortingly with laughter--a professor in the SUNY system, he's already told me that my behavior is way to the right of the bell curve.