Drop the Pen! What Every Writer Should Know About Real Police Work: Six Terms Writers Tend to Get Wrong About Police Work

By D.L. Williams

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There are terms in films and novels that are used interchangeably, despite the fact they actually refer to different things. For example, in Stephen King’s novel, “The Green Mile,” death row inmates occasionally refer to The Cold Mountain Penitentiary as “jail,” and in the Sylvester Stallone film, “First Blood,” the tiny local lockup in the fictional town of Hope, Washington is referred to as a prison. This is not a big deal, especially when it comes to dialogue. Fictional characters flub, either because they don’t know better or, perhaps, because the writer is inserting irony. 

If you want your hardened criminal to refer to his maximum-security prison as “jail,” or you want a naïve person in your story to refer to his two-hour confinement in a local holding cell as “my time in prison” for comedic purposes, I say rock on. However, it is often evident the writer plugged in an incorrect term, not for style or characterization purposes, but purely from a lack of information or research. It’s far better to be a well-informed writer who can tweak dialogue and descriptions artistically than an author who throws out incorrect terms due to not having done their homework. Let’s take a look at the six most common terms I hear or read that are used incorrectly: 

Misdemeanor or Felony

Misdemeanors are lower-level offenses for which a person can only be sentenced to a maximum of one year of confinement. Felonies, on the other hand, are more serious and can carry an incarceration sentence of anywhere from a year to the rest of the convicted person’s life and/or the death penalty. 

Every state has its own definitions of what constitutes a misdemeanor versus a felony. Each state’s statutes clearly differentiate between the two based on the severity of the offense, how many times the person has been convicted of a crime, or the dollar value of a stolen or intentionally damaged piece of property. 

For example, shoplifting is a misdemeanor, but many states also have theft statutes that bump the misdeed up to a felony if the item or items stolen are valued above $1,000. Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) is a misdemeanor unless the driver hurts someone in a crash or if the arrestee has been previously convicted multiple times for DWI. 

There are other significant differences: People arrested on a misdemeanor are often allowed to leave jail after posting bail without first having seen a judge, whereas many states mandate a person arrested for a felony-level offense is seen by a judge who will set the bail amount before release. Convicted felons are not allowed to vote or own a firearm in many states, oftentimes for life, whereas most misdemeanors can be expunged (legally erased) after a period of time.  

Jail or Prison

Jails are holding facilities used to detain people accused of a crime or who have been convicted of a misdemeanor offense and sentenced to less than one year of confinement. Prisons, on the other hand, are only for people who have been convicted of a felony and who have been sentenced to at least one year. 

Things can get tricky here, so tighten your hat strap. People arrested for felonies will be held in jail until they are convicted. Remember (and I don’t say this lightly), people are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, so what they’re initially arrested for may be quite different than what they’re sentenced for at trial. Thus, potential felons will be held in jail until trial (or until they agree to a plea bargain). Many jails segregate those accused of violent felonies from misdemeanants, but this depends on state statues, local policies, the physical size of the jail, and manpower resources. Thus, someone arrested for stealing a loaf of bread could well be in the same jail cell as someone arrested for murder. 

Probation or Parole

Probation and Parole are terms used to describe the condition of release from confinement following sentencing. They are used so interchangeably that they have become colloquial synonyms. They are different, however. Someone on probation has been convicted of a crime, misdemeanor or felony, but was not sent to prison. They may serve jail time, pay fines, do community service, but they never set foot in a prison for the crime they committed. Parole, on the other hand, is exclusively for convicted felons who have spent some time in prison. 

The difference between probation and parole may be insignificant in a conversation between two characters in your WIP, but it is significant in terms of the conditions of release. People on probation may be court-ordered to do certain things such as keep their probation officer apprised of where they live or work, take an occasional drug test, or do community service in lieu of jail time. 

People on parole, however, are only allowed to leave prison based on good behavior and an agreement to give up certain rights upon release. Most significantly, parolees generally give up their Fourth Amendment protections against government intrusions into their privacy. Thus, a parole officer can search a parolee’s house, demand an immediate drug test, require a detailed list of friends and family members, and insist on being privy to just about every move a person recently released from prison makes. 

The street lingo for someone on parole is that they are “on paper.” Your fictional detective will want to know if a parolee she’s interrogating is on paper, and she may want to get access to that person’s “chronos,” the written reports filed by prison and parole officials documenting how that person behaves, if they were often in trouble or were a model prisoner while incarcerated, if they’re going to their court-mandated therapy sessions, or if they’re making progress with drug rehab, etc. 

Police officers do not have the authority to intrude into a parolee’s private spaces (home, car, bodies, etc.). A common scenario when a cop is investigating a person on parole is for the detective to contact the parole officer and detail why their parolee is a suspect in the latest crime. The cop can’t order or even ask the parole officer to perform a search, but the parole officer can offer of his own accord. Generally, the parole officer will then invite the detective to come along and help out on the search. This is an end run on the Fourth Amendment. This is, by definition, a warrantless search, and, in my opinion, should only be used as a last resort and only if the crime being investigated is especially egregious. 

Bail or Bond

Bail and bond are probably the most confused terms I see in prose and in screenplays. Bail is the amount of money set by the court as a condition of release prior to trial. No one wants to sit in jail for weeks or months awaiting a court date, and the Eighth Amendment requires that the bail amount not be excessive. People who complain that judges are “soft” for allowing an accused person to pay bail and leave jail before their court date simply haven’t read or don’t understand this section of the Constitution. 

People who do pay the bail amount will get a refund when they show up for trial, but they forfeit the money if they “Fail to Appear” (often referred to as FTA), at which point the judge will issue a warrant for their arrest. 

Bail bonds, on the other hand, are posted by a bonding company or an attorney. It’s like a loan, only with heavy interest. Most bail bond companies don’t actually have to pay the court anything unless their client doesn’t show up for court. If that happens, bail bond companies will go looking for the person who burned them, and they’ll set a bounty hunter on the accused person’s trail. 

All of these terms are interchangeable in most people’s minds, which means you have wiggle room when it comes to how your fictional characters use them. Write your dialogue based on what you imagine your good guys and bad guys would know and say, but always do so from a position of insider knowledge.

The Myth of the Five Senses

By Lois Winston

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The other day, I read a statement that blew my mind—and not in a good way. Someone had written, “Some writing coaches advise that each page should include a reference to the five senses: see, hear, touch, smell, and taste.”

No! No! No! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

The Internet is filled with bogus information and/or people who claim to be experts in fields where they have no expertise. I don’t know where this person got her information, but it’s certainly not from a credible source.

Writing Rule Number One 

All dialogue and narrative in a novel must do one of two things: either advance the plot or tell the reader something she needs to know at that moment about the point of view character. If it does neither, it’s filler and doesn’t belong in your novel.

Writing Rule Number Two

Only describe that which is pertinent to the scene and/or character. If it’s not pertinent, it’s filler.

Writing Rule Number Three

Filler is bad! Always. No exceptions. It kills your pacing and bores the reader.

The five senses can either be a writer’s best friend or worst enemy. When used judicially, they can grab readers and pluck them down in the middle of the book’s action. When overdone, they make readers’ eyes glaze over. And any writer who makes a point of cramming the five senses onto each page, will not only have her readers’ eyes glazing over, but she’ll have them tossing the book across the room. 

5 senses x 300-400 pages = 1500-2000 reasons to stop reading (and probably never pick up another book by that author.)

So, when should you insert the five senses? Refer to Writing Rule Number Two. Need some examples? Keep reading.

Your character is a New York City commuter, standing on the platform of the #7 subway during a hazy, hot, and humid typical August in the city. She doesn’t notice the trash spilling from the garbage cans or the graffiti-covered walls. She’s become inured to the heat and the stench. Not that they don’t bother her, but she’s too used to them to take note. 

As a former commuter, I can tell you the best way to cope with the subway in summer is not set foot in it, but if you must, you learn to close your mind (and your nose) to your surroundings. Which is what our fictional character would do. 

Instead of focusing on the heat and stench and how uncomfortable she is, our stalwart protagonist is most likely scrolling through her Instagram or TikTok feed as she awaits the train. She’d only take note of the sights, sounds, and smells if there’s a good reason for her to do so. I could offer examples, but I’ll spare you the gory details because some of you may be reading this while eating lunch.

Now imagine your character is a twelfth century Scottish nobleman. He wakes up one morning to find himself magically transported to that same subway platform, he’s bombarded with all those sensory images and more. Everything he sees and hears is foreign and frightening to him. The one exception? The stench. Since twelfth century Scots bathed as infrequently as once a year or at most, once a month, most of the offensive odors are normal smells to him. Anything unusual would likely be masked by the smells he’d ignore. In such a scenario, have fun describing every detail of the assault to this very confused poor guy’s senses.

In Stitch, Bake, Die!, the tenth book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, Anastasia enters the victim’s kitchen to find the following:

Someone had ransacked the kitchen. Cabinets lay bare, their contents scattered across the floor in a haphazard array of pots, pans, and broken glassware and dishes. Drawers had been yanked out and tossed aside, appliances swept from the counters. Not a single package of food remained on the pantry shelves or in the refrigerator. Whoever had trashed Marlene’s kitchen had taken the time to open boxes, bags, and canisters and dump all the food. Everything from raisin bran to frozen broccoli florets to dried pasta peppered the room. A dusting of flour and sugar lay over everything like newly fallen snow.

Note, I wrote a short paragraph describing only what Anastasia sees. I don’t mention any lingering food smells or the sound of rain beating on the windowpanes. I don’t have her biting down on the inside of her cheek and tasting the coppery tang of blood or feeling her heart pounding in her chest. I don’t have her going weak in the knees and grabbing the door jamb to steady herself. All that is important to this scene is what she sees when she arrives in the kitchen. Given the plot and what happens next, further description would be filler.

The takeaway here? Describe what needs describing, then get on with your story.

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USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Her most recent release is Sorry, Knot Sorry, the thirteenth book in her Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series. Learn more about Lois and her books at www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.

The Writer’s Playbook: A Lesson in Spray Hitting

By Steven Harms

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One of the benefits of my previous career in professional sports was the opportunity to form relationships with the people on the “sports side” of the teams where I was employed.  I learned, many times by osmosis, the workings of the game from the professional’s point of view.

Case in point, Al Avila was the Assistant General Manager of the Detroit Tigers during my time working for the team. He became a good friend, and besides his genuine warmth and sociable nature, his deep knowledge of the game was something to heed. If you asked him a baseball question, he was great in explaining the answer.

I once asked Al to join me for breakfast as a special treat for a long-time corporate sponsor of the team, owned by two brothers who were rabid Tigers fans. We met them at a nice local establishment just to talk baseball. For me it was an awesome way to entertain a customer and for Al, well I’m sure it wasn’t something he loved to do, but he agreed to help me out. As the meal wore on, he was answering questions and providing his opinion on a variety of baseball topics. Finally, towards the end, he flipped the script and asked the brothers a question. He posed, “Do you know why right-handed batters are better spray hitters than left-handed ones?”

All three of us had no clue. Al proceeded to explain that it’s in the basics of the game. To score as many runs as possible, batters advance runners from first base to home plate, as everyone knows. Runners are moving from right to left in the second two legs of the process – first to second, second to third. It’s a one-way street, and you can’t go backwards. When players are on second and third base, they are scoring opportunities for the offense. When a ball is hit to the right side of the playing field, it helps advance the runner more so than if a ball is put in play on the left side of the field. For example, if a runner is on second base and the batter hits a fly ball to right field, the odds are high that the runner can advance to third base and potentially onto home plate. The right fielder must make their throw from a much longer distance than a leftfielder would have to in the same situation. Consequently, a fly ball hit to left field almost ensures that the runner on second base is not going to be able to advance, at least not all the way to home plate, because the throw is much shorter, giving the advantage to the defense.

With that as the backdrop, left-handed batters learn early on to pull their hits to the right side of the field to advance a runner, which is a more natural swing anyway. Conversely, right-handed batters must develop the skill to hit to the opposite field (right field) to increase the percentage of advancing runners. That’s called spray hitting, or the elevated ability to hit a baseball to the opposite field of your batting position. Due to the simple science on how to advance runners on base, lefties learn to pull while righties learn to spray. The ability to spray hit with some amount of success makes a player a valuable commodity because that individual has a talent to produce runs and win games.

Al’s insight concerning spray hitting crystallizes the value of seeking out information from people that have successful experience and a deep understanding of the topic at hand. Most everyone I’ve networked with or leaned into for advice and guidance on author-related subjects has displayed a willingness to share their learned knowledge. That mutual desire to assist fellow authors is at the core of the annual Killer Nashville Conference, and similar ones around the country. However, I think the secret sauce of my comparison to how Al Avila gave a “lesson” in spray hitting to seeking out advice from our gracious author community lies in the context of it being based on a singular detailed topic. 

Follow me here. Al was pointedly specific on one aspect of hitting. The benefit of a spray hit is uniquely applicable to a situational moment in the game of baseball. If there are runners at second and/or third base, a spray hit from a right-handed batter (the ball is hit to right field instead of that batter pulling the hit to left field) greatly enhances the odds of success in scoring runs from those base runners. But if there aren’t players on second or third base, a right-handed batter putting a ball into play to right field may allow them to reach first base, but a base hit to any field – left, center, or right – will achieve the same result. And, as I’ve witnessed a few times when no one is on base and the ball is hit to right field, the batter can still be thrown out at first base from the right fielder, but that would be impossible if the ball was hit to center or left field.

Bringing all this home (no pun intended), as authors we are well served to seek out advice and counsel from those that have the answers on specific topics. Key word being ‘specific.’ A few examples would be:

NOT SO GOOD: Do you have any suggestions on querying agents?
GOOD: I’m also a writer of cozy mysteries and seeking an agent. How did you land yours and can you steer me to a few agencies or agents that specialize in cozy mystery authors?

NOT SO GOOD: How do you use social media to market your books?
GOOD: Can you share with me your successful strategies for marketing your books across social media, and specifically with TikTok and Instagram?

NOT SO GOOD: Your John Doe thriller series has been hugely successful. How did you do it?
GOOD: I’ve decided to turn my first book, Jane Doe thriller, into a series. With the achievements you’ve had with your John Doe series, would you mind sharing with me the roadmap you took to make your second book a success, and what efforts you undertook that didn’t work?

Many times, it’s the initial question that will either open the floodgates of fantastic usable information or go the other way and all you’ll receive is a general reply containing information you either already knew or can find through every search engine on the internet. I must add that my career in selling pro sports sponsorships taught me to ask explicit questions concerning specific topics that would lead to the information I was seeking to put myself in the best possible position for success in landing them as a client.  The takeaway here is that specific targeted questions provide intelligence-filled answers.  

A final related note is to never underestimate the value of face-to-face interaction. Those conversations always bear the greatest fruit. My two previous clients, who one day had a private breakfast with Al Avila, can attest to the power of in-person connections. With that, next time you’re at a writer’s conference be sure to network, engage, and ask the right kind of questions of those willing to give you advice.

And now you’ve got a question to throw their way as well. Hint…Who’s better at spray hitting and why?