Winning
In the October issue of “Writer’s Digest” magazine, the editor includes a concise sidebar piece explaining the differences between the revolver and the semi-automatic pistol. Now, stop right there and think about it: in a magazine written for authors of stories like Twilight and Harry Potter is a gun article called “Getting the Details Right.”
And don’t knock action movies. That’s where the ant-gun people get their ‘facts’.
August 27th, 2012 at 11:17 pm
What’s an ant-gun? I’m assuming a very small caliber…
(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
August 28th, 2012 at 12:49 am
It’s where most people who write role-playing games get their “facts” too.
August 28th, 2012 at 6:47 am
This isn’t actually new for Writers Digest. I had a subscription to it around 25 years ago and they had several articles about getting the guns right way back then.
August 28th, 2012 at 8:17 am
Getting guns wrong is so common that I get frustrated with authors who don’t bother getting it right, and I’ve tossed aside a few books over the years when they get it wrong. Then there’s authors like David Weber who go overboard with the details. Just read his book Out of the Dark if you ever want some literary gun porn (along side an okay alien invasion story, albeit with an odd ending twist). He definitely gets his details right.
I think SF authors (and military SF authors in particular) tend to get their details right more often because their readers tend to be sticklers for technical accuracy.
August 28th, 2012 at 9:05 am
The other side of that same coin is when an author gets the firearms exactly correct, using the details to add to the complexity and depth of a story, and the movie makers destroy it.
My (least) favorite example is Doctorow’s Billy Bathgate where a slum kid is trying to get into the Mob, only to find that the gang he has joined is on its way to extinction. He first obtains a real gangster’s gun: a Colt Model 1903, with the word “AUTOMATIC” engraved on the side almost like a magic talisman. The book describes his delight with the slim, deadly, pocket sized gun.
Then in the movie, he ends up with a very large, clunky Colt Police Positive in 38SPL.
I guess it was too much trouble for the screenwriters to read the book.
August 28th, 2012 at 9:36 am
Writer’s Digest also publishes an extensive line of books for writers about various aspects of crime, crime scene investigation, and the law.
I believe the very first book in the series was Armed and Dangerous: A Writer’s Guide to Weapons. And that was published in 1990.
August 28th, 2012 at 9:51 am
You mean there’s no such thing as a silenced clip-fed full-auto Glock revolver??
All snark aside, everyone knows that acquiring gun knowledge means some range time, and gun cooties will make you vote Republican and yell “yeee-haaaa!” out the window of your Prius at the Starbucks drive-thru.
August 28th, 2012 at 10:02 am
In the remake of “The Maltese Falcon” (the one with Bogart), Miles Archer is killed (sorry, spoiler!) with a semi-auto revolver — and Sam Spade mispronounces it.
It’s a Hollywood tradition.
August 28th, 2012 at 10:02 am
Reminds me of that California politician that was listing the Guns from Halo as factual weapons… What a bunch of ingrates..
August 28th, 2012 at 10:17 am
don’t forget how to operate the safety on the revolver…
August 28th, 2012 at 1:10 pm
@John Smith – who was that? I must have missed it.
August 28th, 2012 at 4:48 pm
@ IllTemperedCur- yes, there is, it was called the Dardick, not a Glock.
August 28th, 2012 at 5:38 pm
Daughter has Armed and Dangerous, and I looked through it; the firearm section was not bad, but included a lecture about the evils of guns, how horrible the US is compared to other countries on gun ownership, etc.; both unnecessary and distracting from what the chapter was supposed to be about.
August 28th, 2012 at 7:05 pm
David Weber publishes through Baen and Tor; if their editors didn’t have a reasonable knowledge of firearms before starting, David Drake and Oh John Ringo No would have educated by example.
(I like John Ringo, btw)
August 28th, 2012 at 7:44 pm
To be fair, many European revolvers did have manual safeties.
August 28th, 2012 at 9:51 pm
The Hunger Games irritated me because the way the girl used the bow was often much more like a firearm than a bow, and a movie firearm at that.
August 29th, 2012 at 1:44 am
Here’s hoping the entertainment industry will continue to glorify bad guys and gangsters shooting their handguns sideways! No doubt many real-life murderers have missed countless times because of the bad shooting habits they picked up from aping hollywood mythology.
On the other hand hollywood is no doubt to blame for many accidental shootings, because on film mere removal of a magazine is treated as fully unloading a weapon. Some poor kid or other schmuck whose only info on firearms is from the entertainment industry too often finds a pistol, removes the magazine, and then plays around with it as if it is unloaded. Tragedy follows when they pull the trigger after the infamous last words, “don’t worry it’s empty.”
August 29th, 2012 at 12:16 pm
I’m going to give a presentation about guns to a group of fiction writers in a couple of weeks. No idea what to expect, taking a power point we use to instruct new employees on firearms basics. Can’t use real guns since it is taking place in the local school building.