Posts (page 2)

Last weekend our local chapter of the Mystery Writers of America had a Seattle Police Department detective come and speak with us.  He was an interesting guest.  He'd been a patrolman, worked in on the sexual assault and child abuse crimes squad and now worked as a CSI tech.  One thing he mentioned almost in passing caught my attention; The Reid Technique of Interview and Interrogation.

The detective described it as an analysis of indicators guilt or innocence in interrogations.  An example he used (which he mentioned was simplistic) involved asking a suspect "Why did you rob that bank?"  The innocent suspect would likely say something like "I never robbed any bank." while the guilty one might be more prone to respond "What bank?".

After reading  this wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_technique) and much of the Reid Institute site (http://www.reid.com) however it seems to me as if much of the technique is aimed more at making certain that statements in interrogations make strong prosecution evidence than it is at determining guilt or innocence. 

The nine steps of the Reid technique are listed below.  For contrast and amusement, I have listed the title of each step according to the Reid Technique site followed by the Wikipedia description of that step.  Perhaps this will be useful for some of you.

Reid.com:    The Positive Confrontation
Wikipedia:  Tell the suspect that there is overwhelming evidence, even witnesses, of their guilt. This may be a lie to force the suspect towards confession.

Reid.com:    Theme Development
Wikipedia:  Try to shift the blame away from the suspect to some other person or set of circumstances that prompted the suspect to commit the crime. That is, develop themes containing reasons that will justify or excuse the crime. Themes may be developed or changed to find one to which the accused is most responsive.

Reid.com:    Handling Denials
Wikipedia:  Never allow the suspect to deny guilt. Reid training video: "If you’ve let him talk and say the words ‘I didn’t do it’, and the more often a person says ‘I didn’t do it’, the more difficult it is to get a confession." Stopping them talking also stops them asking for a lawyer.

Reid.com:    Overcoming Objections
Wikipedia:  At this point, the accused will often give a reason why he or she did not or could not commit the crime. Try to use this to move towards the confession.

Reid.com:    Procuring and Retaining the Suspect's Attention
Wikipedia:  Reinforce sincerity to ensure that the suspect is receptive.

Reid.com:    Handling the Suspect's Passive Mood
Wikipedia:  The suspect will become quieter and listen. Move the theme discussion towards offering alternatives. If the suspect cries at this point, infer guilt.

Reid.com:    Presenting an Alternative Question
Wikipedia:  Pose the “alternative question”, giving two choices for what happened; one more socially acceptable than the other. The suspect is expected to choose the easier option but whichever alternative the suspect chooses, guilt is admitted.

Reid.com:    Detailing the Offense
Wikipedia:  Lead the suspect to repeat the admission of guilt in front of witnesses.

Reid.com:    Elements of Oral and Written Statements
Wikipedia:  Document the suspect's admission and have them sign as a confession.

        Best wishes,

               Michael Jacobs

But I am hanging in with my writing schedule.  I've missed a couple nights, just been exhausted, but I'm still hitting my "at least fight nights a week" goal.  

I neglected to reward myself for a couple periods, but that's OK.  Come payday I'm buying myself a new Palm Treo 700p.  

I have to find a way to make allowances for time spent editing or plotting, but I haven't figured out how to measure a fair nights work of that yet. 

Harry Shearer:  The thing about the writers guild, which is different from every other union in Hollywood is that there is a mark of Cain at the birth of the writers guild.

Frank Darabont: OK, you're going to have to explain that.

Shearer: ...which is that the very first thing that the writers guild did on it's formation was give up the copyright.

But read mystery author Laura Lippman's true life story here. 

I sat down thinking, I'm not going to get anything down.  This is just gonna be one of those nights I skip.

1222 new words later, I'm headed for bed.   I wrote a longish thing on my progress and why I thought it was going so well over at my other vox blog Writing In Traffic  so if you're curious you can look there.

Goodnight.

ie; Me.

Tonight 825 new words.
Last Night 2/20, 751 new words.
2/19, 1007 new words, yes that's more than twice my quota.

I know these progress reports are dull to anyone but me.

In the fourteen days since the new program started.  I've written 500 words or more for twelve of them.  Over 8000 words.  Not that they're all good words, but progress is progress.   I have a total of about 48,000 on the book right now.  I am not sure but I am guessing, in fact totally guessing, that this book will run 85-100k. 

The question of course, is will making up and writing scenes every night actually get me to a climax (LEAVE IT!) and conclusion?  I'm not wild about the ending I've had in mind and am hoping something better will occur to me.

In the meantime though I'm delighted to be writing as much as I have been, and some of what's been coming out hasn't totally sucked. (Now, you may make the climax joke.)

Ten of the last eleven nights I have worked on the novel.  That's better than my quota of days, and each time I hit or exceeded my wordcount quota.  I'm over 6100 words added to the novel since I started the program.

So I ordered my little reward today (a dvd I wanted) and I get to consider what treat I will buy myself if when I hit my goals again in a couple more weeks. 

I wrote six days of seven.  My goal was five of seven.  I could have done that seventh, Saturday.  Probably.  I decided to skip it so that I didn't get myself into a mental funk by getting a too many days in a row.  Why would that be a problem?  It might when I finally missed a day.  Yeah.  My brain is that messed up.

Also I was tired.

Anyway, the part that surprises me is that the writing hasn't totally sucked.   I'm doing it at night after my son is in bed.  I hadn't been writing at that time because I am usually really tired and brain dead.  Turns out though, that once I usually force a few sentences out I can often get something started that I am happy with.

Of course, I have yet to re-read any of these scenes by daylight.

It's too soon to crow about it much but I am trying a new approach, and it's led to my writing five whole days in a row. That's not much, but I honestly feel I am going to be able to maintain some consistency for at least a while.  There are two main things I am doing differently. One is re-defining the writing as something that just has to get done. The other is rewarding myself when it does.

The Stick:
Im now treating the writing as a chore. It's just something I have to get done, like taking out the garbage. Doesn't matter how good it is, but I have a daily wordcount and a number of days writing per week quota to achieve.  I've often groused that by the end of the day my mind is shot and I can't write anything good anyway. Now I am really trying to embrace the "shitty first draft" school of writing and not care about that. The only thing that matters is making my quota, which ain't that high. A couple of the nights were brutal as I really couldn't figure out what to write and I was just exhausted, but I didn't want to end my "streak" at just a few nights running. In the end, I was pretty happy with what I got (though it's still shitty first draft, it can be re-writ, not tossed completely.)

The Carrot:
If I write at least 500 words every day between now and my net paycheck, I am buying myself a couple dvd's I'm anxious to own. If I don't manage it, I'm still allowed to buy the dvds, but not during the next pay period.  There are a couple of "outs"(*).  My real goal is writing five days a week. In respect for the concept of weekends I am allowed to miss two days a week, but I am supposed to make up the 500 per day I miss in overflow from other days.  If I start consistently beating the 500/day mark, I hope to bump up the quota, but for now I want something achievable even when I have NOTHING coming out of my brain to put on the paper.

The Big Carrot:
This is unlikely, so I'm not even thinking about it much, but in September Bouchercon, THE big mystery and thriller conference of the year, is in Anchorage. IF I have a completed manuscript, it might make sense to attend (assuming I can afford it and get the time off). This would be a big reward for completing the draft, and an opportunity to meet agents and editors and be able the answer the magic question, "Why, Yes. Yes I do have a completed manuscript."

Monday about 40 minutes before "24" started, I told myself I had to make my count before turning the show on. It took about an hour and though I was now "allowed" to watch the show I decided to put it off for the next day, as I was beat. That was both carrot and stick.

The 25-page Cleanup:
Both years I found the prep that I did for Writers in Paradise helpful.  I liked combining scenes, smoothing the transitions and polishing a decent sized chunk of work.  I think every 25-pages or so, I will stop and so some cleanup. The amount of "polished" pages in a row will grow. I think this also makes me feel like a draft of a book is appearing, not just a set of scenes. Organizationally it's also good to get my stuff into fewer files, rather than one for each scene. It's kind of GTD, in that I no longer have to keep track of what scene comes before what. I start putting them together and I don't have to think about it.
 

(*) and by "a couple of outs" I mean more rule variations and exceptions than the tax code, though not as many as in Magic; The Gathering.