At Killer Nashville, one of the big books everyone seemed to love is this one on forensics.
And why not? It’s a fantastic resource if you’re trying to write a mystery and want to make sure your description of the crime scene is accurate, and especially if you want to have cops solving it! I’ve had a copy for at least five years. And there’s even books on police procedure and poisons in this series.
You know what they don’t have? What I wasn’t able to find with a quick Google? The Law for Writers!
The only stuff I could find were resources for writers to know their rights in their own lives, a lot of copyright, obviously. What I want to do is pretty much what I’ve been doing on here in my legal basics series, but for writers. Stuff so they can write accurately (or close enough since laws and procedures in trials vary across states) for characters who are in legal trouble, making sure the cops investigating don’t violate the Constitution (or do ;), or if you want to put a court scene in there, stuff to cover the basic timeline of a criminal trial or bringing a suit, and just some basics of contracts and business law for whenever you have anything with a business’s shady dealings come in.
Writers, is this something you would be interested in reading? Do you find yourself wondering if your character would really go to trial that quickly? Or if the cops could actually bust into the house like that? Or even something as mundane as if your character is selling her song/book/movie, what are the basic elements in a contract she should be scanning and wondering what the hell that means and if she should agree to it?
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