Today, I’m pleased to introduce New York Times bestseller Larry Correia as a guest. Although he has a busy schedule, he accepted the invitation to share with us some of his knowledge on firearms in fiction.
Larry also has an interesting background in publishing. He started out as a successful, self-published author, and a few years later, he accepted a publishing offer from Baen Books. He is an author who knows how to be successful in both arenas of publishing.
Along with having been on the NYT bestseller list, Larry has also been on the Entertainment Weekly bestseller list, was a finalist in the John W. Campbell award, and was nominated for a Hugo award for best novel in 2014. He has been a full-time writer for several years.
His books are noted by many publications for his detailed accuracy of firearms usage, which makes sense considering that he has experience as a firearms instructor.
No matter what your views on guns are, you’re likely to eventually come across the subject in your writing, so I thought it would be prudent to bring on a guest to discuss how best to go about it.
I’m sure you’ve all seen wild west movies where someone gets shot and then flies backwards several feet. Or in modern movies someone shoots the bottom of a car, then it explodes easily on the first shot. With the dramatics that Hollywood adds to gun use, it’s not surprising that it eventually affects how authors write about them.
Interview:
Ryan: What are the common pitfalls in fiction where it’s clear that the author has never held or fired a modern firearm?
Larry: It isn’t just guns, but any topic where the reader is an expert and the author is clueless. The problem is that when you write something that the reader knows is terribly wrong, it kicks them right out of the story and ruins the experience for them. Guns are especially hard because they are super common in fiction, and there are tons of readers who know about them.
Most of these really glaring errors can be taken care of with a little bit of cursory research. Technical things can be taken care of by a few minutes on the manufacturer’s webpage, which will keep your characters from dramatically flipping off the safety on a gun that doesn’t have one.
Beyond that, however, is the actual use of the gun. The character using it should have a realistic amount of knowledge based on their skill, knowledge, ability, and training. If you are gong to be writing about a character who is a professional gunslinger, then you need to do some research to make sure that person does what a professional gunslinger would do.
Ryan: If an author does not have access to a firearm or gun range, what are the best methods to brush up on them?
Larry: Actually shooting is best, but if you can’t, find friends who know guns and pick their brains. The problem here is like I mentioned, realistic amounts of knowledge for a particular character and your friends are going to vary just as much in real life. Just because somebody on the internet told you something doesn’t make it true.
Most online firearms forums are pretty cool about authors coming on and asking questions. Just don’t be a jerk about it.
Be careful because there are a lot of urban legends out there about guns. 5.56 doesn’t tumble through the air. A near miss of a .50 BMG won’t tear your limbs off. That is nonsense. So, the best thing to do is ask a group of people, and in short order you should be able to tell who actually has a clue and then disregard the crazy.
Ryan: How about antique guns? What are the pitfalls you’ve seen in fiction regarding those? (Black powder, musket balls, etc.)
Larry: Same issues. You need to do your research and the more the better. For me, the fun part about doing research on historical firearms is that it gives me cool little things to stick into the story. Watch videos of how you had to load various antiques, and now describe doing that while the PoV character is under a great deal of stress.
Ryan: What should authors keep in mind when including firearms in their fiction? Are there some phrases/descriptions that are difficult to mess up?
Larry: The way you describe the gun is going to depend on how the PoV character perceives them. Some characters are going to think of them as just another tool. Some characters are going to think they are icky or scary (and that character should most likely die first if you’re writing an action novel). Some characters are going to geek out, go all fan boy, and be able to recite all of the stats and numbers and tell you its history.
Also, remember what kind of story you are telling. If you are writing a techno thriller for the Tom Clancy audience, you can drop a paragraph of detailed information in there about wound ballistics. If you are writing a romance novel and the hero needs a gun, you’re not going to go all nitty-gritty like that.
Ryan: Can you tell us a bit about how you started in self-publishing and then went to traditional?
Larry: My first novel, Monster Hunter International, was rejected by around a hundred agents and publishers. But I was a businessman, I understood marketing, and I knew there would be an audience for this book, so I went ahead and self-published. This was before the e-book revolution, so it was a Print-on-Demand $25 paperback (which, as you can imagine, isn’t the easiest sell in the world). However, I promoted the heck out of it, mostly on internet, gun forums, and it took off and did extremely well, even getting onto a national bestseller list.
Later, I was offered a publishing contract by Baen Books, and I’ve been with them ever since.
Ryan: How are things different now that you’re traditionally published (vs. self-publishing)?
Larry: They both have their pros and cons, but I prefer being traditional mostly because of the reach. My books get in front of more people this way.
Keep in mind that self publishing is a whole lot easier now than when I started, and that was only in 2007! The challenge self-published authors face now is how to differentiate themselves from the hundred thousand other books competing against them.
Ryan: Where do you see publishing in the next 5-10 years?
Larry: I don’t know, but it is going to be very interesting. Big publishing houses have acted as gate keepers for so long that they’re really struggling with the concept that audiences can go around them and get whatever they want.
Ryan: Do you have any advice for the aspiring writers reading this?
Larry: There are really only two things you need to do to make it as a professional writer.
A. Get good enough that people will give you money for your stuff.
B. Find the people who will give you money for your stuff.
How you accomplish these two things is irrelevant, but that is basically all there is to it.
Ryan: What projects are you working on right now? Also, where can we find your books?
Larry: I just wrapped up an epic fantasy novel called Sons of the Black Sword, which will be out in Fall 2015. My books are available at bookstores everywhere or Amazon.com.
Ryan: Larry, thank you for taking the time to share with us.
If you’d like to check out Larry Correia’s website and books, click here.
Larry’s two-step advice on selling books is easy to remember and right on the money. Thanks!
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Thanks for posting this interview! And I like your questions. It was a very interesting interview to read.
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Thanks, Paul.
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Right away with this article, my mind went to Star Trek and Phasers. How do you write responsibly about guns of the future, or is there more freedom there? Just wondered.
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Larry could can probably answer this better, but just my take on your question: I would imagine that would depend on how realistic/futuristic you want your tech to be in the future. Some futuristic weaponry is little more than what we have today, whereas some are lazer beams and photon cannons.
From talking with some science fiction authors, there is a sliding scale of how accurate or realistic your science/physics is, and it’s just something that you need to decide beforehand. There are different chunks of readers who will enjoy and be turned off by your story depending on where on that scale you settle.
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If you are talking specifically Star Trek, that’s not a problem. Trekers take their world seriously enough to have manuals on everything from ships to guns. Future guns outside of Star Trek may be more problematic.
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Larry has an in depth discussion on that at his website.
http://monsterhunternation.com/2010/05/14/ask-correia-3-sci-fi-weapons/
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Thanks for passing this along.
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Larry breaks it down to two simple steps and he’s right, of course, but those two simple steps… not easy 🙂
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“Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult”
― Carl von Clausewitz
Substitute “writing” for “war.”
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Yes 🙂
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I like this post. It gets at something that took me a long time to figure out: Just because it’s fiction doesn’t mean you don’t need to spend a heck of a lot of time researching. Sure, you can just make stuff up, but it still needs to be believable. Make up the stuff that needs to be, make the rest as real as possible.
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Sound advice & some great words of inspiration. Thanks for the interview!
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Such a great post and interview! Lots of food for thought, thanks for sharing.
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Great interview, and great advice. I’ve seen manuscripts full of misconceptions clearly absorbed from movies and TV. There’s the faster-than-light space ship (please refer to the work of Einstein, Albert), the willowy girl whose mastery of martial arts enables her to overcome any number of towering goons without so much as getting a scratch, the hunter who bags dinner EVERY TIME HE GOES OUT FOR FOOD.
We can’t all be Jack London or Hemingway, but as Correia implies, believable writing ultimately depends on experience, whether yours or someone else’s.
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Some good advice there!
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Great questions. I have a fair knowledge of some fire arms. Thus far, my limited use in stories sufficed that the less said about them, the better I looked.
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Great interview. The advice he gave was simple, but honest. Just starting out myself and that made me feel a little more confident.
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Reblogged this on Glendon Press.
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Very good interview. Larry is definitely unique. I can say he created a fan base (the forums he mentioned) before he even had a product to give them and that seemed to be huge. He wanted to know what WE wanted and that was incredible. I have followed him since those first days on the forums. I am just a face in the crowd, but the crowd trusts him. If your fans can trust you, they will follow you to the end of the world. And probably buy your books, too. 🙂
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Technical things can be taken care of by a few minutes on the manufacturer’s webpage, which will keep your characters from dramatically flipping off the safety on a gun that doesn’t have one.
Dan Brown, call your office.
Larry says, “…kicks them right out of the story…”. For the record, that sounds exactly like a needle being dragged across a vinyl record.
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Larry points out a very important point about book marketing. You start from a small affinity group (those interested in guns in this case) and spread from there. This is the way book marketing/selling has always worked. To first start from general readers rarely works. I know this from my non-fiction books.
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At what point does a writer surrender to Hollywood FX? Most people know guns from TV and movies. Do you balance reality with expectations? I suppose it depends to some extent on how realistic the story is supposed to be…
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The “Hollywood” people won’t complain if you write “Reality”. The “Reality” people *will* complain if you write “Hollywood”, because you’ve yanked them out of the story (as Rocinante2, posting above, says). Besides, the reality is cool enough as it is and a good writer can bring that out.
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Reblogged this on Ace Sales News and commented:
#AceSalesNews – Nice post and well authored as an interview. Ian
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This is great! Guns and fire-play are actually among my top editorial comments. Going to share this with a client, as well as keep it for my own (future) edification! Thanks!
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PS/BTW We got a laugh out of this…guns always make me break out my “red pen”…
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Loved reading this and found it informative! Thanks for liking my recent blog entry!
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I’m currently reading his grimnoir series and am impressed by the level of detail put into the world building. Too many alternative history writers simply make one change as a gimmick and don’t follow through. Corriea really thinks about how his changes would have effected history. I’m not surprised to find he’s a gun expert either. When someone knows what they’re talking about, it shows.
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That’s an excellent interview, Ryan. Keeping with the firearms thought and speaking as an editor I’ll say that it always bothers me when a writer doesn’t know the difference between a clip and a magazine or between gauge and caliber.
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Good point. And thank you!
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Excellent interview. I’m always paranoid about being inaccurate about details like this, and I agree that simple online research helps a lot when you can’t get literal experience (shooting guns, for example). The main thing is just to realize what parts of your fiction are most dependent on research. A street racing story is going to need a lot of specific detail on certain cars, how they’re souped up, etc.
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Hi, thanks for posting this! It was very interesting to hear how an author answered these questions.
Please post more of this kind of stuff!
And thanks for liking my blog posts!
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I’m glad you found it useful. I’m going to be launching a series of interviews, each with different areas of interests and genres. It’s all aimed at giving writers the skills and tips that they need.
In a few weeks, for example, there will be an interview on writing YA, then another soon thereafter about writing romance.
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Interesting read. A nice reminder that if you’re not writing fantasy, your fiction needs to be realistic and accurate. Kudos to you and Larry Correia.
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Great interview. So Larry … clip or magazine?
(always my favorite 😀 lol)
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Most enjoyable, so true, it is miserable to attempt to wrap a story around something one has no knowledge of or experience with. Wonderful interview, thank you.
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Thanks for liking my post.
I liked the comment in your interview that the character who gets scared should die first!
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Well done for bringing on a very credible expert! And thanks once again for the like …
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It’s so true that when the reader knows you don’t know what you’re talking about you just lost them.
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what a lovely and helpful post. I am another of those writers with limited gun exposure who is frantically researching to get the limited but very necessary guns use in my novel correct. This was such a helpful interview. Thank you for sharing.
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Thanks for reading!
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Reblogged this on quirkywritingcorner and commented:
Luckily, I have my husband and son as my on-hand experts with guns and weapons.
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Thanks for the reblog, QWC.
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Reblogged this on WILDsound Writing and Film Festival Review.
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