McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

how in the world do you look for someone?

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Jaeh:
er, no, not writing romance.

basically, without giving much away, a writer teams up with a disgruntled police rookie to look for a kidnapper before time runs out. writer, btw, knows the kidnapper enough (childhood "friend" and all, and he cooperates with the police along with the victim's daughter) to catch said kidnapper.

how do you look for someone who just disappeared? ideas?

I've had a few, and please tell me what else I missed?

1. ask around - question people who knows the criminal.
2. wait for the criminal to call again (he already called for ransom).
3. figure out the criminal's possible steps before he takes them (i.e., he may take the kidnappee to a place he knows that is secure and "safe" from the outside) (oh, and this is possible because the writer knows the kidnapper)

...any more ideas? thanks. :)

the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
Use the internets.  There's a lot more information out there than most people think, particularly if someone is good at putting together patterns from data, which is the sort of thing one can i think expect of someone who can convince your readers as a detective.

Writer knows kidnapper, therefore writer knows angles to approach kidnapper that are specific to kidnapper's personality and not obvious to regular cops ? or that regular cops do not pay attention to ? I'm not overly fond of detective stories that work because regular cops are too dumb to figure obvious things out, though.

LizW65:
Credit card usage, security camera footage, prior police record of perpetrator if applicable.  As it's a kidnapping, presumably the cops are involved (and probably the Feds as well, if it's in the US and crosses state/country lines.)  Talk to known associates--spouse(s), current/past lover(s), siblings, parents, friends, business partners, and so on.  Try to get inside kidnapper's head and guess his/her next move.

Jaeh:

--- Quote from: neurovore on July 29, 2010, 06:12:08 PM ---Use the internets.  There's a lot more information out there than most people think, particularly if someone is good at putting together patterns from data, which is the sort of thing one can i think expect of someone who can convince your readers as a detective.

Writer knows kidnapper, therefore writer knows angles to approach kidnapper that are specific to kidnapper's personality and not obvious to regular cops ? or that regular cops do not pay attention to ? I'm not overly fond of detective stories that work because regular cops are too dumb to figure obvious things out, though.

--- End quote ---

Not obvious to regular cops. the writer is not really that good - the only thing going for him and that he watches too much police procedurals based in the US and reads a lot of novels, and that he knows the kidnapper and the victim well. He has no experience in these things - except that he was a juvenile offender once, so the police are originally reluctant to trust him (er, long story how they trust him.) the police are, of course, the intelligent ones in here. I'm tired of the dumb cops thing, too.
hmm, yeah, internet - that is an idea that I weirdly didn't think of. -_-


--- Quote from: LizW65 on July 29, 2010, 08:10:56 PM ---Credit card usage, security camera footage, prior police record of perpetrator if applicable.  As it's a kidnapping, presumably the cops are involved (and probably the Feds as well, if it's in the US and crosses state/country lines.)  Talk to known associates--spouse(s), current/past lover(s), siblings, parents, friends, business partners, and so on.  Try to get inside kidnapper's head and guess his/her next move.

--- End quote ---

thing of it is, the setting is not in the US, and we don't really have that much tech on our hands right now in the setting - but I can slip some in. the police record would be really, really good - and the known associates, yeah, i need a partial list of that. thanks.

Zolt:
For the police angle, nothing much but the usual: question witnesses, check cctv cameras, profile the kidnapper, track credit cards and cellphones. Getting lost in a modern environment is actually pretty hard nowadays.

Using the internets... sure, but a passive search won't lead you to much, unless your kidnapper somehow posted his location on Facebook. Go active: start a tweeter manhunt - ask everyone to retweet the call for help etc. If the writer is a bit of a celebrity it might reach a lot of people.

If the writer knows the kidnapper, then try to talk to him, get him to reveal something. If by phone have the police track it. If by email or internet chat, get a computer security expert on it.

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