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McAnally's (The Community Pub) => Author Craft => Topic started by: Ren on December 22, 2010, 04:09:39 PM
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I don't know if anyone on the board is a police officer of any kind or has working knowledge of Police Organization.
So I've started working on a new story that is a Detective-series set in Miami but with a supernatural angle. The main character is a Miami PD Detective who works in Special Investigations, though in his case he is regularly assigned to investigate the really "Special" cases i.e. the Supernatural Stuff that no one believes in or wants to believe in. This is a world in which the Supernatural World is still unknown and the mortal world prefers it that way.
Now my questions(s) stem from his Particular role in the Department. As a former Oceanographer and Scientist he has a certain very unique skill-set to bring to the job, but I don't want to make him a lab-geek as I'm not up on CSI terms and lingo etc...and figured SI would be the best fit for him.
The question is, given that unique skill-set and duties, would he have a partner? For that matter do all Officers and Detectives have Partners? If so, what kind of partner would he have?
I eventually plan to have him team up with a local National Park Service Ranger (Assigned to the Everglades Primarily) and future love interest. which brings me to my next question; would it be within the realm of possibility to have an SI detective, or any kind of Detective, team up on a long-term basis with an NPS Agent? I'm trying to work out how and why the characters meet and start to work together, whether he should have an assigned partner and what their relationship would be like and such to make their working together more believable.
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Might want to make him Dade County sherrif's department, he'll have a wider jurisidiction rather than being confined to the city limits he'll be dealing with stuff anywhere in the county. Or, if you put him on some sort of interdepartmental cooperative task force, then that could loosen up jurisdiction issues while giving him teammates and assets from various departments, some of which might have varying levels of cooperation. That would also be a handy device to make him get saddled with the weird stuff that everyone wishes was someone else's problem.
"Did you hear about the guy with his head chopped off last night?"
"Yeah, but I figured 'so what, that's Jersey."
These days it seems cops typically don't have a specific partner unless they're beat cops, and even that's iffy with budget cuts. A detective is more likely to be on a team or task force, and assignments will float around depending on who has what on his plate. "Johnson, you still working those smash and grabs? Oh, court date? Alright, Jones, you help out Todd here with these warehouse breakins." You'll have guys who habitually team, but formal "partnership" seems more to be a training device for rookies to learn the ropes.
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Hrmm Sheriffs office is possible, maybe a government agency? Oh heck...I could just make him a Ranger himself...that would make more sense...just wonder if they have different departments as well...have to go research that!
On second thoughts I like having him with some concrete authority, or at least with the authority to investigate crimes against humans. FBI may be a possibility though the X-Files has been done. Dunno what other agencies would be appropriate. Though about having him be a consultant as well, but that smacks too much of the Dresden Files and I like to at least try to be original...8P
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Making him part of a state's "Fish and wildlife" would give him statewide authority, although the limits vary greatly from state to state. Some states have them pretty much hogtied in what they can't doe, others not so much.
In pennsylvania, for example, there was a major stink a few years ago when it came out that Fish and Game regulations gave them (or so they thought) a ridiculous amount of extralegal power. Agents were conducting midnight, warrentless searches with no probable cause, random and arbitrary confiscation of goods and property, "indefinately detaining possible witnesses by locking them in cars in august with the windows rolled up", shooting people's dogs because "it looked like it might possibly be a wolf hybrid" without actually proving the animal was a hybrid.
By the PA legal code they actually were granted, or, more accurately, not prohitted from thos actions due to sloppy, sloppy wording. Meanwhile, representatives of the agency actually claimed that they were exempt from not just the State but also the Federal Constitution because neither referred directly to that agency specifically. (Let's just say there have been some reforms in recent years.)
Point being, in a statewide agency, you could invent a lot of wiggle room for jurisdiction and authority for him if he's in a state wildlife, environmental, or "land management" agency. You can splash around an awful lot of grey paint without hitting the sides if you go that route, particularly if it's a slapped together, "interagency task force".
Don't forget that indian reservations will fall under the Federal government's jurisdiction. BLM and FBI. Florida also has a goodly number of old military installations and training ranges which while abandoned, are still DoD property.
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I did some looking into the Department of the Interior in general and the National Parks Service in particular. I think it will be fine if I leave him as an MPD Cop and have him acting as a Liaison to the NPS Ranger character so they can cover each others keisters in a variety of jurisdictions. DoD stuff he likely won't get involved in though I may add an NCIS agent or some other former of Federal Agent (Possibly US Marshall?) at a later date to cover some of that if needed. But it won't be needed for the first story.
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If your character is an oceanographer and a scientist, why is he now a cop? Wouldn't he be a batter fit for the Coast Guard? This would put him in a setting that best fits his skill and offer many opportunities to encounter strange beasties, pirates, smugglers, mermaids....
Your character will be able to use his skills without becoming the geeky, lab rat stereotype.
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Not all Scientists are geeky lab rats.
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Part of the catch to the character is that he had a boat accident and near-death/near-drowning incident that has made him terrified of the Open Water much less under the water. Tough being an oceanographer when you can't set foot on a boat without getting violently ill and shaky. He chose to become a cop to investigate the disappearance of his own mother several years previous,, well that's aprt of the reason anyway, still working out the rest.
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Marine Biologist could be a good job set for him. Not so much studying the ocean as the critters that live there. Also extends to cover salt marshes and similar bodies of water.
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There's a back story that involves him growing up as the son of a world-renowned Oceanographer, Activist and Treasure Hunter. Basically he's got it in his blood, and in more than one way. I wanted him to have a lot of training with Oceanography and Marine Biology and suddenly not be able to do what he loved to do so he pursued a different path while he recovered. I wanted him to be a police officer to deal with the land-based component of the story as well as the marine aspect. His fear of open Water keeps him off the Seas, but he is able to put his skills to use in helping deal with the odder marine-based cases that come up and the first case is a zinger!
There is going to be a fair "supernatural" aspect of it but more super-nature than where in many of the things that seem like magic are really based on a different understanding of natural science (Chemistry, biology, electromagnetism etc...), mental abilities (Some Telepathy, Telekinesis, Precognition etc..) as well as making us of super-psychological abilities (Prana, Psychosomatics, Fakhir training etc...) and possibly some Pseudo-science (Read, 'fringe' science). The story is going to also involve a certain long-hidden and ancient culture, possibly several of them, returning to the world stage after several millenia of dormancy.
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Ah, Dirk Pitt's boy I see. ;)
Have you ever read John D MacDonald's Travis McGee series?
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Never heard of John D. MacDonald or his series, is it worth looking into?
I hadn't really thought of the Dirk Pitt comparison, I was actually going more for Jaques-Yves Cousteau (A personal hero of mine). Heck I even named their ship "Calliope"...8)
Though I could see some of the Dirk Pitt angle in their except instead of being heroic as well as working with a Government Organization the father is more of a Treasure Hunter for greed's sake than for posterity or world-saving etc...trying to make characters that are more human and less super-human, or at least super-trained. main character is a cop and very athletic, but he's got his flaws just like everybody else and everyone around him.
I really loved the depth of the characters in "Terriers" and love to be able to write with that kind of depth...and humanity. We'll see how it goes.
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Travis McGee is a classic rascally antihero, along the lines of Repairman Jack, Indiana Jones and Han Solo. Those characters all probably drew a bit from Travis. The books run from the 60's through the 80's. Travis is basically a self described "beach bum" who lives in a houseboat, makes a living as a "salvage consultant". Somebody gets conned or ripped off, can't get thier money back legally, Travis fixes that in return for half of what he recovers. The books are a mix of private detective, sting/con games, and good old fashioned ass whipping. The writing style is surprisingly advanced, more like Raymond Chandler than "an action book." For example, the writer lays out the personality and psyche of a rather predatory young woman with the following bit:
“She sat up slowly, looked in turn at each of us, and her dark eyes were like twin entrances to two deep caves. Nothing lived in those caves. Maybe something had, once upon a time. There were piles of picked bones back in there, some scribbling on the walls, and some grey ash where the fires had been. “Jane Doe will do just fine,” she said.”
Darker Than Amber John D. MacDonald.
Travis is no super hero, he takes his lumps and isn't always the guy who wins a fight. He's clever and sharp, but still gets outwitted from time to time, even gets played himself once in a while. The books are very, very, politically incorrect though, as they were written starting back in the 60's. The series also paints a fine picture of Florida That Was, in a writing style that lets you taste the food and drinks, smell the sea salt.
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That name does sound familiar thinking about it. I'll have to look into the series assuming I can still find it. Though it does sound like the kind of odd character I'm trying to write...may still do the consultant angle, but then I would have to figure out what else he does.
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Hit any decent used bookstore and you can net quite a haul. They're usually kept in the "myster" section. Author is John D MacDonald. (Also the guy who wrote Cape Fear.) All of the Travis McGee books have a colour in the title, like "The Lonely Silver Rain" or "The Girl in the plain brown wrapper", and "A Tan and Sandy Silence". They're popular enough you can usually find new copies in a Barnes & Noble or Borders.
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Will do, once I get caught up on current reading...8)
I'm actually thinking about going the consultant angle after all, but works as a professor or teacher at a local marine Bio/Oceanography School and does related research on the side...keep his hand in without the authority or combat training. So even more normal-ish, except for his giant...brain.
Trying to decide if I want to add drunkard and/or womanizer...maybe not above sleeping with his students...8)
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Heh. Travis does both, with great enthusiasm.
Almost forgot. You can read the books in pretty much any order you like, with the exception of The Lonely Silver Rain. It's the last book of the series, and has some events you need to have read some of the others to appreciate.
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I wrote up a whole long post with links to articles and pictures and stuff and I have no idea what happened to it.
I was born and raised in South Florida and even worked in the everglades for a summer when I turned 18 so I might have some input you might find interesting.
One detail: The department of Water Management is a very well funded part of the FL hierarchy. They are pretty much the biggest land owner in the state because the state keeps acquiring wetlands in attempts to restore them to a more natural state after the major projects of the 30's 40's and 50's wrecked a lot of the natural water flow in the state. With this in mind, it's possible that a person dealing with the everglades and such might end up bumping into some officials from that department.
Florida has a huge problem with tropical pets that got out into the wild and are flourishing. Some examples:
- There are an estimated 100k Monk Parakeets (aka quakers), and I've seen them in colonies of about a dozen nested in the palm trees on the coastline and elsewhere.
- The canals and ponds are loaded with 5' long iguanas that swim around and eat the vegetation. I caught one a couple summers ago while fishing with my cousin and brought it home to tease Mrs. Serack
- telling her how we had a new pet. She didn't appreciate the joke too much.
Recently the popular aquarium Algae eaters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plecostomus) have become very popular in the waterways. These armored fishies commonly grow over 18" in the wild and are wrecking the ecosystem along with many other fish that have gotten free from their owner's tanks.[/li]
[li]Huge Pythons have become such a problem that this summer the state has even started issuing licenses for hunters to kill them (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/08/national/main6278953.shtml). There have been interesting things happening with the Gators and Pythons fighting for dominance of the food chain. (http://www.theoptimusprimeexperiment.com/2006/09/python-vs-crocodile.html)[/li]
[/list]
On top of all this, there are some interesting characters living out in the swamp and other rural areas of the state. I remember an article about some guy that owned a significant tract of land out there for over 40 years and refused to sell his land to the state for a crucial water project because he was happy living in his tin shack and didn't want to live anywhere else even after the offered like 2.2 million for it.
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Some other thoughts...
geologically, Florida has been entirely and partially submersed on multiple occasions over the geological record. I have a large collection of shark teeth that I found in Gainesville which is currently at an elevation of over 180'
Up to 10k years ago Florida still had a lot of impressive megafauna (giant critters). This wasn't just limited to Wholly mammoths, but there were giant plant eating ground sloths (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eremotherium) with 18" long claws, thickly armored armadillos the size of VW bugs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyptodon), 240lb dire wolves (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dire_Wolf), 8 foot long beavers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castoroides_leiseyorum) (found only in FL), and many other impressive critters that died off around 10k years ago.
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Great stuff Serack! Thanks! Good to have a mix of threats, I also need to look into Marine life, both old and new, as a the major parts of the story will center around aquatic-based events.
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Great stuff Serack! Thanks! Good to have a mix of threats, I also need to look into Marine life, both old and new, as a the major parts of the story will center around aquatic-based events.
My favorite shark teeth that I find are megoladon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalodon). The biggest I found was about 3 inches long but some lucky shark teeth hunters find them just barely over 7 inches long. Here's a pic of one that measures 6.92"
(http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/z433/serack/megateeth.jpg)
These sharks are estimated to have grown to around 60 foot long. (the great whites grow to around 25') and lived as recently as 1.5 million years ago.
As far as modern sharks go, the Florida coast has a lot of shark bites per year but the vast majority of these come from black tip reef sharks and similar. Most of these sharks are exclusively interested in eating fishies and occasionally get distracted by a flash in the water they aren't sure what it is and take a nibble and then leave the swimmer alone because it's not another fish. Their upper and lower jaws are loaded with teeth that are shaped a little like razor sharp nails and are designed to grab a fish and hold on. Other sharks only have this type of tooth on the lower jaw, and their upper jaw is loaded with teeth that are serrated like a steak knife (I have literally cut my finger on a 3 million year old megoladon tooth, just barely running it down the blade and although the biggest, these teeth aren't the nastiest looking). The Bull shark is an example of a shark with this type of dentition and it is responsible for a huge percentage of all fatal shark bites.
I used to volunteer at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBYQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fau.edu%2Fhboi%2F&rct=j&q=harbor%20branch%20oceanographic%20institute&ei=S0cXTZWlDIOKlweO98TjCw&usg=AFQjCNGSdnYSb5INwQUoQ3mIFRFOxd_pbA&sig2=F7thc3OCWYj1Yf3KQBBxSQ&cad=rja) and a graduate student I was talking to there said that there are 2x as many doctorates in marine biology as their are jobs, which makes for a tough job market, which might help you with your character's origin, although I'm not sure how much education your going to blow on his marine background... They always liked to say that we know less about the bottom of our oceans than the moon, and it's harder and more costly to go down there to boot.
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Yeah the tough job market is one of the reason I have never pursued my kids dream dream to get into Oceanography/Marine Biology. I still have a fascination for the Oceans, due in large part to having grown up with the "Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau" though sadly I've only ever been scuba diving twice, though I have snorkeled a few times. The highlight of my childhood, and I wish I could remember it better, was meeting Jacques Cousteau when I was a lad of maybe 8 or 9. He was and always has been on of my Heroes and definitely one of the coolest guys who ever lived. For him alone I will never bash the French...8)
One of my lifetime/bucket list goals is to go swimming in all of the Oceans and Seas before I die...so far I've managed two oceans and the Gulf of Mexico...8P
The idea for this series at least partially stems from that love of the Undersea World and I already have a fair amount of knowledge already and thankfully there is the internet to fill in the gaps in my knowledge and memory.
I plan to include a Megoladon at some point int this story or at least at some point in the series, I have a certain fondness for the big boys after a long-ago Shadowrun campaign I ran that involved a Christmas Vacation to Hawaii where the characters went shark-hunting...and caught a Megolodon...good times!
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There are several books out that include Megs in them.
There's Meg and I think the sequel is Trench.
Frankly I'm not much fond of these - the writer writes all woman as b*ll busters
really NOT nice ones, including the heroine or rather the hero's woman.
I remember the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, Renfield - loved it.
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I plan to include a Megoladon at some point int this story or at least at some point in the series, I have a certain fondness for the big boys after a long-ago Shadowrun campaign I ran that involved a Christmas Vacation to Hawaii where the characters went shark-hunting...and caught a Megolodon...good times!
I think your gonna need a bigger boat
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That was the same game the that convinced the groups dumb-as-a-rock troll that "Jeep-Hunting" was a sport in Hawaii, so he would go hunting Jeeps with a giant steel spear.
As an fyi; I have decided to make the character a professor at the U of Miami Rosenstiel School for Marine and Atmospheric Science. Teaches Marine Biology, Oceanography and some Marine-related History & Archaeology (read, Treasure-hunting) courses on the side. Also does part-time and consulting work for the Fish & Wildlife Service as well as occasionally getting called in for consultations by a School friend who is a Lieutenant with the Miami Police Department. One of the other primary characters is a National Park Services Ranger. With his friend in the MPD and work with the FWS he gets the clout he needs in most cases and ability to conduct independent investigations. I originally had the other primary character be a local priest but I may elevate the Lieutenant to take his place. I'm trying to minimize the number of primary characters to three or so, but have some decently-detailed secondary and other supporting characters.
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One advantage to doing research for a book...you get to learn all kinds of cool stuff! Like the Dogfish Shark species is actually venomous...which handily fills a need for the story...8)
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Yeah, or the blue-ringed or is it blue spot octopus. A little bitty guy is highly venomous.
Once saw some film shot by some brothers in Indonesia. They'd found this teeny little
octopus and were letting it slide from hand to hand just above the water. Then they put it
back and went on. Fast forward to several months later when they're looking at the footage
and someone says - oh yeah, by the way - that cute little octopus is as poisonous as all get out.
Brief pause for a retro-active heart attack.
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Actually that Octopus is mentioned in the James Bond movie "Octopussy" and I believe it is the blue-ringed octopus.