BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU VOLUNTEER FOR. I write that in caps - it's a life lesson. No, I don't mean about me spelling Charlotte as the Muther, but about other things. For me, as a judge for two writing contests that I wrote about in my previous post. The Shamus award celebrates Private Eye fiction. Perhaps the criteria were too wide. I am working my way thru 100+ stories. Killer Nashville reminded me that, months ago, I volunteered to judge for their Silver Falchion award from the 2026 Killer Nashville event.
"The Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award seeks to discover and honor the best books of the previous year (novels, novellas, collections and anthologies, and non-fiction) that incorporate the elements of mystery, thriller, suspense, action, and romance in numerous genres or, in the case of nonfiction, books that are applicable to writers in general."
Novels, this time.
My volunteering recommendation: Do it, at least once, or "now and then". By reading other writers' stuff, you can learn more about storytelling, bad habits, bad and good writing, great description, believable dialog...and all the opposites. While you don't have time, as a judge, to do a forensic analysis of the stories you're reading, the reading/scanning will sharpen your awareness of what works and what doesn't. Free education, sometimes amazement about what gets published, often admiration about a job well done.
Take the Shamus. I published two short stories last year, but one SF, and the other a suspenseful mystery, so I have no conflict reading PI short stories in 2026. My general reaction: appalled, small a. I started doing PI work in college, best college job I had. I continued to pick up paid PI tasks for professional PIs while pursuing an engineering career, raising a family, doing semi-pro stage acting, flying, racing, writing.
Most of the PI stories I'm reading are properly written, some better than others structurally, few demonstrate any detailed knowledge of how PIs actually work. The stories are naive, Rockford Files clones. Cliched stories with pulled guns, little real "investigation," and actions that would get the PI in jail on multiple felonies and out of the PI career forever. Sigh I'll have to write an essay on this for the PI Writer's of America.
TOTALLY BOGUS ID
True, a lot of real PI tasks are dull, immersive and focused, and they may not make for exciting fiction. But real information about what PIs do is as close as the licensing authority in your State and down the street in a real PI's office.
Can a writer ignorant about hospital procedures write a murder mystery in an Emergency Room? The resulting story would be cliche' and ordinary. Again, knowledge is out there, often free.
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