Writer’s don’t know everything about everything, but they like to pretend they do.
As mostly a short story and article writer, I really enjoy the wide scope of topics offered by those forms of writing. My stories have been about private investigators, sweet middle aged gardeners who kill with a purpose, gangsters in the 1930’s, business men who channel ghost energy in Victorian Scotland, robots at the 19XX Chicago World’s Fair, incompetent bank robbers, serial killers, conversations between the body cells of a recently murdered man, real life PIs in Denver, Odessa, Cherokee lands in North Carolina, the Mississippi Delta and West Texas, and an obsessive movie memorabilia dealer who cheats his customers.
The writing is revealing and exciting, sometime hard work, often an opportunity to learn. Speculative fiction writers will tell you to be careful with your research. The gathering of information is addictive and world-building can consume all your time so that little writing ever gets done.
I enjoy reading private eye stories, especially Raymond Chandler, Samuel Dashiell Hammett, Micky Spillane and Dr. Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyne. Of course, I tried it myself, and my stories were failures. They were stuffed with cliches from bad TV shows and B movies. I decided I needed to do some self-education, so I began to read books and to view Youtube videos. Don’t laugh, some of those are pretty good. Yes, some surrender to the cliche too, but many are right on the money.
I recommend The PI Guy, who I know personally, PI Education and Private Investigator Advice. Bypass all videos where the presenter thinks he’s on Miami Vice or he/she is wearing sunglasses indoors. Watch videos by female PIs too; top investigators are often female. That’s Not just another cliché, Kinsey.
PIs are licensed to operate by the States, so I looked into what States listed for licensing requirements. Many States have extensive websites for PI licenses. At the time, Colorado even published a booklet on the steps anyone (except convicted felons) could follow to earn a license. Some States have a complex licensing structure with different licensing requirements for your intended business: armed, or not, security guard, a license for the agency if there were more than one PI in the office. Some States had huge requirements, and extensive education and experience requirements.
Which States are the toughest? Remember the cliché, the paradigm built on decades of dime novels, black and white movies and cheap TV shows. The toughest are California, Nevada, Florida, Illinois and New York. Where were all those PI stories based? LA, San Francisco, Miami, Chicago and NYC.
So, I studied, learned, took the open-book test and passed. I bought insurance and shazam! I was a PI. I rented an office, bought a computer, got licensed in New Mexico too, and ran my one-person office for almost 8 years. The variety of cases still feeds my stories. The problems people have! You can’t imagine. I belong to the State PI Association, Senior Member, and I still pay attention to the craft, which finally circles back around to the Morgue.
I joined a tour co-sponsored by my Association and the Sisters in Crime Chapter. Massively informative, Nothing like you see on TV. And when the tour walked into their operations room, there were three of the recently passed. The group was really quiet, as you might imagine. Routine autopsies are amazingly quick. I absorbed data “not in books”. The sound of the rib cutter, for example. I won’t go into further detail, unless that’s what you want to read about.
In my working life, I’ve been an Air Force Officer, Intelligence Officer, satellite operator, film & stage actor, commercial actor, forest fire fighter, janitor, PI, pilot and amateur race car driver. Writers need an imagination. Experience feeds that. STEVE PEASE
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