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  • WolverineRM replied to the topic Help Portraying Law Enforcement in the forum General Writing Discussions 5 years, 10 months ago

    (@arindown Hey, thanks for tagging me! 😉)

    @winter-rose Okay, this is gonna be long. 😆

    So yes, I write Army stories, but I actually have LE characters too, including a POV character. I’ve never specifically sat down to research it, because it’s something I’m pretty well familiar with. 😝 But here’s my thoughts.

    Heads-up, probably needless to say, this is obviously a pretty—sensitive I guess?—subject right now. So it’s more important than ever that you do your homework, make sure you portray him accurately, not to anything to give naysayers any more fodder. LE are some of America’s heroes. Don’t settle for anything less, not ever.

    Something that’ll probably help is this YouTube series—haven’t seen it in forever, so I’m not sure if there’s any content to warn you of, but I know I loved it when I watched it before. 😉

    As she mentioned, Courageous is an amazing movie, just sayin. 💕 Definitely a lot of good inspiration there.

    Something I have always loved that I know is helpful for stories is listening to the scanner. And if you don’t have a scanner or don’t want one just for research, lol, there’s ways you can listen to it online, possibly even specific to your own town.

    It depends on where you live, I guess, but even if you don’t have any ties to LE, chances are someone you know is—maybe a neighbor, someone from church? And remember, just because they’re not your classic city officer doesn’t mean they’re not LE and won’t still be helpful. 😉 And I’ve never met an LE officer that didn’t have some crazy or fun or unusual story they were more than happy to share. ☺️

    Just some basic pointers to get you started…

    – Not every day is big and exciting. Just something to bear in mind. And day to day stuff can be its own kind of exciting.
    – Something small to get right will be your police codes (think “10-4”). You can just look them up, they’re consistent across the board.
    – Just within a city police department, there’s a ton of different jobs. Knowing which one exactly you want your character to do and then researching that in specific will definitely be helpful.
    – If you do have someone LE to ask about it, also ask if they’d be willing to read at least snippets of it. Be willing to listen to their suggestions.

    If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask! Hope that helps for starters…

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