Throwing Lead: A Writer's Guide to Firearms

by J. Daniel Sawyer, Mary Mason, Kitty NicIaian (Illustrator)

While they may be an indispensable tool of drama, firearms aren't something you see everyday in real life. If you write fiction, you have to know about them--but what if you don't have any formal training, or a job that brings you into regular contact with firearms?

Sure, you could watch a lot of CSI, but as you'll quickly discover upon cracking open this volume, you can't trust everything you see on TV.

Entertaining and humorous in style, Throwing Lead shows you the gestalt of guns, showing you the history of small arms in one readable, accessible, graphics-rich and easy-to-reference volume. Packed full of revealing research shortcuts to help you find accurate information on your book's period and culture, and cut through the jargon to get you the information you need with a minimum of fuss, it'll leave you chuckling and get your creative juices flowing with tips on underexploited plot devices and hidden opportunities for comedy and drama that firearms present, but that authors often miss.

This unique tour of the history, technology, and cultural development of firearms, examines how they've shaped our language and idiom, influenced manufacturing technology, and created warrior cultures in different professions. More than just a "how to write about it" manual or a technical glossary, this rigorously non-political guide reveals the common myths about firearms foisted upon us by filmmakers while using those mistakes as springboards for deeper discussion.

Topics covered include:
Terminology
Safety practices
Handguns
Long guns
Concealed carry
Ballistics and Forensics
The visceral experience of shooting a gun
Home defense
Police tactics and psychology
Criminal cultures
Snipers and spies
Gunfighters and PTSD
Ammunition construction and the handloading culture
Situational awareness and threat assessment
Science Fiction weaponry
Space combat
Historical weaponry
Urban warfare
Weapons maintenance
Gun handling training drills
Gunshot wounds and medical science
Stupid criminal tricks
Crazy movie gun tricks that sometimes work in real life
Selecting the gun that best fits your character
And much, much more...

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction

300 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

WHILE STAR WARS and STAR TREK seeded J. Daniel Sawyer's passion for the unknown, his childhood in academia gave him a deep love of history and an obsession with how the future emerges from the past.

This obsession led him through adventures in the film industry, the music industry, venture capital firms in the startup culture of Silicon Valley, and a career creating novels and audiobooks exploring the worlds that assemble themselves in his head.

His travels with bohemians, burners, historians, theologians, and inventors led him eventually to a rural exile where he uses the quiet to write, walk on the beach, and manage a production company that brings innovative stories to the ears of audiences across the world.
For stories, contact info, podcasts, and more, visit his home page at http://www.jdsawyer.net

Reviews

[J.F. Penn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Writers sit in their quiet offices and make up crazy scenes in their heads. Many of these scenes involve guns! But most of these writers don't have any experience with guns so they go to Google and try to find the right information. There is so much information online but also so little if you don't know what you're looking for. This book solves all the problems that writers didn't even know they had about weaponry. With the information here, gun-toting scenes will improve dramatically.I personally found it deeply fascinating as someone who has only tried shooting once on a range, and it will no doubt become a well-thumbed reference book.
Highly recommended for writers who take their research seriously.

[Scott Roche · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know a whole lot about guns when it comes to practical experience. I've fired a few rounds through various shotgun gauges at turkey shoots. I plinked at some cans with a .38. I've read a lot about them and felt like I knew my share. That was, until I read this book. It turns out that while I do know a fair amount of the basics there are all kinds of things I wasn't aware of. Such as:

Why you shouldn't call the thing that holds bullets, a clip.
What "bullet proof" means and why you're using it wrong.
Ways of determining what gun a bullet comes out of and how a smart criminal can avoid that.

All of that is really just the tip of the FMJ bullet. Details on caliber, shotguns, silencers vs. suppressors, and how bullets are made fill this book. As interesting as all of that was, there's more. Mason and Sawyer give you as a writer insight into the minds of people that use guns on a daily basis. They've talked to police officers, soldiers, hunters and have pulled anecdotes from their own experiences as shooters.

If you're a writer and you want to know about the history of guns, or you want to make sure that your protagonist is using the appropriate gun then this book is for you. If you want to avoid some of the mistakes common to fiction give it a read. They also go into some theory on energy weapons and other sci-fi standards and why it would be likely that slug throwers will still be around for some time to come.

Personally I would also recommend this book to readers as well. There are some great stories here and they're told with Dan's typical biting sense of humor. I also know there are people out there who love to nitpick help the writers in their lives and kvetch trade opinions on the fiction they love to read. Throwing Lead can give you plenty of... ammunition. (I couldn't resist.)

I know that there are plans for a follow up book that sounds awesome. So you need to go buy this one and let them know that a second book would be appreciated sooner rather than later. I give this one 5 shotgun shells out of 5.

[S.L. Myers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very useful if you have people murdering each other in a story. Or in real life...

[J.E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was more than worth the money I put into it. My only wish is that I picked it up sooner. If you are and author who is unfamiliar with firearms, this books is an essential. Trust me.

[E.J. Fisch · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a writer of characters who often use firearms of some kind, I found this book to be very useful. I learned a lot about guns, both from a writing perspective and from a real-world application perspective. I'm only giving it 4 stars simply because I still don't know enough about guns to know for sure how accurate everything was. But the authors seem credible enough, and they do a good job writing in ways that the reader can understand. They're carrying on a conversation with you, not writing an encyclopedia article. There's also a certain measure of dry humor that I really enjoyed. I'd recommend this book to any author who writes characters who regularly handle firearms, especially if you're going for accuracy-but-not-too-much-detail.

[Chris Lester · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to incorporate firearms in their fiction but doesn't have first-hand experience with using them in anger. J. Daniel Sawyer and Mary Mason provide a comprehensive look at all sorts of instruments of mayhem. Just as importantly, they provide crucial context on what it is like to actually USE firearms, and the differences in psychology between different types of users. This book is never far from me when I'm writing about cops, criminals, or soldiers.

[Mark Polino · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written, clear and accurate look at firearms and writing about them realistically. Any disagreements I had with the material presented was a quibble not worth mentioning. There were some typos/grammatical errors. Not pervasive but I noticed. All in all, well done.