Evacuating Your Heroine by Horse: Getting Your Victim Back to Safety for Writers and Other Curious Folks.

This information was gathered at a recent Search and Rescue conference that I attended.

Jorene Downs [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

Search and rescue teams are trained to find subjects who are lost and get them to the medical interventions that they need.  In Virginia, where I volunteer as a ground searcher, there are other teams that train their specialties such as canine and equine search teams. 

Say that your heroine has been wandering around lost in the woods for three days. Your hero is frantic! He does the right thing and asks that trained search teams go out and look. Once your heroine is located, the team radios that information to the management team back at base to help make an evacuation plan. 

While searchers are trained to give immediate care and stabilization with what they've carried in their packs and what they can MacGyver together, searchers still have to get your character out of her situation and to safety. If possible, transportation is sent in. But, in the search areas where we often operate, this can be difficult. 

Ways to evacuate:

• Vehicle 
• helicopter
• car/truck
• four wheeler
• boat
• Walk
• Equine (horse)
• Litter carry. (the longest, slowest)

When a subject is missing, management will decide which resources to deploy. These might include K-9, trackers, ground searchers and equine. 

If there is an equine team in the field, perhaps they are the team that found your heroine. Or perhaps their proximity is close and management determines your character might be able to be evacuated on horse. 

Some reasons why your heroine might have trouble walking out:

• They have blisters
• Twisted ankle
• Exhaustion

The choice of horse rescue:

The team arrives. The equine team has to determine whether or not they feel they can help your heroine evacuate.

She can't be transported on a horse if she has:

• Head injury
• Broken bones
• Back or tail bone injury
• Allergies to the horse
• Fear of the horse

So be careful how you write that scene and just how much you mess her up if you want your heroine to leave on a horse. If she can't ride or walk, and if she isn't going on the horse, they'll have to put her in the litter and no one wants that, least of all your heroine in her diaper. (More about that in a different article)

The choice of which horse:

Typically, our equine teams go out as a two-person team. They know the terrain they're working with, and they know the temperament of the horses they're mounting as well as that horses' temperament on that day and in those conditions. Horses have their moods, too. 

Throw your plot a curve ball and give your horses a case of unexpected attitude from thunder or the roar of an approaching fire...

The equine team members will decide, given the situation, whose horse best suits the extraction. Often, it is the smaller of the horses for ease of getting the injured person on to the horse and for the ease of the walkers (flankers).

Getting under way:

• Everyone involved in the evacuation is introduced to the horse. for example: "This is Cali. She's a mare. She doesn't bite or kick. This is her safe zone. Don't go into the other zones." This is important so everyone can stay safe and feel comfortable. The first rule of rescue is don't become another victim that needs to be saved.
• Fit your heroine with a helmet. The helmet chosen is the one that fits best. The rider who has given up their helmet will not be allowed onto a horse without it. 
• Move the horse to the side of a hill, a rock, a stump or other feature that would help your heroine to mount the horse. This is directed by the horse's owner.
• Place someone on the opposite side of the horse to protect the subject should they over-do and go sliding off the other side of the horse. This is particularly important if they are getting a leg up.
• Once your heroine is situated in the saddle, the flankers position (side-walker position) themselves on each side of the subject. They reach forward and grasp the saddle and plant their forearm against the subject's leg. This stabilizes her in the stirrups.
• The medic for that group is the left-sided flanker. 
• The rescuer who works that horse leads that horse.
• The other rider will typically lead their horse behind the transporting horse, but this may change based on the horses personalities and so it is at the discretion of the teammates. For example, some horses feel safer following.
• The ground team searchers are in front.

If you are writing a scene with a horse who is the subject in distress, you would have your rescuers call in a team that specializes in Technical Large Animal Rescue.

Horses are divided into cold, warm and hot blooded.

Since all horses are mammals and are therefore physiologically warm-blooded, the designations don't initially make sense. These informal terms are used to group different breeds loosely by their temperament. ... Cold-blooded horses encompass the draft breeds such as Percherons, Shires, Clydesdales, and Belgians. Warm-blooded horse breeds were produced by crossing hot-blooded and cold-blooded horses. Many countries developed strains of these horses that could be used for riding or for drawing wagons and carriages. Dutch Warmblood, Hanoverian, Holsteiner, and Trakhener horses are usually calmer than Thoroughbreds, but have the ability to move more athletically than the heavier draft breeds. Warmbloods are often the type of choice for many disciplines dressage, driving, and eventing. Link

For Search and Rescue, while there are examples of hot blooded horses (thoroughbred and Arabians) being successful, a good choice for a Search and Rescue horse is a quarter horse.

I hope that's helpful with writing your scene!

Cheers,
Fiona

Learning how to Pee (Piss?) Like a Guy (another weird writing adventure)

attribution: By Peter Bond, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14445788

WARNING - If you can't tell from the title, this article might have moments of TMI.

Okay, I'm just going to say it, the peeing sitting down thing is a problem for your female characters sometimes. Mostly, it's been a problem for me when I'm training in the woods or on missions with search and rescue, when the call of nature happens out in nature. I've even run into issues in an urban setting, as your character might, when there are no bathrooms available. 

I remember this one time that the only copse of trees I could find on the city limits was down a hill. I got down, did my business but could not get back up because it was too steep and the trees pulled out of the ground when I tried used them as grips. So there I was, wishing that I could, like the men, just turn my back toward some vegetation and find relief.  

Though, socially too, squatting in nature can become more of an adventure than one would want. 

I was on a fox hunt once where I went behind the bushes, dropped trou, and realized I was in quicksand. Yeah, that was not something I'd anticipated. There's no feeling exactly like screaming for my life and having some strangers come to my rescue with my pants under the quicksand. And there I was. All of me. 

I'm just saying, sometimes bad things go down when you're taking care of nature's call.

Here are some other examples of things that your heroine might confront with her pants down, squatting:

• Chiggers and other biting bugs. But in particular chiggers. 
• Snakes
• People wandering over and there you are...This happens more than one would expect.
• Wayward streams of urine and clothes stuck on your boots
• Poison ivy, oak, or sumac. 
• lack of paper.
• rain
• mud
• bulky clothing 

But maybe that's not your character. Maybe she doesn't camp or isn't the rough-kind of outdoorsy type. Maybe there are other reasons why sitting to urinate puts your character into a bad position.

• She's on a boat (could you would you on a boat?)
• She's been injured
• The toilet situation is just gross and even doing the squat pee-aerobics still is a yuck.
• She's going where she knows the ladies' room line will be an hour long.
• She's on a small plane.

At the last search and rescue training a friend of mine (who is an amazing  woman of the woods) shared with me her secret: the Venus to Mars device which basically let's you pee like a guy. I thought, Whoop! I need to try that! It's bound to come up in a book. And you know, I like to do character research; just what is it like to stand and pee (piss?)? 

Since this is one that I'm not going to make a video about, here are some lovely ladies who are sharing their experiences.

This fabulous chick in the video below is a smoke jumper. She jumps out of a plane and to get to the fire's edge. As she explains it, if you jump right out of the plane with a full bladder you can explode your bladder. That would suck! They guys can use bottles. what's a girl to do?

I love this woman - she is telling it like it is - so males if you ever wanted to know for your writing   ↓↓↓

Had my character in COLD RED been allowed to bring her go-bag. She would have been well equipped for peeing in the wilds.

Unfortunately, this was not the case. 

But humans have basic needs, and I think it's important to write in human functions like eating, staying hydrated, sleeping, sexuality, getting cleaned up, and of course, relieving themselves.

Here's how I worked the basics of being a human-animal into the plot of COLD RED:

Her own physical and mental issues were making the game hard to concentrate on.

Shift the conversation elsewhere, Anna told herself. Move the ball back to his side of the court. “What’s she like, Lacey?”

“Not like you.”

“That—” She put her hands on her knees as pain shot up her leg. “That’s not a lot to go on.” Anna batted her arm out to stop Finley from walking. “Stop. I have to stop.” Anna needed to pee. She needed to drink. She needed to catch her breath for just a second. She’d start with drinking. She pulled out the Coke can that she carried inside her jacket, so her body warmth could melt the snow she’d packed inside.

Finley leaned against a tree, squinting over at her. “What’s Lacey like? Let’s see…She’s got dark brown hair and brown eyes. She’s tiny, just over five-feet tall. She’s more yoga and less cross-fit.”

“Drink,” Anna said.

Finley clumsily unzipped his coat to get his can and pulled out the piece of plastic that stoppered the hole and kept him dry. “She’s less chess player and more tea-drinking novel reader. Comfortable in front of a fireplace and less so out in the wilds building campfires out of nothing.”

Anna swirled the water around her mouth warming it a bit more before she swallowed it down. “I read novels.”

“I’m imagining you read Creighton and Child – she reads historical romances. Big fan of Jane Austen.”

“Mmmm.” Yeah, that was definitely not Anna’s thing.

“She ate a lot of salad.”

“You’ve never seen me eat a regular meal – I think you might be overreaching if you’re supposing what my diet might look like.”

“I’m imagining your more of a protein shake/paleo gal.”

She took the last swig then bent to fill the can with more snow. “Those two things don’t go together.”

“Okay.” Finley followed suit, filling his empty can. “Not paleo - clean eating. No eating from boxes for you.”

“Because they took a Ziploc of gorp from my coat pocket at the house?” She laughed. “That SWAT guy must have taken it to eat himself. It wasn’t in the trunk with the rest of my stuff. The shithead.” Finley was silent, but Anna needed the stupid banter, needed anything to think about beside her aching muscles. The pain was taking up too much space and was making panic rise like an early morning tide. “Lacey doesn’t eat nuts and raisins?”

“Nuts and raisins, maybe. She’d never put gorp in her coat pocket. She’d have a snack container in her purse if she had anything. And it would be something like a wedge of brie nestled next to some herbed olives or a spinach salad.”

“Wait. Lacey carried a spinach salad in her purse to snack on?” Anna didn’t mean to be judgmental but, “She sounds a bit high maintenance.”

Finley went to shake his head then put his hand on his make-do brace. “Self-maintained through a life of necessity. That would be the thing you have in common. She’s more like a magnolia tree, able to withstand the storms. You’re more like a holly. Equally capable in rough weather.”

Anna popped her eyebrows. “But prickly.”

Finley studied her for a moment. “I didn’t say that. I wasn’t thinking it either. I meant that you seem able to defend yourself. Lacey learned to bend and sway to stay upright in the storms where you learned to stand strong and fight back.”

“You seem to have drawn a pretty clear picture of me in your head – you’ve got this whole tree metaphor thing going.”

“It was a long night. Am I wrong about any of it?”

“Not so far,” Anna acknowledged. 



Okay so what did I learn from trying to pee (piss?) like a guy? 
Sorry for the TMI.

• You guys have it so easy! Just standing there, taking care of business and zipping back up? It was a revelation. 
• I could understand a bit better about the aiming thing, but only if you're a small child who can't pay attention so... focus! Just sayin'
• Your male character will have no comprehension of women's issues with relieving themselves. From long lines in public spaces, to clothing hassles no matter the environment, the struggle is real.
• Lady writers, if you get this device and try it, it will give you a whole new understanding of your male characters. 

And with that said, happy writing,

Fiona

Narcan Can Save Your Character's Life in an Opioid Overdose : for Writers and Other Curious Folks

This information was gathered at a Narcan Training as a volunteer for the Medical Reserve Corps.



First one of the best descriptions of substance addiction I've ever seen:

This article addresses the basics you need to know when you've written a drug overdose into your plot line. 

*Note there are several helpful articles in my archives. Go to the search button on the top right of this blog to access them.

An opioid overdose emergency happens when an excessive amount of opioid is in the system by itself or is combined with other substances that overwhelms the character's body. 

Heroin and prescription pain medications can cause the breathing and heart rates to slow and eventually cease.

Here's a scene from my novella MINE where the characters died from the overdose:

“And two boys missing. You’re jumping to conclusions. That’s not what a scientist does, and it’s certainly not what a detective does. We collect evidence and then try to see the pattern, not create a pattern and try to fill it in with evidence.”

“I’m not officially a CSI until Monday. I’m telling you what my teacher’s gut is saying. I bet you anything that when we have access to those kids’ phones, we’ll find two things. One, that someone Googled how to get high on OxyContin. And two, that one of the dead kids either called or texted the two boys that are missing. Remember that Pemberly said she told Chad to send his friends home. Friends, plural. We only found one friend.”

Tim flipped his lights on to go around a tractor-trailer. “There’s more,” he said. “Stop drip feeding me.”

“OxyContin is the prescription name for Oxycodone. Do you know much about that drug?”

“They use it for long term pain management for cancer patients and the like. It’s from the opiate family. Abuse was a real problem for counties further west of us out toward Bristol, though, you hear about it less and less. We haven’t had trouble with it here.”

“Okay, well, Pemberly’s prescription threw up all kinds of flags you should consider.”

“Go on.”

“The strength stamped on the pills was 80mg. The usual dosage is 40mg or less. Anything over 40mg is for opioid-tolerant patients only. As a matter of fact, a dose of 80mg in a day can be lethal to someone who hasn’t built up resistance.”

“There’s an interesting piece of information. So Pemberly’s prescription was a potentially lethal dose?”

“Yes, unless she was used to using opioids. Maybe you should get a look at her medical records. Here’s another flag, the pills were stamped OC. They should have been stamped OP.”

He swung his head to look at Kate before focusing back down the road. “You think her meds got mixed up?”

“Something very bizarre is going on. You see, the formulation of the pills allows the ingredients to be time-released over twelve hours. The druggies couldn’t get a good high because of the time-release component. They found if they crushed the pills, they could snort them or shoot them and take the full hit of the narcotic all at once. That was with the first formulation, the OC pills.”

“But you said they’re supposed to be stamped OP.” The muscles in Tim’s face became taut with concentration.

“People OD’ed in large enough numbers that the FDA considered pulling Oxycodone. The pharmaceutical company reformulated it so when a druggy tried to powder the pill to get around the time-release component, all they got was goo. That goo can’t be snorted or shot-up. The new formulation is stamped OP. With the OC off the market, druggies turned to easier highs.”

“But these were OC pills. And because the pill was a potentially lethal quantity when time-released, we can assume a full dose, shot directly into a teenager’s system, would be sure death,” Tim said.

Kate rubbed the back of her hand. “That’s the conclusion I came to last night.”

“Could the pharmacy be dispensing the old pills until they’re gone, and then replace them with the new ones?”

“I sincerely doubt it. The formulation change took place a long time ago.”

“What’s a long time look like?” Tim asked.

“Eighteen months or so. The street price for an 80mg OC pill would be astronomical. You simply can’t find them anymore. I would assume the pharmaceutical reps came through, picked up the OC, and swapped them with OP. Even if that weren’t true, most meds have a shelf life of about a year. The pill’s sell-by date should have expired, and they’d be destroyed.”

“These pills should have lost their potency by now?”

“Some of their potency, but obviously not enough.”

“And you know this how?” Tim asked.

“I took my final exam in Narcotics and Substance Abuse in May. I checked my notes on my computer when I got home last night.”

Tim’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. “We need to find out if the pharmacy has distributed these pills to anyone else.”

These might include (among others):

• Hydrocodone
• Oxycodone
• Morphine
• Fentanyl
• Methadone
• Heroine

How does your heroine know if the character is really high or overdosed? 

• Really high
• Muscles are lax
• speech is slow and slurred
• sleepy-looking
• responds to shouting earlobe pinching or sternal rub
• normal heart rate/ pulse
• normal skin tone
• Overdosed
• pale clammy skin
• breathing is infrequent or has stopped
• deep snoring or gurgling (death rattle)
• unresponsive to any stimuli
• slow or no heart rate
• blue lips or fingertips

Some things you might have seen/read somewhere that you DO NOT put in your prose because they're wrong and could kill someone if they tried it in real life.

DO NOT

• Put them in a bath
• Induce vomiting 
• Give them something to eat or drink
• Put ice on them, in their clothes, in an ice bath (this depresses the heart rate)
• Shake, slap , kick, or take agressive actions to wake them
• Inject a substance into them like salt water or milk

WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN if you want to save them. (or not, I'm not judging your plot arc):

• Check for responsiveness
• Administer Narcan and apply first sticker or write in pen on their forehead. (watch video to see how easy) My kit came with stickers so if your character wanted to save a life and NOT get arrested for whatever they were doing that was illegal, they could do the dosage, slap the sticker on (or 2 stickers if they used 2 dosages) and walk away calling 9-1-1 from a payphone.

• Put individual in recovery position

• Call 9-1-1 (this is one of those rare times that you don't call 9-1-1 first)
• If the character is not breathing, depending on how you want this to turn out, you could have someone do rescue breathing if the overdosed character isn't breathing on his own.
• Assess. 
• If the person recovers, monitor while you wait for the ambulance. 
• If they don't recover within 3 minutes, administer a second dose.
• If person recovers but relapses into overdose after 30-45 minutes then repeat. But because Narcan works for a short period of time and then the opioids are functional in the system again, this is why your character needs to get to a hospital. They could still die.

Narcan is about 150$ a dose. Why do I have two doses? How would your character get the doses? 

• If they're part of the emergency teams they will have training and access to doses.
• In my county, if you train how to use it, they give you 2 doses. If it expires or you use it, you can go in to county medical and get another set of doses for free.

Things that you should know:

• Your character can't keep this in their car in most geographical locations because the substance in Narcan has a temperature range.
• Narcan has an expiration date.
• Other brands exist like EVZIO which works more like an EpiPen.

Good luck to your heroine! It's a wonderful thing to save a life.

Happy writing,

Fiona

Being LOST Is a Science. How to write it right: Information for Writers and Other Curious Folks.

Christmas morning, Hubby and I got a search and rescue call out. A family put their mom in bed at ten o'clock. When they went to wake her at six, she was gone. This is exactly what happened in my novel Relic.

“Good morning!”

Brian turned his head to see Joe heading across the side yard with his arm raised in a wave. Joe stopped when he was standing on the driveway. Brian turned back to see SWAT stacking up at Kay’s front door with a breacher in front. Second one in was a guy looking through the window of his ballistics shield with a can in his hand. Brian was assuming it was smoke and not flashbang, since there were kids in the house. 

Brian made his way calmly toward Joe and put his hand on his shoulder. “Go home.”

“I’m so sorry to bother you. Have you seen my dad?”

“Go home.” Brian turned Joe and gave him a push in the right direction.

Joe turned back, his brow scrunched together in confusion. “I know we’ve been a pain. But I can’t find my dad. I put him to bed last night after you guys brought him back. I went to find out why he was sleeping so late and—”

There was a bang as the breacher crashed his tactical ram into the door, breaking the lock’s hold, splintering the wood.

Yelling filled the air as the SWAT team shouted their orders. It was always hard to listen to terrified children shrieking “Mommy!” Brian hated the fear in the kids’ voices, no matter what language they were screaming. Brian twisted Joe’s wrist, locking his elbow out, forcing him to the ground behind Sophia’s van. He flopped on the ground beside Joe, hoping Sophia had followed his instructions and was keeping her head down. “FBI SWAT are across the street. We’re going to stay down in case anyone feels like being stupid and starts firing a weapon.”

This fictitious scene (Okay, minus the SWAT mission) happens around the globe as those with dementia and other cognitive and processing disorders leave the safety of their homes.

For those who are known to wander, there are devices that the family can use to help track them. Those devices will be the subject of another article. But devices are not failsafe. The subject who was missing on Christmas morning had an ankle tracker, but the batteries were uncharged. It didn't work.

Searchers from all over the state, trackers, K-9, and ground teams (the people who walk the area) were all on hand. All of the search is scientific. 

In this article, I want to talk to you about the statistics of being lost. Your character will act in a statistically predictable way. And if you're trying to figure out where your character would go and if they were in a survivable situation, I have a short cut for you. 

I'm going to pause here and remind you that if this information is available to us, it's also available to any villains you're writing into the scene.

There's an app at the app store that costs around ten dollars called LOST PERSON BEHAVIOR. It's based on Search and Rescue statistics and is geared for use by the first responder community. 

• It's easy to use
• It functions no matter where your character is as it's not dependent on a wifi connection. 
• You can assign this to your character's phone -- perhaps they find it in the appstore in an emergency, or you can just use it for your research to tell you what the scientifically predictable behavior will be. 
• Where will they be found
• How long can they statistically survive
• Once you know the statistics and trajectories you can write your characters movements right. This includes giving them a background, known to others or known just to your character and the reader that can help move the plot along or twist your plot viciously. Maybe everyone thought the character had X skills and predicted that they would go in A direction. In reality, your character lied about their skills and thus did B.

When you use the app:

You will find three categories:

1. Subject Category Wizard
1. aircraft
2. abduction
3. water
4. wheel/motorized
5. mental state
1. autism
2. dementia
3. despondent
4. intellectual disability
5. mental illness
6. substance intoxication
6. child (broken down into age ranges)
7. outdoor activity - 13 activities from worker to caver to abandoned vehicle
8. snow activity
2. Browse Subject category
1. external forces
2. water
3. wheel/motorized
4. mental state
5. child 
6. outdoor activity
7. snow activity
3. Bike Wheel Model - which describes what a search and rescue persons will do to start the search. From there, you can decide whether the professionals' plans will be effective or if you're going to stick your character someplace else.

Once you are at the profile There will be a TACTICAL BRIEF -  basically where the subject is most likely to be found. For example in "current water" there are suggestions like

•  looking in the bends of the waterway. 
• Floating bodies are affected by wind, consider leeway. 
• Strainers and undercut rock are a high probability. 

These might tell you how which direction your plot will head.

Then there will be a DESCRIPTION giving more information about the subjects possible choices, and resulting location.

I find this absolutely fascinating. When I'm called out for a search, there are several things I do before I leave home. For example: I check the weather (the weather before the incident makes a difference in tracking. Also, I need to know how to dress during the possible search time, and also so I have the right equipment, including first aid if I was on the find team.) I also check my LOST PERSON BEHAVIOR app for the circumstances that I will be searching so that while I search for any clues in general, I am also cognisant of specific probable places that I might make a find.

In the example that we started with - the Christmas day search for a subject with dementia, some things that the app tells me:

• They go until they get "stuck" that means I crawl through brambles and tangles of debris in case someone made their way into the center and got stuck in there. My focus in the woods will be brush, thick areas, and drainage ditches (where they might have gotten into a drainage, but it became too steep to get back out.
• I also know from the app that because subjects with dementia have a narrow field of vision, they usually go in a straight line. So if I can get a track, I will search forward of it, looking for a place where they might get caught and not be able to continue forward. "They go until they get 'stuck.' Appear to lack the ability to turn around and may ping-pong  off some barrier."

Yup, tons of plotting fun to be had with this app if you're writing a missing person into your plot and want to write it right.

Enjoy!

Thank you for visiting ThrillWriting. I hope you're finding my leg-work in writing research to be helpful. You can see this research in action AND support this blog by buying my books. Much appreciated.

Fiona

Well That Sucks - a Blood Primer for Vampire Lovers with Jennifer Hilt

A big ThrillWriting welcome to Jennifer Hilt. Jennifer will you tell us a bit about you?

Jennifer - 
I'm a USA Today Bestselling author. I write PNR and Urban Fantasy. I'm super excited about my upcoming series, "The Undead Detective" featuring a vampire medical examiner. I have undergraduate degrees in Linguistics and Nursing. I have a MA in English Literature. I've been in Indie publishing for a few years but writing fiction for many years.

Fiona -
So, I will fess up and tell you that I am not a huge reader of Vampire books, but when I read them I always think that there's not enough chatter about blood. I mean, I talk about my recipes, I post pictures of great food I've eaten. I'm sure there's a reason why you would have an instagram account about your newest "dish" if you were a vampire but isn't there a lot that one should know? Let's take for example, has anyone considered the flavoring? I know that mothers need to be careful what they eat when they breastfeed their child. Do you think that our diet would affect a Vampires diet?

Jennifer -
Most people are probably familiar with Charlaine Harris either through her Sookie Stackhouse books or "True Blood" TV show. Who doesn't love Pam and Erik as Vampires? Garlic is a common antidote to vampires in lore. Sookie Stackhouse only ate it when she was mad at her vampire boyfriend. 

Fiona - 
Your vampire is in the blood business - a medical examiner. 
Here you have a vampire who is a detective, and I'm assuming an expert when it comes to blood 

Let's start with the best place for a vampire to get their blood. Vein V. artery and why.

Jennifer -
This information I'm giving you is based on real medical facts. My favorite source is WebMD. 

Starting in facts is great but when creating your own fictional world please be free to make your own rules. As long as you explain them to the reader, they will go along with them. 

That said, blood's job is to provide nourishment and oxygen to cells and remove waste. The average human has a little more than a gallon of blood in his/her body. 

Blood is made up of three different types of cells. 

• Red blood cells carry oxygen.
• White blood cells fight off infection. 
• Platelets create clots

A vein would be a more practical place to take blood because:

1. Veins are closer to the surface than arteries. 
2. Veins are easier to pierce than arteries 
3. Veins have lower blood pressure (you don't want the volunteer to bleed out & lose all their blood). 

There are 2 types of blood vessels in our bodies: arteries and veins. Arteries carry oxygen rich blood away from heart to the rest of our body. Veins carry oxygen poor blood back to the heart. This is why the heart is really just a pump. 

Fiona - 
In several books I've read, a vampire's back up plan if they can't get to fresh blood is to go to a blood bank. How practical is this? Is blood already seperated into redblood cells and platelettes? 

How hard would it be for someone to slip a bag or two out of the common hospital supply?
Jennifer - 
A blood bank is a feasible option if you don't want your vampire chasing humans around all the time. For example, you could certainly have a blood bank employee selling blood on the side to vampires. 

In actuality, there are several reasons why it would be hard to do in the 'real' world. The biggest challenge is humans are pretty skeptical about coming into contact with anyone else's blood. And for good reason, HIV and Hepatitis are two such diseases transmitted by blood. The world being what is, no one is going to let you take any blood out of a blood bank other than in your own body. If it is going to the hospital you can be sure it is transported securely.

I think vampire writers can view blood as an opportunity to enrich their story and most importantly add conflict. Sure it increases the vampire libido. But don't forget blood can carry pathogens aka diseases. If those can impact your vampire you have the need for blood & a healthy reason to fear it. Same thing goes for substances mixed in the blood such as medication or recreational drugs. What if your vampire ingested blood that contained something that made him ill or act differently? It's another way to increase tension. Don't be afraid to push the boundaries of what 'blood' can do in a story. 

Fiona - 
So let's talk about pathogens in blood. As a volunteer with Search and Rescue we have to take precautions, do vampires need to do this?

Would your detective vampire need nitrile gloves?

Jennifer - 
My vampire detective wears gloves to not contaminate the scene with her fingerprints. She's not able to contract human diseases but she wears gloves for autopsies because she's a professional. She enjoys the torture of loving the smell of blood and being deep in but resisting her desire to indulge. It's a pride thing.

Fiona - 
Does being in a room where a victim who was exsanguinated make a vampire hungry? What happens when he's found blood and needs to process it - is he ever tempted just to lick it a little?

Jennifer - 
Exsanguination is the process of draining blood. My vampire does get very hungry being around fresh blood at work. She gets around this by feeding from her human. But some less scrupulous vampires might be tempted to sample the goods. Vampires want to suck blood from a vein so as not to kill their blood source (and waste all that blood). 

From a practical medical standpoint, the best sources to draw blood is the inside of the arm (crook of the elbow). This is not terribly sexy or exciting so vampires often go for the jugular vein in the neck or a groin vein.

Blood only makes up 8% of our body. I found that surprising. My detective was the first female physician in the UK in the 19th century. She's been a MD for a long time. Vampire physicians are considered the top of the heap in the profession because of their immortality and willingness to take all the night shifts.

Fiona - 
How fun is this?


Need more about blood?
CSI Blood Collection and Preservation LINK
Crime Scene Blood Patterns (ThrillWriting article) LINK
Serology - (Body Fluids) (ThrillWriting articles) LINK



Here is Jennifer's blurb for her book:


Stakes, Spies & Alibis: A Silverthorne novella

Harriet Silverthorne--vampire, assassin, and Victorian lady--has the fate of the British Empire on her lace covered shoulders. Her mission? Find a traitor. To succeed she must face the most difficult assignment of her undead career, surviving a snowed in Scottish house party packed with paranormal delegates and worst of all being assigned a colleague, the human Sherlock Holmes. Silverthorne always works alone, it’s the vampire way.

Luckily, there’s one hot spot in her frigid assignment, a Scottish demon lord whose love for weapons and security equals her own. Mixing a bit of business with pleasure isn’t forbidden—yet.

But when sabotage, dark magic and murder strike the party, Silverthorne struggles with supernatural egos, the safety of a lovesick Princess, and a truly deplorable lack of pockets. Will she save the Empire and more importantly, survive her partnership with Holmes? 

 Thank you for supporting Jennifer and ThrillWriting by purchasing yours today. We really appreciate it! ~ Fiona  

Stay in touch with Jennifer HERE

Bottom Line: Can we take a moment and talk about women's butts?

OR Tactical pants suck and your XX character knows it. OR Can a woman get a little lycra, please?

I'm just going to start out here letting you know that this article is a thinly veiled rant. ;)

I'll still try to make it informative for those  of you who write women who are wearing tactical wear in the field - so EMT, paramedic, police, park rangers...I just did a Search and Rescue talk for Sister's in Crime, and I brought out all the different kinds of clothing I wear because sometimes a little detail here and a little detail there adds to authenticity. 

Let's start with describing your female characters:

Their hair and eye color help someone conjure a vague image. Height is helpful because that can come up in a scene where she is helped or thwarted by her stature. But please don't say she was "fit" or "athletic" because that means different things based on her means of becoming fit. 

I will often, describe the males in my writing not by how they are fit but what sport might best reflect their body type - a line-backer being different from a gymnast, which is different from a basketball or tennis player, for example. 

It's the same with women. And since I said we were talking about women's butts, let's go there. A female runner's bottom and thighs will be very different from someone who lifts weights, rides mountain bikes, swims, climbs rocks, dances, plays volleyball etc. Within the spectrum of various sports, especially if a woman cross trains, there will be a variety of body types. However, I don't think it's a stretch to make a generalization. 

With that said, many women who wear tactical wear are fit. They work out their bodies to make themselves effective at their jobs. Ask yourself:

• What does their job require of them in terms of strength and fitness? 
• What exercises would they do to compensate for deficits? 
• What would their body shape do (in general) with that particular type of training?

For example, a woman who dead lifts heavy weights will have developed larger, rounder gluteal and thigh muscles. 

Having a butt and thighs - or being a curvy girl, creates issues when it comes to a woman's uniform. It seems to me in my efforts to buy tactical pants that the designers take out the extra crotch length found in men's wear and leave everything else the same. Many women do not have male-shaped bodies. 

Why is this a problem for your female character?

• The many pockets all over the tactical pants are not accessible because they are too tight to slip the hand in.
• The numerous grommets on the pockets that keep the pockets secure stop the fabric from stretching properly at the hip. This makes bulges in the line of the pants which then looks untidy. And it also stops movement at the hips which is integral to the women's powerhouse - her legs. You can't kick when your leg is being squeezed, and it's not great for running either.
• Squatting is an issue. If there's no room in the pants for a woman's butt when she's standing, how the heck is she supposed to squat? The grommets are killer. They hurt. If you stay down too long, you've cut off your circulation. So envision a female character locked and loaded and positioned behind her cover in a crouch. Her pants seams/grommets are biting into her hip, the lack of stretch means that the fabric is cutting off circulation. She can't move, she'd give away her position. Her feet are going numb. Now! Now is her chance to run and save the hostage. Erp! She can't feel her feet. She crouched too long and now she can barely stumble forward on her numb feet. Damned pants! And BOOM! you've complicated your scene.
• Can she just get a bigger and bigger size to allow for her butt, hips, and thighs? Not really. When she does, the leg openings starts getting bigger and bigger too, and she looks like she's wearing clown pants. Also, the waist gets bigger. As she crouches/squats that already gaping belt line opens right up and folks can look right down her backside. So let's say she did that, you character bought pants big enough for her hips and bottom and had them tailored for her waist. But the pants legs are still wide. In a fight, if someone kicked, I'd grab the fabric on their pant, down they go. SPLAT! That extra fabric is a problem in a fight. It's also a problem if she's in the woods where twigs and chiggers and other things can get up a wider leg.
• Ladies in the woods - have body needs too. It's not like we can turn our back to folks and take care of business. We have to find a secluded spot and drop trau. If your pants don't fit you correctly, that is a problem. A prooooobbbbllllleeeemmmm. Imagine the jumping an bobbling it takes to get a waist over the wide part of a woman (her hips and bottom) to get it up to the smaller circumference of her waist. (TruSpec 24/7 has a pant that has an integrated elastic in the waistband that solves the problem) 

Why not give a woman a little Lycra?

I have found tactical pants with stretch, but they are shaped like calf-length yoga pants and don't have a pocket array. They look unprofessional for most women's jobs which would require tactical pants.

I have found some that have great accessible pockets and a waist that was made from a material similar to maternity wear. Very comfy and movable. But if you put anything in your pocket, say your phone or a knife, the pants fall down.

More problems for your female character who is built like a woman. 

• Few places carry women's tactical pants
• When they have them they have very few size options
• The fabric is abrasive and stiff. Men have better/more options in fabric texture and weight. Men can, for example, find lightweight summer tactical pants as well as cold weather pants and pants in between with soft finishes. (I know because sometimes I just give in and wear hubby's pants and a really strong belt)
• If you are mentioning your character's size of clothing as a reference to how she approximately looks be careful. Add two sizes up from her normal size (at least) when she gets tactical wear. A size 4 will wear an 8, a size 10 will wear a 14. This could be a plot twist. They could find some chick's tactical pants Size 10 and think they are looking for a size 10 woman. Their suspect has size four and six in her closet. Can't be her, these would be too big. They would argue in the detectives office that it would be the OJ glove all over again. "Ma'am try on these size 10 pants... see jury? They fall right down. How could she have run in them?" Ah, that would make sense unless the cop is a female or knows a female who ordered her size in tactical pants and couldn't get them past their knees and therefore knew that the pants would fit.

Ladies who wear tactical pants, please weigh in in the comments. Either tell us more ways to twist a plot with their poor design or tell us which brands/names you like and why (But if you would please also include a vague body type it would be appreciated).

How to Have Your Character Fail by Succeeding.

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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One of the things that I like most about my gym, is the people watching. My gym, like most, has its fair share of people who enjoy flirting with themselves in the mirrors, but there also some very interesting characters. There's the grandpa who comes in his pajamas and slippers, for example. 

More power to him! 

There's this one twenty-something guy who is remarkable because he's sunny. Likeable. Just plain nice. Charl is his name; he calls me "girl," as in "hey, girl!" I don't think he knows another Fiona, and my name probably didn't stick when we met. 

Charl was waiting his turn on the machine, while his girlfriend lifted, so I wandered over to ask him if he'd set any New Year's resolutions for the gym. He said he wanted to gain some weight and get to two-hundred and ten. I was a little confused at first. Everyone I know goes to the gym to lose weight. But he was saying he wanted to try to gain weight by building muscle, getting stronger and bigger.

I have my own gym goal. I've been working on it for over a year. Because on the Search and Rescue crew we have to be ready to carry someone out of the woods, I had to get stronger. I set my goal at doing three pull-ups. I have never done a pull-up in my life. It's a process to get to the point where I could lift the weight of my own body. And today, I can do that. I can do three sets of twelve - of the weight I weighed when I started this goal. I don't weight that weight anymore. 

That's why I have done exactly ZERO pull-ups in my life time.

Though I wear the exact same clothing size, I am twenty pounds heavier than when I started working on my goal. I've never been this heavy. I am heavier now than I was when I was nine-months pregnant. And yet, strangely the same size I have been my whole adult life. 

That, right there, is mind boggling.

In my head, I'm trying to figure out if I will ever be able to do a single pull-up. The more I practice lifting, the heavier I get. The heavier I get, the more I have to lift. It just seems impossible! How is it that anyone can do a pull-up? I just don't understand.

And this leads me to the point of this essay, sometimes outcomes are hard to predict. A path is determined, the path is walked, and low and behold when the end is in sight, the end destination is not where you set your compass heading. 

In my writing, I think this is interesting for character growth. It's expected that a character will be going along and something flies out of left field that changes their perspective. Boom! They are hit in the face with something unforeseen. But isn't it an interesting twist to head a character down the road, have them follow their ethic, work hard to reach their goals and then have them discover that their success puts them further from their goal?

That was one of the themes that I played around with in Instigator. Gator Aid Rochabeau is the best of the best -- and when he follows his code, it puts him in opposition to what he wants.

Have you seen this in other books you've read -  where the author has the character fail through his or her success? Has this played out in your own life? 

Speaking of Instigator - I had a scary event happen in my family this week. 

I'm not giving anything away when I tell you that Instigator takes place in the South China Sea. In the book, I mentioned how lethal box jellyfish are. Indeed, they are the most poisonous animal known to man. My brother just contacted me to say that his family was on vacation snorkling in the South China Sea and his daughter was stung by a box jelly fish. She is going to be fine. But knowing what I know about the effects of the poison on a system, it is a miracle that she made it through the event. 

I'm sending "Way-to-go Super Girl!" juju her way.

Let's all make it our New Year's resolution to leave those kinds of adventures on the pages of a book!

Amazon Link

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

InstiGATOR and the Collective Unconscious

Pier 39 in San Francisco (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Readers have been asking for Gator's story and here it is!

InstiGator is a military romantic suspense with a psychic twist that takes place across the globe. And being Gator, this is also a book with some magical realism - though that magical experience that Gator has is based in research.

Many of my books talk about  the sixth sense that we all have. Some people through their life's experience exercise their abilities more than others. Often this comes from being in threatening experiences that makes one stretch for any information possible to stay safe. 

If you pay attention, you'll see it happening in your own life.

Let me give you an example of the last time I had an "affirmation" that I was connected, as Jung hypothesized, to the larger whole: 

I was getting ready to go to San Francisco. It's a large city with lots of tourists. I started thinking about Las Vegas and the 500+ people shot when they went to a concert. I thought about what I would do and how I could prepare. I took out my Search and Rescue First Aid bag and pared down my kit to the essentials of what I could carry in my pocket and would be the most help in that scenario. I packed both of my tourniquets. 

Hubby was getting ready for our trip. He came in and said that he was thinking about San Francisco and terror attacks especially along Pier 39, where we had planned to be on Christmas day. He said it would be full of people and that that would be a likely targeted location. Then he suggested I pack a tourniquet in my pocket along with some clotting bandages like he had. 

Weird huh? We'd never travelled with tourniquets in our pockets before.

Spin the clock forward a few hours, and there on the news is a report that the FBI thwarted a terrorist attack that was planned for Pier 39 in San Francisco for Christmas Day. (news article)

Thank goodness we didn't need our supplies, though we carried them with us anyway. Now, imagine the difference in awareness. 

• First, I had a husband who was picking up the whole "be prepared for a terror attack" vibe. If it was me alone, I might have thought I had an anxiety issue or that I was a suspense author who always conjured worse-case scenarios ;) 
• Second, if the FBI didn't release the information to the news stations, we'd never know that we both weren't acting on our Search and Rescue training to be prepared for the unforeseen, and it was happenstance that we both thought of the tourniquets. 

Had the FBI not caught the guy, we would indeed have been on the Pier during a terror attack and put our tourniquets to use. How scary is that?

Getting affirmations that the collective unconscious is at work helps build our trust in that part of our instincts. 

In InstiGATOR  Gator Aid Rochambeau depends on Lynx to keep him sane as they both experience their connections in the ether and how it complicates an already complicated mission. ENJOY!

Click the arrow to watch the trailer.

____________

CLICK HERE to download your copy!

In a life or death game, all bets are off!

Christen Davidson, a helicopter pilot for the Army, just had her day go from horrific to something far worse. Fellow operatives are in danger. Christen is desperate to fly a rescue mission. Instead, she’s ordered to act as an asset in a high-stakes, international game. She didn’t join the military to play dress-up, but she can’t disobey, even though this assignment is far outside of her comfort zone.

Gator Aid Rochambeau, a retired Marine Raider, is an Iniquus elite operative who volunteers to act as security on the Davidson mission. Yet, as the job gets underway, he is unprepared for the psychic confusion that swirls through his system. New to his psychic experiences, he reaches out to fellow Strike Force member, Lynx, for understanding, only to discover she too is battling a strange vortex of information and sensation. The one thing they both understand is that lives are on the line.

For this mission, there is no place to run and nowhere to hide from the men who have their eye on a billion-dollar deal, and the only ones standing in their way is this improbable team. The gamble they’re making could mean life or death, but the reward could be so much more!

Once again, USA Today Bestselling romantic suspense author Fiona Quinn brings you the unexpected story of spies, murder, and mystery playing out on a world stage. INSTIGATOR is the third book of the Strike Force Series. It can be read as a stand-alone novel.