Contact Lynne Murray at

murraymade@yahoo.com

What is Editorial Rescue?

Watch out, those words may be armed! Never fear, I can pull them into line and make sure that they say what you mean.

For 30 years I've clarified the unclear, cleaned up messy prose and unscrambled meanings from disorderly groups of words lounging on the page and threatening to make no sense at all.

Maybe I can help you! Every project is different, email for a free consultation and quote for your project.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Fiction Writers Can Avoid "Legal" Problems

More info and where to buy the book

Fiction writers--if what you think you know about courtroom law comes from novels, TV and movies, your writing may have "legal" trouble.

Lawyers, legal secretaries, and most people who have worked in law or the criminal justice system agree:

"I hate it when books don't even try to get legal details right!"

They may laugh, but frequently they will stop reading when a plot twists the legal system inside out or a crisis in a book is based on a legal problem that could never happen in real life.

You Want to Keep the Reader Turning Pages.

So I've written, The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Courtroom Law as a legal reality check.... It covers the basics you need to write believably about lawyers, courts, trials, and evidence.

For example:

Your characters don't always have the right to remain silent. Mistake 20 explains why the right not to incriminate oneself doesn't apply to every police encounter.
Mistake 21 describes how the police actually use the Miranda Warning during interrogations--and when they don't.

What about a defense lawyer who wants to switch sides? Read Mistake 33 to find out what would happen if a lawyer found such horrifying information that he decided to quit in the middle of a trial--what can he do and what would he never do?
I've worked in law offices for thirty-five years, and transcribed police interrogations, FBI surveillance and trial proceedings. I like to get the details right.

Here are the answers to how courtroom dramas work, so you can eliminate errors that make people in the legal community snicker, drop the book with a thump, and put you on their "Do Not Buy" list.

In The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Courtroom Law you'll discover:

● What is the one basic rule of questioning that all trial lawyers learn?
● Can lawyers who are married to each other represent opposing sides in a lawsuit?
● A wife cannot be forced to testify against her husband--except in these circumstances....

GETTING SMALL DETAILS RIGHT can give a story an air of truth, while getting them wrong can irritate the reader and throw a monkey wrench into the finely tuned workings of the most beautifully constructed plot.

Fiction writers don't live by crime alone. Characters filing lawsuits to haul each other into court can spark major plot conflict, but readers won't believe in the situation if you don't know the important differences between civil and criminal law.
IGNORANCE OF THE LAW IS NO EXCUSE! Most of the mistakes I see writers make arise out of ignorance of the most basic legal structures. The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Courtroom Law was written to give you that essential information--and more.

Let me show you some little-known sides of the law that can provide insights most readers will never see coming, even as the legally savvy readers nod their heads and say, "Yes! Finally someone cared enough to get it right!"

That's why you should own The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Courtroom Law today (in fact, you can be reading it in as little as 5 minutes from now!).

More info and where to buy the book