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Hi all,
Not sure if this is the right forum for this, but here goes.
Basically, my first novel was post-apocalyptic, and this gave me a whole world to invent. I now feel that I might like to write in the 'real world', but I'm having trouble getting over how things work - for instance, say person A witnesses a murder and he realises the murderer was after him but got the wrong person. First thing he'd probably do is tell the police (this is in the UK) and give them the evidence he has.
But I don't know how the police would react, what sort of questions they'd ask, who'd ask them, etc etc. This isn't supposed to be a crime novel, just a part of an idea that I've been thinking about. Nor do I know how to go about finding the answers to those questions.
So I guess this is a question of research - but, with the scenario above, for instance, how should I go about that research? Phone the police and explain what I'm doing and ask if someone could spare me some time? Ask on forums like this?
Thanks a lot, and hope this makes sense.
EDIT: The easiest way would be to have a character who works for the police and has all sorts of police powers - some kind of Inspector, ala Morse, Rebus, whatever - someone who can go about and puzzle things out (wouldn't be the central character) and give orders like 'I think this person's in danger, let's give him 24 hour police protection' or something. But I'm not confident enough with the accuracy to do that, even when it comes to the 'big' life threatening crimes.
Not sure if this is the right forum for this, but here goes.
Basically, my first novel was post-apocalyptic, and this gave me a whole world to invent. I now feel that I might like to write in the 'real world', but I'm having trouble getting over how things work - for instance, say person A witnesses a murder and he realises the murderer was after him but got the wrong person. First thing he'd probably do is tell the police (this is in the UK) and give them the evidence he has.
But I don't know how the police would react, what sort of questions they'd ask, who'd ask them, etc etc. This isn't supposed to be a crime novel, just a part of an idea that I've been thinking about. Nor do I know how to go about finding the answers to those questions.
So I guess this is a question of research - but, with the scenario above, for instance, how should I go about that research? Phone the police and explain what I'm doing and ask if someone could spare me some time? Ask on forums like this?
Thanks a lot, and hope this makes sense.
EDIT: The easiest way would be to have a character who works for the police and has all sorts of police powers - some kind of Inspector, ala Morse, Rebus, whatever - someone who can go about and puzzle things out (wouldn't be the central character) and give orders like 'I think this person's in danger, let's give him 24 hour police protection' or something. But I'm not confident enough with the accuracy to do that, even when it comes to the 'big' life threatening crimes.
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