The Ultimate Writer Cred

Hank Phillippi Ryan:  When the amazing Katie Schickel told me she wanted to do a blog about research, and how wonderful it is to get deeply inside a certain part of the world, I thought—oh yeah. Because her new book is kind of about mermaids. (Whoa. The incredible Elin Hilderbrand says:  An original, fresh, and absolutely captivating read."!

Anyway, mermaids.  So I figured, well, we’ll finally find out the deal.

It’s just as fascinating that it turns out to be about the police. You know?  Just keep swimming.

The Ride Along

              by Katie Schickel

I’ve listened to many writers talk about the lengths they go to for research — interviews, shadowing doctors in emergency rooms, uncovering primary sources in far-flung libraries. I felt it was time to step up my game. Research, after all, gives your story depth and credibility.

For my latest book, The Mermaid’s Secret, my main character is a surfer who becomes a mermaid. Since I’m surfer, and a former professional scuba diver, getting inside the head of a surfing mermaid was cake. But I also had a main character who was a cop. I needed context. I needed to inhabit a cop’s world.

Which is how I came to find myself riding shotgun in a police cruiser on night patrol last summer.

We started with a tour of the police station — booking, biometrics, holding cells, dispatch, report room, and interview rooms, before moving on to the cruiser. Within five minutes on the road, the cop who’d been assigned to me (I’ll call him Bruce) immediately pulled over a car with a missing headlight. “Situation lights” on, Bruce called in the plates, and approached the car. I noticed that he deliberately touched the trunk before walking up the driver. When I asked why, he explained that he leaves his fingerprints on the vehicle in case he is shot and the driver flees.

Shot? On a routine traffic stop?

Yes, Bruce said. Motor vehicle stops are the most dangerous calls for a police officer. Drivers with felony outstanding warrants, or hidden drugs and weapons, have a high probability of shooting a police officer.

And the second most dangerous type of call? I asked.

Domestic violence, Bruce said. Which was our second call of the night, after only 30 minutes on shift. Bruce hit the flashing lights, pulled a u-turn, and barreled down the double line at full speed. My adrenaline was pumping.

When we got to the address, another police cruiser was waiting with flashing lights. This was a two-man job.

“Stay in the car,” Bruce said as he got out and headed to the house.

No problem, I thought. Since I wasn’t sure whether the cruiser had bullet-proof windows, I slunk low in the seat and watched from afar as Bruce and the other cop diffused the situation.

Next stop was the marina and back alleys where frequent break-ins occur. Frequent break-ins, I thought. I never even lock my door most of the time. Bruce was fastidious as he ran a property check, testing doors and windows, shining a light into buildings. I scribbled in my notebook, writing observations, jargon, and asking Bruce questions about chain-of-command, unattended death protocol, and details that I needed to make the character in my book come to life.

Then we moved onto the residential quadrant where Bruce pointed out the local crack house, the drug dealers’ houses, and the meth lab they had shut down a couple months prior.

Crack house? Meth lab??? But we live in a small, safe town. Nothing ever happens here. There are lemonade stands on every corner in the summer. You can buy goat manure for your organic garden at the gas station. Our streets are literally paved in cobblestone. I had assumed it would be a pretty uneventful night.

As the night wore on, my assumptions were shattered as we made a routine run of the many, many, many heroin hang-outs around town. We drove the railroad tracks (me, with the window up, slouching low, and peering into the dark night with growing concern), through the cemetery, and into empty parking lots. We checked for signs of gang grafitti behind buildings I didn’t even know existed. Every time Bruce got out of the car to check on dark pathways, or peek into “drug tents” tucked into the woods, I could feel the panic rise in my chest. For the first time, I realized that real dangers exist even in Beaver Cleaver Land.

In every situation, Bruce was calm. He never raised his voice. He never got spooked. He was there to protect and serve, no matter what kind dangers lurked in shadows.

I walked away that night (in one piece, thanks to Bruce) with much more than a notebook full of characters ideas: I walked away with a profound respect for the work police officers do every day.

If you could tag along with someone, whose shoes would you walk in for a day?

HANK: Whose shoes? Ah. So many possibilities. Sue Grafton. Lisa Scottoline. JK Rowling. (It’d be fun, right?) Anna Wintour. A first-grade teacher.  Do I get to BE them?  Stephen King! Meryl Streep.  A contestant on Project Runway.  Michelle Obama. Ooh, I could think of some really insider things, too.  Ride along with … ah. Barbara Walters.  But what about you?
**And a copy of The Mermaid's Secret to one lucky commenter!

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THE MERMAID’S SECRET

Jess Creary fells like she’s drowning on dry land. She’s still reeling from the death of Kay, her older sister, killed two years ago in a boating “accident.” Her mother has disappeared, and her father is on her case to get a real job. The only bright sports in her life are surfing off their island home in Maine and Matthew, the handsome captain of the fishing boat where she works flipping burgers.

On her twenty-third birthday, Jess catches the perfect wave — a wave that transforms her into a mermaid. Under the sea, a startlingly beautiful dark place, Jess is reborn as a confident, powerful predator with superhuman strength. Facing down a great white shark, hunting prey, and rescuing a baby whale trapped in a net — Jess is finally someone to be reckoned with. Meanwhile, back on land, her relationship with Captain Matthew heats up and so does her quest to hold Kay’s ex-boyfriend, wealthy summer resident Trip Sinclair, responsible for her death.

When the strange old Passamaquoddy woman who owns the local curiosities shop tells Jess the legend of Ne’Hwas, the mermaid, Jess discovers that she has thirty days to choose between land and sea, legs and fins, her humanity and her freedom. Who could reject the freedom of the sea? Yet the ocean is a dark, untamed, lonely place. Will Jess choose family and love, forgiveness and truth, or will she be seduced by the wild call of the sparkling sea forever?

Katie Schickel grew up in Ithaca, NY and graduated from Georgetown University. She's worked as a newspaper reporter in New York, a scuba instructor in Key West, a magazine editor in Pensacola, and a dot com writer in San Francisco. Eventually, she moved back east where she has worked, among other things, as a middle school English teacher, farmer, fisherman, and silversmith. She lives in Newburyport, MA with her husband and two children.