Adventures in Research

by Elizabeth Engstrom

 

I’m writing a book wherein a murder takes place on a cruise ship.

Last month, my sweets and I took a cruise. Perfect time to do a little research.

This is how it went:

First, I asked the Cruise Director if I could speak to someone in Security, as I was writing a murder mystery set aboard a cruise ship and I wanted to get a couple of details correct.

He sent me to Guest Services.

The guy at Guest Services, when I gave him my card to show I was legit–a real writer– and told him that I wanted five minutes with someone from Security, said he’d call me when someone was available.

No sooner had I gone back to my stateroom than the Guest Services guy called and asked what questions I had for Security.

I quickly had to think, and pare down my questions. Mostly, I wanted just to chat with the guy and find out a few of their procedures, but clearly that wasn’t going to happen. So, off the top of my head, these were my questions:

1. If there is a murder aboard, who on board is in charge of the investigation?
2. If it is during an ocean crossing, whose jurisdiction is it (the originating port or the destination port)?
3. If the crime takes place in a very public place (in the middle of the night), how do they secure the scene of the crime?
4. If the victim is a member of a cruising group, will the head of security be willing to let the group leader help with the investigation? (My sleuth, of course, will have to solve the mystery.)

Those were my questions. The nice guy from Guest Services wrote them down and said he’d call me back.

Thirty seconds later, he called me back and told me to get in touch with the cruise line via the Media Relations button on their website.

Zero help.

I was very surprised by this, although after thinking about it a while, I guess I wasn’t that surprised. They have to be very careful with their image, and there have been some very high profile murders/deaths aboard cruise ships.

The unfortunate thing about this particular situation is that I’ll have to write the book as I imagine it and then find someone to read it who can tell me if I’m completely off the mark. I’ll then rewrite the scenes that aren’t right, and hope that my assumptions don’t derail the entire plot. All I was asking for was a little information for the sake of accuracy.

This, however, was the first time I have ever been stonewalled when asking for help with research. From policemen to doctors, nurses to lawyers, priests to politicians, everybody is eager to help with their knowledge of things. I’m careful not to waste their time; I’m careful to let them know that I am serious, and also that sometimes getting a book published is a crap shoot. So I do my homework before I engage. Case in point: I knew what I wanted to ask Shipboard Security.

When people ask me about things in which I have vast or intimate experience, I am only happy to oblige. I believe that is true for most people. So ask away. Be bold. Be brave. But be considerate of someone’s time and sensitive to whether or not they want to go on record.

Research is one of the fun parts of writing fiction.