MASTER CLASS: Investigations

Prerequisite: Must have a story (at any stage of completion) that includes police investigation

Whether the investigation in your story involves primarily the perspective of a law enforcement officer, a criminal, a witness, a private citizen with a personal or professional interest in the case, or all of them, it’s important to get the details right. This class is geared to aid writers in making their law enforcement officers (and their work) as realistic as possible. For instance, there’s a difference between electronic and physical surveillance–and that’s just the beginning. You’ll learn about:

• Areas of responsibility, rank and structure: who’s really in charge?
• Undercover operations, narcotics investigations, money laundering and informants
• Sex crimes and homicide
• Interviewing vs interrogation: which gets the job done?
• Electronic surveillance: wiretaps, tracking devices, computers and more
• Physical: car vs air, single vs team, moving vs fixed
• Networking: a cop’s (and your character’s) greatest investigative tool

M.A. Taylor spent over twenty years in law enforcement. After seven years with the California Highway Patrol (CHP), she left to become a Special Agent for the California Department of Justice (DOJ), spending over ten years in Narcotics. For four years Margaret was assigned to a Federal DEA-HIDTA Task Force. Her multiple areas of expertise range from surveillance to wiretaps to tribal gaming, sexual predators and many others.