Don't (always) be a Detective.

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Tuesday, February 25 · 5 PST - 6 MST - 7 CST - 8 EST

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Resources

📖Writing a memoir and want free Book Coach services?

Esther Harder is a book coach in training with Author Accelerator, the company that certifies book coaches to help writers write their best books. Esther is looking for someone with a draft memoir manuscript and/or someone who is gearing up to pitch and could use additional insight to meet their goals. Email esther.harder@outlook.com for more information.

📖Are you a journalist with no book pitch yet?

The Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing is hosting a panel called “From Beat To Book,” helping journalists who have mastered their beats transition into authors.
March 18
$10 for non-members

Feature: When to be a Detective, and Why not Always

Recently, I posted a video showing a bunch of bones I found at a hunter dump. The video (TW, Bones, and maybe play it on silent) got over 1.1 million views and a lot of speculation that it wasn’t really a hunter dump.

As a nonfiction writer, how would you figure out what these bones came from?

Skulls and skeletons

Carcass experts like myself might notice a few things:

• These are all deer (a better carcass expert might be able to identify these as white-tailed deer by visuals alone)

• None of them have impressive racks—they are either does, or there are only spikes or ones without their antlers (I don’t think the pics show them, but some had their antlers sawed or broken off.)

Some other knowledge I happen to have is that 1) deer are commonly hunted, 2) hunters commonly take nice antler sets, and 3) hunting spike bucks is illegal in some places.

In the comment section, there is heated debate, suggesting this is something else like a roadkill dump or the work of poachers. Maybe a detective could figure out more from these pictures—based on the foliage and species, where was this picture taken? What are the laws about shooting spike bucks (young deer with non-branching antlers) in that location?

But you don’t need to be a detective because there is a very simple answer as to how I know what created this field of bones:

I know (with not complete, but reasonable certainty) this is a hunter dump because I had asked a hunter to show me where he and his friends leave the bones after they’ve taken the meat from their kill, and this is what he showed me. I know these are in Virginia because that’s where I took the pictures.

No detective work needed. Just ask!

That said…

I have been lied to by sources and others. So I also suggest:

(TLDR from below:)

• Ask directly and literally

• Trust the source more than you trust your assumptions

• Don’t trust completely

• Ask for details

• Ask for proof

• Ask to see