MAKING BOMBS AND CLOSE ENCOUNTERS – Dianne Hofmeyr

Pity the poor writer… you have the scene playing out in your head, imagination flaring, fingers itching but before you can set pen to paper, finger to qwerty key, there are the practicalities and technicalities. How exactly does a flintlock pistol fire? What formation was used by Nubian foot soldiers? How big is the turning circle of a chariot? How did the Svenn Foyn harpoon gun, invented in 1870, work so effectively that it managed to just about annihilate the world whale population in a matter of years after its invention.

(For those who need to know… skip if you’re squeamish ... it consisted of a cannon set on a pivot so it was capable of pointing in any direction as the boat bobbed about. It fired a barbed explosive-head harpoon. Aimed and fired, the harpoon barb would hook into the whale. A moment later the explosive charge in the head of the harpoon would inflict a mortal wound.)

There are always experts willing to share, and there’s Google and a heap of books to explore but sometimes there’s a niggle that unless you’ve done something hands on, maybe you haven’t got the facts quite right and some smart reader will be only too happy to put you right.

I recently wrote a short story for an anthology for older teens called Face of a Killer, that required me to know how to make a bomb. Having no access to a laboratory, I went the Google route and was admonished by a friend for putting something like making a bomb into a story for teenagers, which I thought odd. If I could find it online so could any teenager and much faster too.

In the absolute search for truth some writers have been known to take up hang-gliding, parachuting, sword fighting, kick-boxing, abseiling and numerous other pursuits that might not be suitable for someone whose closest encounter with extreme activity is cosying up to a laptop in a closeted room.

I can’t say I’ve wrestled a python to its knees but I’ve faced an elephant in the wild (that’s my black cap in the video) canoed with crocodiles and hippos and have a fair idea of how a flintlock works.

(When the trigger is pulled, it swings the jaws that hold the flint across a metal frizzen plate and produces a shower of sparks. The plate kicks forward to uncover the flash pan with a sprinkling of gunpowder. The sparks ignite the powder and the flash passes through a small hole in the barrel that leads to the combustion chamber. It ignites the main powder charge already rammed down the muzzle and discharges the bullet.)

So while some of us rely heavily on Google, I know others who have gone to great lengths and done some very brave extreme activity stuff, all in the interest of research. Please share.