If what you think you know about courtroom law comes from novels, TV and movies, your writing may have "legal" trouble.

Lawyers, legal secretaries, and most people who have worked in law or the criminal justice system agree:

"I hate it when books don't even try to get legal details right!"

They may laugh, but frequently they will stop reading when a plot twists the legal system inside out or a crisis in a book is based on a legal problem that could never happen in real life.

You Want to Keep the Reader Turning Pages.

So I've written, The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Courtroom Drama as a legal reality check.... It covers the basics you need to write believably about lawyers, courts, trials, and evidence.

For example:

Your characters don't always have the right to remain silent. Mistake 20 explains why the right not to incriminate oneself doesn't apply to every police encounter.

Mistake 21 describes how the police actually use the Miranda Warning during interrogations--and when they don't.

What about a defense lawyer who wants to switch sides? Read Mistake 33 to find out what would happen if a lawyer found such horrifying information that he decided to quit in the middle of a trial--what can he do and what would he never do?

I've worked in law offices for thirty-five years, and transcribed police interrogations, FBI surveillance and trial proceedings. I like to get the details right.

Here are the answers to how courtroom dramas work, so you can eliminate errors that make people in the legal community snicker, drop the book with a thump, and put you on their "Do Not Buy" list.

In The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Courtroom Law you'll discover:

● What is the one basic rule of questioning that all trial lawyers learn?
● Can lawyers who are married to each other represent opposing sides in a lawsuit?
● A wife cannot be forced to testify against her husband--except in these circumstances....

GETTING SMALL DETAILS RIGHT can give a story an air of truth, while getting them wrong can irritate the reader and throw a monkey wrench into the finely tuned workings of the most beautifully constructed plot.

Fiction writers don't live by crime alone. Characters filing lawsuits to haul each other into court can spark major plot conflict, but readers won't believe in the situation if you don't know the important differences between civil and criminal law.

IGNORANCE OF THE LAW IS NO EXCUSE! Most of the mistakes I see writers make arise out of ignorance of the most basic legal structures. The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Courtroom Law was written to give you that essential information--and more.

Let me show you some little-known sides of the law that can provide insights most readers will never see coming, even as the legally savvy readers nod their heads and say, "Yes! Finally someone cared enough to get it right!"

That's why you should own The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Courtroom Law today (in fact, you can be reading it in as little as 5 minutes from now!).

About The Author

In 1973, Lynne Murray just happened to take a proofreading job at what was then the largest law firm in San Francisco. Little did she know that the firm would contribute many plot twists and a couple of murder victims to her first mystery, Termination Interview (St. Martin’s Press 1988), wherein a personnel director is thrown out a 12th-story window at a huge stuffy law firm. Fascinated with the ins and outs of the law, Lynne found that the big firms needed 24/7 word processing. That was the ideal job for someone who needed to work weird hours to support her fiction writing habit. She has typed every sort of legal document, and transcribed tapes from police interrogations and FBI surveillance to court hearings. Lynne lives in San Francisco. She has had a total of six mysteries published and collaborated on a humorous e-book of encouragement for writers.