Currently writing a story where one (or both) of my characters contemplates jumping off a bridge. Naturally, police get called. They show up at the scene and... What do they say to my characters still hanging out on the bridge but no longer looking like any of them are gonna jump? In all of the YouTube videos I've watched, the first thing the cops seem to say to suicidal people is "How you doing?" which I don't know if that would work in a story.
This all depends a bit on timeframe and location, but I imagine it's USA, modern age? I found this journal that may be available in your library, depending on where you live: https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/training-police-officers-handle-suicidal-persons This journal may be a bit outdated, though, depending on your setting. Either way, the abstract tells a little of what an officer may need to do. I think "How you doing?" may be a good start. If all else fails, perhaps you can contact your local police department and say you are a writer and ask if they have any manuals on dealing with suicide prevention?
Yup, some as yet undetermined location in the US, modern times. It looks like there are some libraries in my state that might have this. I'll see if I can locate it. Thank you. I'm intensely curious about the practice, though, and the variation therein. Even if they're all trained on the same manual, surely, they don't always do what they're supposed to do or sometimes do things they're not supposed to do. I'm trying to understand the limits of what's probable here, to help me write the scene.
Maybe you can see if you can get in touch with officers from your local department and ask them how they handled various such situations. But that depends on how much you want to research this subject and how important the scene is in your book. If it is a major scene that influences the entire book, it might be worth digging. I also think you can play around a lot with how the officers may respond, perhaps they're a bad apple? Or a good officer? Or something in-between? Maybe they had a bad day? There are many factors that can be experimented with to see how they may handle the situation.
I'm not entirely sure how important it is yet. It happens near the beginning and will have consequences for one of the characters if he ends up getting committed. Mostly just trying to get it to play out somewhat believably at this point. Might have to talk to people eventually, if I can't figure it out through less resource-intensive methods. I think they're just regular, average cops. They're mostly just a complication that my characters have to deal with. But what I don't know is: if my characters lied and told them that they don't know anything about any suicide attempts, what would the cops do then? It doesn't seem realistic to me that they would just accept that? But then again, they don't really have any proof.
Another resource is the curriculum used to train suicide prevention hotline workers, like the one at the link below. http://dustinkmacdonald.com/crisis-hotline-training-curriculum/
The reason they would ask "How are you doing" is to try and build a connection with the would-be jumper. The person would obviously answer "not good", and the police officer can then ask what's wrong to try and be sympathetic. He's obviously not going to accept that the person knows nothing about a suicide attempt. If that's the answer, they'll ask them politely and calmly to step away from the edge. They can't take the risk that the person will suddenly rush to the edge and jump.
If you have two officers, one could say something like, "third jumper this week. $20 says he jumps." While the other pays good cop. Calling his partner a jerk. "Don't let him win..." The question is how do you want to play the scene?
No, I understand why they would say this, and it's obviously a realistic thing to say judging by all the YouTube videos I've seen, but book dialogue is oftentimes significantly different from the real-life dialogue, and I'm not sure if this would sound appropriate/believable to my readers. To me, it sounds a little too informal, maybe? That's what I think, too. This has been suggested to me in another writing circle as an option of what my characters might say to get out of having to go see the shrink, but I don't think it would work. Among other things, I'm sure my guys would match the description the 911 caller would have left when they called it in. Very good point about asking them to step away from the edge. I like that a lot.
I think I want to play it as them being the boring, somewhat-professional types -- I don't want to take the spotlight away from my MCs. By the time the police show up, my characters have mostly changed their mind. They're still on the bridge, but are no longer about to jump off it. I've never interacted with the police in this context, and I'm having trouble figuring out how the beginning of that interaction would go. Would the cops introduce themselves? (All the YouTube videos I've watched suggest that maybe not.) Would they explain why they've been called? Would they ask my guys what they're doing there or would they just go straight to assuming they're the people the 911 call was about? How would all that go, in other words? And, perhaps more importantly, what would seem realistic to the readers?
My advice is just write it, and if you don't like it later, then change it. It seems like you're trying to second-guess way too many things. Just make the decisions, you can always change them later.
Guilty as charged. I am a life-long second-guesser. I am trying to write it too, of course, but also looking to add more sand to my sandbox by seeing what other people think.
If that is the case, then i suggest you write the scene five different ways. Then go back and compare the results. Use the one that you feel works best.
If I'm having trouble trying to figure out a scene, I'll usually write it up in pure summary first, usually in present tense, just to figure out the basic scene and how it goes down. I get a sense right away if it's working or not, and if it isn't then I'll scribble it up a different way, just real rough. I might try it once with all the cops being professional and real generic, and then maybe once with one brutal cop who dominates the rest and just wants to bully the kids or something. Then maybe try it again, with one cop who steps forward and is real compassionate and caring, and his energy dominates the scene. Usually one scenario will leap out as the best, and then you just go ahead and write it up for real, in full detail.
And if that isn't working I'll write about the scene. If you're still having trouble, chances are you don't understand the point of the scene, and you need to think into it and the pupose it serves in the larger story. Think about your character arc or arcs if there's more than one. That's generally what keeps me grounded in the purpose of a scene.
