Writer's Guide

Guns

Guns

Are you writing about guns? See if the following lines inspire you...

I moved though the house like the cinematic version of an FBI agent, skulking from room to room with my "gun" drawn. I was a coiled spring ready for action. I was kicking open doors and jumping around a lot. I was glad no one was there, because I'm sure I looked stupid.

" 'Never play around with a gun.' " I scolded, imitating Uncle Peter's inflections.

A gun going off nearby will cause a person without ear protection to hear "eeeeeEEEEEEEeeeeee" for an hour, maybe longer.

One of the signs at the firing range read: "Nobody turns their guns sideways to fire except dumbasses who like not hitting targets. The sights on top of a gun are there for a reason."

The air had a acrid, eggy stink of discharged powder.

He was two-handing an Uzi.

"Do as I say or I'll put a hole in your head big enough to push an apple through!"

She's about as accurate as a feather-filled catapult.

Tilden Springloader = Name for a fictional gun that "clicks" when the safety is left on. No real gun does that. So if you want to write about a gun clicking and not firing because the safety was left on - then tell the reader it was a "Tilden Springloader". The gun also has a design flaw (that no real gun has) that causes it to sometimes fire when dropped. When people are shot with this gun they are pushed back by the blast (that's also not a real thing).

The gun bucked.

The three men brought their gun to bear.

Uncle Peter ducked at the sound of the gun shot. But, of course, the bullet was long gone by then.

He moved so fast I couldn't get a bead.

The poor man caught a round in the chest and staggered from the impact.

The blast was so loud that even my own voice echoed mutely in my head as if I was speaking from inside a bucket.

The blast was so loud it was like everyone was talking from the bottom of a deep well.

His face flew off in a haze of blood.

There was a wide dark spot on his shirt, and when he put his hand on it, it came away wet and red.

The rifle blast fractured the still night.

There was a tongue of fire.

I wanted to kill him so badly. The trigger tugged at my finger.

I wanted to shoot him so badly my nipples were hard.

I felt the wind of the speeding bullet as it passed near my face.

I discharged my gun until it spun with clicks.

So loud was the blast that my aural nerves painfully shut down. When they started again, they could only hear ringing.