My fiction writers' group has been critiquing the novel manuscript of mine that some of you assisted with earlier this year: http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showthread.php?t=210023

The group members are sharp, and I frequently take their advice. But we've bumped into an issue of word choice. Now a writer doesn't have to take the shorter word over the longer or less familiar if the latter is *exactly* right. But I'm wondering. For instance, in a recent discussion, one group member objected to a career cop using the word "firing" to describe the act of arson: "The Arson Squad got a tip that the Wolves [a teenage gang] had been behind the firing of two abandoned houses that winter and spring."

I could use "burning," of course. But I think "firing" (in the sense of "setting fire to," which wouldn't work as I've phrased the speech above) is the sort of term a cop or firefighter, or lawyer, would use. What do you think?
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