We've all heard "write what you know". But how is that possible if you're writing a historical novel, or a futuristic? How about a novel that involves some scuba diving if you're deathly afraid of the water?
Jane Austen, however, did write what she knew, and we're certainly the richer for it. She was a keen observer of the world around her, and could hone her words to a razor's edge--the better to cut you with, if you were her quarry.
So this week I pose some questions:
- Do you "research" or "observe"?
- Do you get what you need before, during or after the story is written?
- With the focus in most women's fiction being on the characters, rather than the explosions, murders or other selected mayhem of general fiction, is perfect research a necessity?
- And what do agents and editors think about this? Will they take on a manuscript with great characters, but holes in the research?
Let's talk
11 comments:
I think good writing needs to be a combination of good research and observation. Even if half of what you learn doesn't wind up in your manuscript, having that knowledge still gives your work integrity that often comes across in subtle ways.
Personally, even if I don't use everything I know, I still have to know it. And I completely agree with Jenn that it needs to be a combination of research and observation.
Really well-done research is often part of the plot. I don't think you can separate it from the rest of the book. That's true for contemporaries as well as historicals.
I write contemporaries, which involves a lot of observation. But my latest hero is a senator up for reelection. I have to understand campaign timelines, rules of campaign finance, and media etiquette so that those elements of my story ring true.
That's what I think agents and editors expect from us... that we've done our homework and our story hangs together. Now, if we have one Cockney phrase that was used incorrectly on page 192, or we have someone driving the wrong way up a one-way street in Boston, I don't think that will be cause for rejection.
But I agree with Jenn. It's all about the integrity of the work, and showing time and care in your finished product.
Hi Carol, Debby Lee here. In answer to the questions posted, I do both research and observe. In other words, I do a lot of reading at the library but I also watch videos and attend historical events to observe as well.
I do some research before, to get a handle on where I'm going, some research during, like if a scene requires some extra knowledge, and some research after, to try and make sure I didn't miss anything.
Hope this helps, and hope to see you at a meeting sometime soon.
Sincerely, Debby Lee
Hi Carol,
I agree with the above comments. I do research both before writing and as I go and discover a need for more information about something or other in the story.
Often I come across interesting details in my research that lead to a new scene or plot direction.
Edna Curry
I do write shoot 'em up, blow 'em up, relationship driven romantic suspense and most of what I need to know when starting I've already learned from researching earlier stories. But then there is always a point in a new plot when I have to stop for some research that I haven't counted on needing. And, until I have my answers, I pretty much am like a pig mired in gooey mud. I can't move. It drives me bonkers. But you can't be wrong. People will let you know. Like everyone else, I guess I believe it's a combination of both research and observation. I think also that write what you know applies to the emotions you know.
Happy writing all.
I write in the 1849 Gold Rush era because I live where it happened and research is all around me - both living and dead. I love history and being here in the Sierra Mountains is such a great place that I love using it in my stories. In my current story my heroine inherited a gold mine SO my daughter and I visited a local state park and spent a chunk of time inside a gold mine, talked with the docents and took lots of photos. That's my favorite kind of research, but have also sat in the local museum and gone through old records as well.
I personally like a balanced book between characterization and historical points.
I love doing research both online and through other books. I make up files on various points before I start writing. Because my characters often take over, I do additonal research during the writing process. I have a contemporary soon to be published set in Texas (a place I've never been) about a nurse (I hate the sight of blood)helping to care for a leukemia patient (more research)who falls in love with a rancher (I've milked cows but never set on a horse). When my heroine's abusive ex-fiance catches up with her, he strangles her. How would her brusies look? Would strangulation change the sound of her voice? More detailed research was required to answer those questions. Hemingway wrote about the "iceberg principal." A writer's research becomes the iceberg with 1/3 showing and the hidden 2/3's leading that strong credence to our writing between the lines. As for my agent, she checks details when she's editing my manuscript. She's a bulldog for details which makes me more confident.
Cool new site! I didn'tknow you spoke French!
Hi Carol,
Great post. I'm a research junkie, so I love doing research - lucky for me because my first two historical romance novels, set in the west of Ireland, were written before I visited Ireland in 2009.
I think any novel has to be well-researched in order to be authentic. I usually start out with my characters, then, as I write their backstory, I decide (or discover) what I need to research about them before I start writing. But there are always little details that occur along the way that need to be researched, or at least checked out, whether it's the menu at Delmonico's Restaurant in a certain year, or when a phrase like "clinic" came into common use.
Of course, all this is my idea of fun!
Cynthia, I'm with you. I could research until the cows come home. But that doesn't write the book, darn it all!
After reading all your posts and thinking a little more on this, I'm wondering now if it isn't the author's ability to not only use that research, but spin it into the story that makes the difference. How the research is utilized, in other words.
For example, a skilled author can describe a 19th-century drawing room and make us feel as if we're actually there. Make us FEEL. An unskilled author may give us an "information dump". Both authors may have studied the same research material, and may even describe the same things. Yet one draws us into the room, and the other leaves us standing outside, looking in. The skilled author will evoke emotions, even with something as simple as a room description.
It's how the research is USED, I'm thinking now, not so much whether you have it or not. And while there's a certain level of English proficiency that's required, there's something else that makes the difference.
Some authors provide perfectly good research information within the story; some authors wrap us in it and surround us in it, bringing the story TO us.
I hope I'm making sense.
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