by Linda Rodriguez
Even if you're setting your novel in
the town in which you're living at the very time you're living, there
will still be elements you will need to research—unless every
character in the book is you doing nothing more than you do all the
time, which makes for a very boring book, usually. Your various
characters will be from different walks of life and different
professions from your own, and each of those will need research, if
the character plays a continuing role in your book or even if s/he's
a minor character who will play a continuing role in the series. Any
specialized profession or cultural background will need extra
research.
Specific, accurate, telling details are
what make a novel come alive in the reader's mind. Research provides
these details. Research doesn't make you less creative. It provides
the materials you need to be even more creative. It ensures that you
will keep your reader involved in the fictive dream world you have
created. Often the slightest, most trivial error can rip your reader
right out of that continuous dream in which you're working so hard to
keep readers engrossed. Research not only allows you to avoid that,
but provides you with information from which you can select the
perfect detail to make that fictive dream seem absolutely real to the
reader.
Any scientific or psychological facts
that you need to use in your book, even if below the surface (as in
motivations for your characters), must be accurate. You never want to
get known facts, historical details, or current events wrong because
readers will be yanked out of your fictive dream and may well toss
your book. If they can't believe you about known facts, how can they
believe you about these folks and their story that you made up?
One element that people seldom discuss
is the serendipity that research can provide for the receptive
writer. As you research one aspect of history or a profession or a
place, an unrelated facet may show up that triggers a motivation for
a character or a new plot complication. A chance remark from a source
or a passing reference in a book you're reading for research can
spark powerful new features in your book.
Behavioral mannerisms are a fruitful
area of research for any fiction writer. They are numerous and
provide a needed variety to make your characters seem truly alive
without repeating innumerable head-shakings, shruggings, and
noddings. Books on body language are invaluable for the writer,
keeping in mind that most of them are written with a white
middle-class cultural overlay. For characters from other cultures or
classes, you will want to look to sources from that background for
the physical tells in that culture or class for the emotions or
impulses listed in your book. Some body language crosses cultural and
class divides, but much does not.
Place or location for the settings of
your individual scenes, as well as your novel's background, almost
always require research of some kind, no matter how familiar you are
with the place. Streets change direction and names. Businesses change
ownership and names. Public buildings often change names in this day
of selling rights to name an arena, auditorium, or museum to the
highest bidder—and then, often, re-selling it a few years later—and
most frequently, the reader will be able to tell how long a character
has been in the location by the name s/he calls such a public
institution. Iconic monuments and houses are demolished and turned
into bland housing developments. Farmland becomes suburban malls and
office parks overnight. Location always takes some research, if only
to make sure things you know haven't changed.
The
best way to research any place—but especially one with a different
culture from your own—is to visit it in person. This will allow you
to take note of sensory details—sights, smells, sounds, tastes.
Note down which interesting parts of this place would make good
sub-settings for parts of this novel. If you're writing any kind of
crime fiction, be on the lookout for unusual settings where your
character(s) could find a body or be stalked by a dangerous
antagonist. Watch for neighborhoods or spots with a kind of innate
drama, which will be naturals for suspense scenes or love scenes or
dramatic argument scenes.
You
can take a short trip (or a true vacation) to the place you want to
write about, and it may even be tax-deductible if you're a
professional writer in the United States. You will need to prepare
before you visit, however. If you truly want to capture another
culture and not just pick out a few
exotic and colorful places and fascinating ceremonies to make strange
and beautiful set-pieces of spectacle, you will need to prepare in
advance and find someone at home or in the place you will visit who
can be a guide to understanding that culture for you. Study on your
own through library or internet research to figure out what exactly
you need to learn about for your book. These resources can also help
you determine if there are particular people you might want to meet
or certain places that are must-sees. But even with preparation, you
will encounter the unanticipated surprises that may open up new story
or character avenues for you, so be flexible.
Chronology and timelines also require
almost certain research, even if set in the contemporary world. You
will want to make certain your weather is correct, and if your
character is to be 25 in 2015, she must have been an eleven-year-old
child on September 11, 2001, and will have the memories of a child of
that landmark American tragedy.
The public events of the day, whether
national, local, or in the pop culture of your character's particular
little slice of the world must also be correct, or the reader will be
thrown out of the book. Are there disasters somewhere in the world at
the time of your action that your characters would naturally discuss
with each other? Political events that your characters might ignore
can still cause change in daily life that must be reflected in your
book. For example, across the nation, we have recently seen a change
requiring proof of citizenship to be presented for a driver's
license. This may affect one or more of your characters, even if they
were born in this country. Will they have the required proof on hand?
Will they have to make application and go somewhere else to pick it
up before they can go to get their driver's license? These kinds of
changes affect everyone's lives sooner or later, and if you have a
character of today walk into a driver's license office in most states
and pick up a driver's license without having to deal with any of
this, your book will feel off to the reader.
Think about the novel you're writing or
one you're reading and all the facets of that novel that require
research. Some people love research and some don't. Where do you
stand when it comes to research?
Linda Rodriguez's book, Plotting the
Character-Driven Novel is based on her popular workshop. The
World Is One Place: Native American Poets Visit the Middle East,
an anthology she co-edited was recently published. Every Family
Doubt, her fourth mystery featuring Cherokee campus police chief,
Skeet Bannion, will appear in 2017. Her three earlier Skeet
novels—Every Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, and
Every Last Secret—and her
books of poetry—Skin Hunger
and Heart's Migration—have
received honors, such as Malice Domestic Best
First Novel, International Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best
Book of 2014, Midwest Voices & Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros
Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and Ragdale and Macondo fellowships.
Her short story, “The Good Neighbor,” published in the anthology,
Kansas City Noir, has been optioned for film.
Visit her at
http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com
Most of the time, I write about what I know, and while I may need to ask some relevant questions of other people, it's not an extensive project.
ReplyDeleteRecently, however, I wrote an historic story set in an iron furnace and nearby town shortly after the Civil War. I visited several museums, including a reconstructed iron furnace, the ruins at the site of the furnace I was writing about, and delved into the archives of the local historical society, including old newspapers.
I found repeated references to interracial groups of iron furnace workers descending upon the town when the furnace was not in blast, and efforts of the townsmen to expel them. It was fascinating, and just showed me how little I actually knew about the era and the interactions of the people of different races and backgrounds.
I was reasonably happy with the way the story turned out, and it's going to appear in the next Bouchercon anthology. But it certainly gave me a new appreciation for those who write historic novels and can produce believable characters of a different culture than their own.
It's the ordinary things: parallel or curb-angled parking places, soda or pop or Coke, grits or home fries. I only write about the places where I have spent time. With my photos as a backup, I can describe walking down a sidewalk littered with crepe myrtle blossoms after a thunderstorm, or the desolation of a winter landscape. I absorb many sensory details without thinking about it. Speech mannerisms: five minutes on the phone with a Georgia friend gets me back into a drawl. I read the local news: bodies in the river, jumpers on the interstate overpasses, street crime and organized crime. For certain locations, I use "markers" to strengthen the setting, like big Georgia raindrops. And landscaping details: I'm very precise about what's in bloom and when.
ReplyDeleteJust this morning, I researched what materials tent poles are commonly made of. I've slept in tents dozens of times, but never cared whether the poles were fiberglass or aluminum. I like research, but I have to take care not to let myself get sidetracked.
ReplyDeleteOh so true! I recently read a novel set in my part of Maine - the St. John Valley. The novelist may have known Maine, but in the SJV, we're French Canadian, not Jessica Fletcher. Ployes and poutine not lobster rolls and fries. I didn't get past the first Yah. Now, had he traveled down to Caribou, or Presque Isle, where the English live, he would have been fine. The devil, it seems, truly is in the details.
ReplyDeleteLiving and writing about South Florida I often have Spanish characters in my books. I never finalize a scene without having a fact check by my chica posse. Despite having close Cuban and Puerto Rican friends I am neither and can easily miss nuances or worse, confuse the cultures. Beware the slang!
Research is great fun for me. The thing I have to look out for is following random bits of information and forgetting the reason I started to research.
ReplyDeleteKM, even those questions you ask in novels you know about are research--and waht a good novelist does. In your historical story research, you found out why those who say I can write other cultures and times from my imagination because we're all humans, so very often get it dead wrong. Because the things we think we know about other cultures and times are often not accurate, at all.
ReplyDeleteMargaret, all this research is why your stories are so strong. Accurate, telling details. That's so important for verisimilitude in fiction.
ReplyDeleteJulie, yes, that's a pitfall. Writers of fiction seem to fall into two camps (like the rest of humanity about anything? :-) )--those who like to research (or understand its importance) and those who don't. I have a friend who refuses to do any research. She's a fine writer, but it limits what she can write about and weakens it when she ventures from familiar shores. For those of us who like it or recognize its importance, doing too much, using it as a procrastination technique, or over-researching and trying to pack every detail you learned into your story are major problems.
ReplyDeleteKait, i wish I could convince more writers to do both things you do--check with actual members of the culture when they write about other cultures and actually make friends with people from other cultures, not just to exploit for their work but as actual friends. If you're interested enough in another culture to want to put it in your work, aren't you interested enough in its people to actually seek them out and make friends with them?
ReplyDeleteWarren, yes, for us research lovers, the research rabbit holes can swallow us whole.
ReplyDelete