One of the
compliments I often receive from my readers is their appreciation for the
amount of research I put into my novels. They say it gives a feeling of reality
to my fictional stories, which is exactly what I am trying to provide. I don’t
write non-fiction, memoirs, or true crime stories. However, I will admit that
stories and research nuggets have influenced and inspired characters,
vignettes, and sometimes comic relief in my novels. And, while I adore the
convenience of Google, and other websites which have been both a blessing and a
time saver, my favorite kind of research has been directly interviewing people.
One
of my most in depth interviews happened while conducting research for my WWII
spy novel, The Brass Compass. Oscar
came to my attention through my parents. A former neighbor of theirs, Oscar
lived in Berlin, Germany when the war broke out. Half-Jewish, at the age of
fifteen, he was eventually forced to work in one of Hitler’s labor camps
building Luftwaffe airstrips in the mountains. A cold endeavor in the midst of
the 1945 winter. You may ask what this man’s life had to do with a female spy
of WWII—the subject of my story. Oscar provided something that no other book or
website could provide—the atmosphere of the Germany in the midst of the war. This
included: the mood of the people, details of what people wore, living
conditions, and paperwork. For instance, my spy needed a bus ticket, ration
cards, and ID cards. The interview Oscar provided gave me details my spy would
need to know. Eventually, Oscar escaped, along with a few other men, and spent
the rest of the war hiding out in his father’s Berlin apartment until the
Russians arrived.
For
my modern-day mysteries, I’ve been lucky enough to utilize friends in the FBI,
former and current police officers, medical practitioners and many more. An FBI
friend was able to put me in touch with a retired agent who worked in the FBI’s
Art Crimes Division on the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum art heist that
happened in 1990. $500 million dollars’ worth of art is still at large, and the
former agent was able to provide valuable information about the art which I
utilized in my story Isabella’s Painting. In Fatal
Legislation my bad guys hack a Senator’s pacemaker to murder him. An FBI
agent working in cybercrimes helped me with the plotline. However, a high
school friend, who had the unfortunate experience of watching her husband go
into cardiac arrest after his pacemaker went haywire, provided the true to life
description of my Senator’s collapse.
I have pages upon
pages of stories I could relate, but the real reason I’m sharing this with you
is two-fold. First, I want my readers know though I write fiction, I do try to
keep realism at the base of the story. Second, for those who are writers or
aspiring writers, I cannot stress the importance of one-on-one interviews.
Writing, on the whole, is an isolating job. We go into our caves and pound away
on our keyboards blocking out the rest of the world. It is through these types
of interviews that we can maintain our connections to the real world and bring
more authenticity to our novels.
Fatal Legislation
Lawmaking can be a murderous affair.
If any day calls for a soothing glass of wine, it’s
today. One moment, Capitol Hill lobbyist Karina Cardinal is having a heated
discussion with Senator Harper, who just torpedoed her latest healthcare
legislation initiative. The next, after a cryptic remark, the Senator is dead
at her feet. Hours later, she’s still so rattled she wakes to a freezing
apartment because she forgot to close her back door. Or did she?
When her boyfriend, FBI cybercrimes expert Mike
Finnegan, is suddenly reassigned to work a new case, he’s got bad news and
worse news. The bad: the Senator’s death was no heart attack—it was
assassination by a hacker disabling his pacemaker. Worse: Karina’s a “person of
interest.” Certain that status could change to “suspect” at any moment, Karina
begins her own back-channel investigation into who could have wanted the Senator
dead. Of course, in Washington, that means playing politics and following the
money trail. A trail that leads to more murders…and possibly leaving the door
open for a killer to change her status to “dead.”
Purchase
Links:
Bio
Ellen Butler is the international
bestselling author of the Karina Cardinal mystery series. Her experiences
working on Capitol Hill, and at a medical association in Washington, D.C.,
inspired the latest book in the series, Fatal Legislation, where
lawmaking becomes a deadly affair. She has also won multiple awards for her
novels, most recently for her WWII spy novel, The Brass Compass. She
is a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, and the Office
of Strategic Services Society.
You can find
Ellen at:
Website ~ www.EllenButler.net
Facebook ~ www.facebook.com/EllenButlerBooks
Twitter ~ @EButlerBooks
Instagram~@ebutlerbooks
Goodreads ~ www.goodreads.com/EllenButlerBooks
An author who does his/her research can provide a rich and authentic-feeling book. Nothing's more frustrating than to be reading along, willing to accept the world the author has presented, and coming to a detail or historic fact that you KNOW is not accurate. It ruins the whole experience!
ReplyDeleteI admire people who can handle the research. My one foray into historic fiction (a short story set in an iron-furnace town just after the Civil War) found me happily visiting old iron furnace sites and museum displays, and delving into the archives of the local newspapers. It was fun, but I have to confess I got totally bogged down in it. I'm not sure I could continue to actually produce any writing if I spent that much time on research.
And even after that, I got someone familiar with the historic period to go over my story. There were several factual errors that I needed to fix.
Research is fun! I need the firm foundation of diving deep, though in the end, very little hits the finished page.
ReplyDeleteMy day job entails tons of research, but legal research and writing research are often two different animals. The mechanics, however, are the same. The trick is knowing when you are done.
ReplyDeletePrimary source research is always the best. So glad that you were able to conduct interviews in writing THE BRASS COMPASS. There's a richness and depth to first person accounts that is invaluable to a writer and speaks to the reader. Looking forward to an excellent read.
Thanks for joining us at WWK today, Ellen. You never know when research will provide that one little detail that makes the book special – although it can be a rabbit hole of fun that is sometimes hard to exit.
ReplyDeleteThanks for having me! Glad to see readers and authors enjoy the research experience. The key is knowing where to draw the line between research and fiction to make sure the research doesn't end up bogging down the story line. I have some wonderful beta readers and editors who have helped keep me on the straight and narrow!
ReplyDelete