Thursday, January 6: Femme Fatale
RESEARCHING
by Deborah Elliott-Upton
Many writers swear they enjoy researching a story even more than the actual writing. I’m more of a seat of the pants writer who likes to find out what’s happening just before the reader does (except for the ending, the who, and the why that a mystery writer probably always has to know before beginning a story.) In Writing the Private Eye Novel, Parnell Hall said, “I hate research and do as little of it as possible.”
I enjoy thinking about the What if . . . scenarios and observe the theories of what might happen next. Still, within the story, a writer must know what he’s talking about or he’ll lose his readers. That’s never a good thing.
Details must be correct and that often requires at least some research. If I need to do research, there’s nothing as quick as the Internet, but sometimes, you can’t trust what you read. A teacher advised me to never trust anything on the Internet without at least three bona fide sources. Without fail, it seems that if I’m in a quandary to find a certain miniscule fact that everything else my story hinges on, I can’t find where to start the research. Even Google doesn’t always know the answer to every question.
The most researched article I’ve written for Criminal Brief was likely the one about Nick Carter: In the Nick of Time. I faced roadblock after roadblock researching that subject. Libraries couldn’t find the books I needed to verify this one great piece of information I found on the Internet. I finally tracked down Bill Crider, who has actually written several books in the Nick Carter series, to confirm the guy was right and I could use it this fascinating fact in my article. At that point, I realized what my Research Lover friends meant. I wanted to keep reading more and more about Nick Carter and was sad when I could find nothing left to discover. Researching is like finding clues that lead to other clues until you have the answer to the puzzle.
There is a great book by Ellen Metter that should be in every writer’s library, although people who like trivia may enjoy it too. Facts in a Flash: A Research Guide for Writers is perfect for the person who likes to draw from public records to international government publications to legal lingo and marketing and advertising data . Metter says not everything is on the Internet or found in a library. “If you want to access the known information in the universe, don’t restrict yourself to one method of research,” she said.
Do you know what a Gazetteer is? Metter’s book explains that they are geographical dictionaries and provide information on established places, both physical and cultural.
Did you know Buzzard Day is celebrated on the first Sunday after March 15 near Hinckley, Ohio, when a flock of redheaded turkey buzzards return to Hinckley Ridge each year? I’m already imagining the people who attend such a celebration. Surely there’s a story waiting to be told.
If you have a theology question that stumps your usual seminary sources, you may find the answer in the ALTA Religion Database, which is an index to journal articles, book reviews and collections of essays in many fields of religion.
It isn’t that research can’t be interesting once you begin chasing a thread of information. In fact, it might lead to a delicious yarn to spin. Or at least be fodder for a song sung by someone like Parnell Hall and that’s always great fun.
Good advice, Deborah.
Prior to the holidays, I had dinner (or long lunch) with a research editor and CB reader. What she doesn’t already know, she knows where to find. Amazing.
I’m a reference librarian so you know where I stand on research. I firmly agree with the person who said “you never finish research; you just give up.”
One little tip I learned years ago: for whatever subject you are researching there is someone who thinks it is the most interesting topic in the world. Find that person and your biggest problem will be getting them to shut up. Of course, they are probably on the web…
I’m not a big fan of research, but I say we roadtrip to Ohio for Buzzard Day! Who knows??
Interesting piece! Often when I am reading a story or a novel if they get something way wrong I have to just stop reading. Sometimes, though it can be SO bad that the mere piling on of errors becomes mesmerizing. I hate to diss a book but this one has it coming. A couple years back my older son and I each listened to an audible version of Still Summer by Jacquelyn Mitchard. It is, without a doubt, the WORST job of researching a novel that either of us have ever seen. We were rolling on the floor laughing at the way she mangled the geography and history of the Caribbean.
A lesser example is Steven King’s Sawshank Redemption — without going too deeply into a spoiler suffice it to say that the tax advice that is a hinge to the outcome of the story is dead wrong.
Don’t you just hate it when one of your favorite (at least up to then)authors messes up by getting something so wrong it makes you stop reading? THAT is why I do the research (even when I’d rather just keep writing!) because I would hate to disappoint a reader by my laziness — But Rob, I’ve been to that place where you’re researching and it is just so interesting you don’t want to stop even when you know you have enough info to write the story. Finding a happy medium, well sometimes that’s hard.
I don’t like research, but I don’t like being wrong even more.
I love researching. The Treviscoe series would be impossible without it. I think there are two big dangers with research.
The first is not casting a wide enough net—sometimes when I’m trying to ascertain some specific fact, I come across something unlooked for that changes everything. This happened to me when I was writing “An Ingraft of Evil”, in which I originally intended the murder weapon to be smallpox. While looking into the disease, I found out that its mortality rate in the 18th century was 70%. Horrific, very true, but too unreliable for an effective murder device. I had to change the murder weapon to poison, with the appearance of the deaths being caused by disease. It actaully made it a stronger story.
The second is showing too much research. As Rob says, when you find an enthusiastic expert, you can be deluged with facts. The problem is that the enthusiasm can be contagious, and you can fall into the trap of including too much of what you’ve found to the detriment of the narrative. It’s sort of like having your underwear show. I only once included some largely extraneous research in a story, “Miching Malicho”, where I included several lines of Scots Gaelic poetry. It really does nothing for plot or character development, but it was so much fun I just had to slip it in.
Regarding James’ second point, Michael Crichton sometimes set ‘info-boxes’ into his stories which I rather liked.