“The attitude that no one will notice [accurate details], that it’s not worth the trouble, is one of the things that keeps unpublished writers, unpublished.”
- George H. Scithers and Dorrel Schweitzer From the essay “How Fictional Can Fiction Afford To Be?” in The Writer’s Digest Handbook to Novel Writing (Writer’s Digest Books 1992)
It took me a bit of time to get going with researching my fiction stories properly but one out of every four hours of writing time is spent in the library or reading articles on-line. Researching has given me a lot of confidence that I can actually write a story about things, places, people and situation I’ve never experienced.
My novella-in-progress, “All the Humans are Sleeping,” includes many details from Roman history. I started by reading large tomes from the library, which, even with the index, provided more information than I could handle. I switched to smaller volumes and encyclopaedia entries that focused on the details I needed without the endless footnotes. I’m sure my story will not fool a Roman historian, but it has become more solid and vivid.
Now I’m taking research a step further, which is adding a depth to my current short story “Cycles of Darkness”, a medieval fantasy that deals with slavery and incarceration. After reading about medieval prison systems and that like, I wanted something deeper. I needed to research how it feels to be imprisoned, especially when one is innocent. After reading an article about John McCarthy, I placed an inter-library loan for his book. Today _Some Other Rainbow_ arrives and I spent an hour taking notes from his account of being held, for five years, underground by terrorists. It provides insight into what a person goes through in such circumstances, and I hope to transfer this successfully to my story.
I’m curious to know if anyone uses guidelines that they developed, or have heard from professional authors to determine how much time should be invested on research. For non-fiction I’ve often spent 33-50% of the time researching. However, I’m finding 25% so far seems adequate for fiction.
In creativity rising,
John
Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :
For my WIP, I'd say I spent about HALF the time researching. Which was ok, because it was fun. Reading, of course, plus travel. For short stories, though, I hardly do any, because I usually don't need to -- not enough info req'd. Or I'll get an idea based on something I just read, so I already did the research.
Posted by hoptoad (Member # 2145) on :
I have a low threshhold for hand-waving. Especially when it looks like the writer is lazy or lacks rigour.
Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :
It depends on how much I already know about a subject or how much I think it reflects the story. I have a science education, so it's easy to slip into bad habits and wing it. That's in short fiction, which I consider a sidebar anyway. My novels are thoroughly researched.
Posted by cklabyrinth (Member # 2454) on :
My research consists only of wikipedia.com, because it is by far the best encyclopedia available. I rarely ever find anything of use doing random google searches; maybe I should start going past the first page on the search list?
And there isn't a decent library anywhere near me. My town's library has a bunch of Koontz hardbacks and Harlequin romance novels, and some really old reference books and that's about it.
I spend more time actually thinking about story ideas than anything else. It sometimes takes two or three months of subconscious thought on them for me to get an epiphany of sorts. Then I spend a little time on research, write 1000 words per day until it's done.
Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :
I tend to collect the references I need at used book stores. For instance, I need to know about nuclear submarines, so I bought Tom Clancy's book about them. Now I have a reference I know I'll use at least once.
Posted by Elan (Member # 2442) on :
I'd be cautious about using wikipedia.com as an authoratative resource. It is my understanding that anyone can contribute whatever they like to it, that the information is not confirmed as accurate or authentic. It is, however, a great place to start. Like all things, research is best done by gathering multiple references and synthesizing them in a useful manner. And for my skills in this arena, I must thank Mrs. Oostenburg, my 8th grade geography teacher.
Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :
The anyone-can-edit feature of Wikipedia tends to make it self-correcting. However, caution is warranted if you are using it as your only reference.
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
I think that there are a number of things you can check about a wiki entry to establish it's reliability. But the main thing is that encyclopedias generally are very poor at capturing details.
Posted by Inkwell (Member # 1944) on :
I'm pretty much the same as Spaceman when it comes to researching...I pick up any used book I can find that I suspect may be of use in the future. I tend to do quite a bit of research, even for short stories. Accuracy must be a pet peeve of mine...I should go post that in the appropiate thread.
As there are so many things I don't know (i.e. about life in small Middle Eastern communities...which I'm researching for my current WIP) these random purchases tend to be handy. I once bought a book on the history and training of military sharpshooters, mainly because the main character of my short story was a sniper and partly because I'm just interested in military history. As I've not had personal experience or training in that particular occupation I wanted to be as accurate as possible...for a civilian. Needless to say, it wasn't the best time. I was in the bookstore a week after those sniper killings and the cashier glanced at me funny a time or two (no, the story was not inspired by those horrific events). What can I say? Just bad timing. I wasn't about to let that stop me, though. BTW, it was a good book. Very informative.
Inkwell ----------------- "The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp." -Anonymous
Posted by Shendülféa (Member # 2408) on :
Since most of my stories take place in a medieval-like setting, I spend most of my time researching medieval customs and whatnot. I've also spent time researching Middle Eastern history as one of my settings is very similar to ancient Mid East settings. That's about all the research I do, however. I think it depends on the genre. If I was writing hard sci-fi, for instance, I might spend a good amount of time researching current technological developments to make sure that the machines, weapons, etc. in my story are plausible. Historical fiction requires the most amount of research, I would venture, but I don't know for sure.