Monday, July 5, 2010

Research never ends...thankfully!

While some of us only have one book on writing, that's not me. I have a room FULL of books! I can't even pick my favorite, or most used.

It's not really my fault, however. I need all those books. I truly do. You see, I research. A lot.

Maybe it's from my days as a journalist, but I think research is incredibly important. And I have the material to back that up. I have books on poisons, some of police procedure, books on character development, and ones on punctuation.

If I'm not sure about something, I look it up until I am sure.

It's not just my writing where I'm the research fiend. I research just about everything I do. One of my more recent hobbies is genealogy. Talk about a need to research! Maybe that's why I enjoy it so much.

Not everything I write about can be easily researched, however. Sleeping Bears, the sequel to Ghost Mountain, has a scene with fairies. No, not the Tinkerbell type. Did I research the fae? Of course. It's what I do. Did I find all the answers? Nope. Didn't stop me from writing about them, though. I even think the descriptions are pretty dang realistic.

I guess that's the key. Whatever genre we write in, the story needs to be believable -- at least in the "world" we write in. We have to create a world where our stories could take place. To do that, we have to research.

At least a little bit.

Blessings!
Nichole

2 comments:

roh morgon said...

I totally agree. Incorporating research into your story is what helps the reader suspend reality and spend time in an alternate world.

When I needed a car for a rich protagonist that would be fun to drive up Pike's Peak, I researched road tests to identify the best performance car that could do the job.

My characters visit a zoo in one scene. I downloaded maps from the zoo where the story takes place to plot their course through the zoo.

Research is key to creating a believable story and it helps to immerse your reader. I recommend it highly.

And that car? The $160,000 Audi R8

nerinedorman said...

LOL... although some research you won't find in books, as I discovered when I was researching my novel set in the murky world of South African stripping... Thank goodness I had some friends, erstwhile dancers (and some not so erstwhile) who were happy to spill the dirt.