Doing Research for Writing a Book Text

Researching a novel is a complicated question because it depends on what you are writing about. Going to the supermarket is research, because you 39 re picking up incidental detail all of the time that goes into the writing of a novel. But, if your novel is about, perhaps, a group of friends, living now, and these people are based on people you know, the research will be fairly minimal.

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But, if you 39 re writing a book about the 16th century you might very much spend a long time in the library. You tend to over research because you need to be immersed in the period detail, if you 39 re writing historically. There 39 s nothing worse than a novel that tends to use all its research because it has been done by the author. The former means that you are safe in that you are basically recreating something familiar.

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But when you write about things that you don 39 t know it forces you to be inventive. And very often the imagination takes flight when you are writing about issues or people that you do not know. Have some vague idea of what the market has been doing for say ten years might be wise, but the publishing market does move on. If you try to write for the market, you 39 ll find yourself becoming unstuck, because by the time your book is published, that market that you were trying to copy has changed. They tend to change on the basis of a sensational type of novel that sells many copies. A successful novel is often based on an idea, a high concept such as the da vinci code.

But such books are not known for their quality of their prose or for their quality of characterization. I think ultimately all successful books have something, but some of the greatest novels of our time have been a slow burn. Moby dick would be a good example of a book that took sixty years to come in to the public 39 s attention. If you 39 re creating a character based on a historical figure you will inevitably research that character 39 s background, but you must always remember that you are writing fiction and fiction is a form of entertainment. And there may be things that you will do to invent a scenario that do not follow the historical research you 39 ve done.

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Research photo credit: suttonhoo if you haven’t grasped it yet, everything you write needs to be researched! at first glance, that’s a pretty sweeping statement. Before you start writing, you must get all those things sorted out, whether in your head or on paper. If you simply sit down and start pounding away, don’t be surprised at what comes out the other end. I’m not saying it is not possible to write something like a good short story in one big creative hit, it is, but to do it properly requires discipline and preparation. Okay, you may have written several short stories to get the hang of it, practiced the basics of writing, mastered the vagaries of grammar, and found your style.

Now you want to roll up your sleeves and get stuck into that opus you always wanted to write. Writing a book without adequate preparation is like walking through a minefield. Having read dozens of books, a cocky writer, his hair on fire, thinks there is nothing to it and dives in only to find there is no water in that pool.

I’m not going to talk about writing an outline here, assuming you have some sort of an outline simply to get the story sequences sorted out. Getting back to research your research is governed by the topic and target audience of your novel. is it a drama, a thriller, action, a psychological exploration, a romantic sob? getting this straight in your mind will set the parameters for your research. first of all, get your facts straight, whether they are historical, contemporary or technical. Twisting known scientific facts is death, as is getting known history or current affairs wrong. You know the old saying: when the gods want to punish us, they grant us our wishes. well, they must have smiled with glee when they allowed development of the internet. A boon because of the wealth of information available and easily accessible a curse because not all of it can be trusted to be true or factual. On the internet, some facts are more factual than others, and you need the same information sourced from a number of articles to determine which is the most factual. If you grab the first one that comes off the search engine, you could be in for some embarrassing times.

How do you verify? that’s where the other sources of your information come in, of which a library should be the most reliable. If uncertain, get more than one book or periodical on the subject and compare notes. don’t use fiction books as sources of data! i am sure you can figure out why. You may be surprised, but doing research, although time consuming, can also be lots of fun and you will learn stuff you never expected.

There is another kind of research information you accumulated over the years simply by being plugged into the social environment we live in, which you may not even be aware you have. Then there are those personal interactions you experienced with people and may want to use in your writing that add texture and density to your book. All good stuff, but how much of what you have accumulated do you want to use? of course, you will never use everything you have read, it’s impossible.

What all that background research will do is soak into your conscious and subconscious, available on tap as you write, and you will not even be aware it’s coming out. Research provides a platform of believability and authority to your writing, which that will come through, giving your readers a warm fuzzy. Right, you have all that information, but how do you make sense of it all? as you gather the printouts, cuttings, whatever, file them in a binder. have dividers properly labeled so you can identify what you have. There is nothing worse than rummaging through a pile of paper or book looking for an article or reference you know is there, but it’s disappeared, and you cannot remember the url or book where you found it.

The other thing to do as you get articles off the internet, copy them into a sub directory on your computer. Once you are properly organized, go through the book outline and dig out the research bits you need for that part of the story. You don’t have to follow this approach, but you should follow some organized pattern that enables you to access the right material when you need it. Stefan vucak is an award winning author of the sci fi shadow gods series of books.