You Really Can't Do Too Much Research For Your Book

One of the major appeals of writing fiction is the idea that if you don't know the answer to something that you can just make it up. Not sure how light is focused into a beam that fires from the tip of your futuristic private eye's laser pistol? Good news, you can just create the mystery element of the Forunex crystal that makes light-based weaponry practical and compact. Unsure of how spontaneous combustion would be possible from a physics and chemistry standpoint? Well, since the Devotees of Fire are granted power by their god, it's magic so you don't have to explain a damn thing!

It can really make your life as a creator easier in a lot of respects.

In other respects, though...

A problem that a lot of writers run into, though, is they get too drunk on their own creative abilities. Just because something is fictional, that doesn't mean you shouldn't at least do a Google search, or crack a book, to make sure you aren't going in the completely wrong direction.

 

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Let's Look at Werewolves For a Second

Oh yeah, we're going to fight about this.

If you've ever read a piece of werewolf fiction, or even played a game like Werewolf: The Apocalypse, you're likely very familiar with the idea of strong alpha leaders, the right hand of the beta, and the shifty omega no one likes. These are terms and ideas that are used to describe the structure of wolf packs, thereby allowing the reader to have one foot in reality, and one foot in a fantasy.

Unless they've read a science article since roughly 1980 or so.

As Knowledge Nuts points out, the idea of violent struggles for dominance is what you see in captive wolf packs. When wolves have no relation to one another, and no existing family structure, which means these wolves were basically in animal prison. In the wild wolves act nothing like this. They're tight-knit family groups that care for one another, and a wolf's age is a far more likely indicator of status than how violent or aggressive they are. So trying to map the social dynamic of a violent prison gang onto all werewolves actually undercuts your attempt to bridge reality with fiction if the reader is aware you're citing debunked, outdated ideas in the story.

This is just a small example of how you need to make sure your research impacts the fiction you're creating. And the more closely tied to reality your fantasy is, the more research you need to do. Because if your central conceit is, "I have giant robots in my story," then you can probably just ask your audience to buy that without going into too many details of the physics or how these huge machines function. But if your story is set in a near-future Moscow, then it would probably help to actually research the culture of the country, the function of the government, and the ranks of the armed forces to make sure you get those things correct. Especially if your robot's pilot would have to complete regular military training, and then meet the standards of that country before being allowed into the heavy armored division.

You Can Never Know Too Much

While it's possible to go overboard on description and detail, and to bog your book down with adverbs or purple prose, you can never do too much research as a creator. Because even if you find a bunch of details that aren't going to be relevant to your story, they're still going to inform your view and your process. Whether it's how many samurai were actually women, to what the code of chivalry actually demanded from knights, to what gender roles were actually held by the Vikings (with men being beautiful and perfumed, and women being the heads of the household's finances), these little factoids can take your book in unexpected directions.

Additionally, a little extra research can often stop you from including debunked facts, outdated worldviews, or offensive stereotypes in your stories... and that's worth a little extra time hitting the books, don't you think?

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That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my cat noir novel Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

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The Hazards of Writing What You Know

Write what you know.

It's perhaps the first piece of serious writing advice anyone gets, and it is one of the most repeated pieces of advice writers hear. It's good advice too, because after all who better to write about homicide investigation, psychological therapy, or murder than someone who's done it before?

Pictured: An expert in all three.

While there is a certain amount of logic to this line of reasoning though there are hazards that come with taking these four words too closely to heart and not balancing them out with anything else. Some of those pitfalls include...

Being Too Thorough

There's a fine line between doing your research and boring your audience. Crime scene investigation is a good example. Being a CSI tech is an important job, and there's a lot of work involved in the job. But if you get into the minutia of the chemical sprays involved, the layers of precautions taken to protect you from contaminating the crime scene, and the sheer amount of tedium involved in testing and re-testing the same evidence to be sure that your results are correct chances are your audience is going to stop caring in a big damn hurry.

And then you inject the mitochondrial membrane with...

There's a difference between being realistic and covering every, single detail of what your professionals do. Have a doctor, a medical examiner, or a hairdresser as the lead in your story by all means, but don't bog your reader down with unnecessary details that don't advance the story or which aren't necessary for your book to make sense. Just because you find the process of how a public defender gets assigned a case to be fascinating doesn't mean your audience really cares so long as a lawyer shows up to defend the character accused of manslaughter.

You'll Never Branch Out

It's a good idea to write about situations and events you can make believable. That doesn't mean you should write about the same thing over and over again though. For instance you might hit your stride writing novels that always involve horses, and if you manage to carve a niche out doing that then good for you. If you aren't Dick Francis though you're going to start getting pretty predictable pretty quickly, especially when every book is about a jockey tracking down someone poisoning horses, rigging races, or corruption on a race track. I call this Scooby-Doo Syndrome, and it's a great way for your work to get stagnant in record time.

I'm sure there's another example here somewhere...

You should indeed write about things you know; it is never a good idea to make things up when you can track down the facts and get it right, especially if people reading your story will point out that you botched something important that puts a big hole right in the middle of your plot. So write what you know, but make sure you branch out so you know as much as possible.

It Will Be Hard To Keep Yourself Out Of The Story

Nothing is more embarrassing than realizing you've accidentally put yourself in your novel (except perhaps trying to explain to people that no, it's totally necessary for you to be mentioned by name in your own damn novel). Authors can avoid doing this by writing characters who come from different backgrounds, or who have different religions, ethnicities, sexual preferences, gender, etc. One of the easiest ways to put that necessary barrier between yourself and your character(s) is to write something other than what you already know.

Like being eloquent and well-spoken, perhaps?

There's always going to be a little of yourself in your characters, it's something you can't avoid and something you shouldn't really try to. But when your author photo and bio reads more like your character introduction than not it might be time to back up and re-evaluate whether you're too close to the project and what effect that's having on the book. Unless you're Ian Fleming... seriously Ian Fleming was James Bond.

No Advice Is Universal

It's important to remember no writing advice is absolute. The reason for that is because every book, just like every author is unique. What might be good for one particular young adult novel about the son of a sea hag coming into his heritage won't necessarily be good for a particular gritty, hard-boiled thriller about a detective chasing down the terrorist splinter-cell who killed her partner. You should always take advice, even good advice, with a grain of salt. Even if you find it right here at the Literary Mercenary.

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Don't Put Real People In Your Novel... Seriously, Don't Do It

People say some confusing, frustrating, and outright rude things to writers. I've chronicled some of them in Things You Should Never Say To An Author and More Things You Should Never Say To An Author, but there's one which hasn't made it onto these lists yet. It's a question which only comes from people who've read your book (or at least some of it), and most of the time these people probably don't realize they're being insulting. That question?

Who is this character, really?

Your mother.

There seems to be this strange, mis-guided belief among the reading public that authors are all petty, vindictive dickheads who use their novels as an excuse to inflict pain and suffering on cardboard cut outs of people in their real lives. That is not to say there aren't authors who do this. I'm sure there are plenty of authors who've parodied childhood bullies, unpleasant in-laws, and ex-lovers in their books. But you shouldn't, and here's why.

Reason #1: This is Not Amateur Night

Think about the last person you met whose work included references to actual people from the author's actual life. Chances are good that instead of Ian Fleming (the author of James Bond who based a lot of the super spy's story on WWII-era spies he worked with) you're probably thinking of that kid from your high school creative writing class whose stories were all about rebellious teens and their cartoonishly restrictive parents. Or maybe you think of that one friend you had in college whose protagonists always wound up with beautiful girls who were suspiciously similar to classmates he could never get to go out with him.

You are shooting blanks, my friend.

The point is that taking real people from your life and sticking them right into your story is not good for your art. It prejudices you regarding the person portrayed (for good or for ill), and you are more likely to write them as a parody than as a character with any actual depth. You rarely know real people as deeply or as thoroughly as a character you've created from the ground up, because you don't have access to all the facts and background of real people. With characters you sort of need that.

Reason #2: There Might Be Consequences

Maybe you're thinking hey, this is my story and I'm not going to let some random guy on the Internet tell me how to write. And you're correct, you don't have to listen to me. The person you might have to listen to though is the fellow in the black robe holding the little wooden hammer.

Tough critics ain't got nothing on lawyers.

It is not overly common for people put into your novel to sue you, but it is definitely possible. The more famous you get, and the more money the book generates, the more likely a lawsuit becomes though. Maybe the guy you made into the villain feels this book is libelous. Maybe a woman whose character was murdered is claiming pain and suffering. The reasons can vary from the legitimate to the ridiculous, but even if you win the suit there are the legal fees, the cost of defense, and the fallout the accusation might generate. It could damage your reputation, get your book panned pretty harshly by critics, and if you're publishing with a company instead of doing it yourself it could get your book pulled from the shelves.

What You Should Do Instead

Unless your book is explicitly about real people (or parodies of real people) you should not attempt to cut large swaths out of reality and paste them onto the page. With that said though it is a good idea to carefully observe the people around you. Look at how they act, listen to the things they say, and attempt to understand their psychology. If you can do that then you'll end up creating deeper, more believable characters.

And how is that any different?

Because plagiarism is copying down a single document verbatim. Research is taking parts and pieces from different documents and gluing them together with your own words. The former is considered bad form, and is something you should avoid. The latter, while harder, ultimately creates a better finished product that you can't be sued over.

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