Tomorrow, I sit with a panel of
authors at the Great
Northwest Meet-Up devoted to how authors research their books. I imagine
one of the big questions will be, “How much is enough?” Like most expert
panelists, I will default to the safe answer: “I don’t know. It depends. What are you writing?”
Maybe I shouldn’t answer based
on personal experience. I mean, I’ve done some crazy shit researching books.
- In Marin County, California, I bought a giant cooler so I could fill it with food and rope it to rocks jutting out of the ocean. This was an almost impossible task. And I was almost swept out to sea, so dangerous AND stupid.
- One summer, I bought a dozen ears of corn and spray-painted them each with a wide variety of fluorescent green paints. When these tests were concluded, I drove into the country to visit actual corn fields and spray-paint corn stalks to see which combination of paint and sparkles glowed in the dark. I painted at sunset and then came back hours later to conduct my tests.
- I convinced my employer to let me move to New York City for a month so I could research what it’s like to live in the city. I lived in a tiny studio apartment and slept on a mattress on the floor.
- While in New York, I pretended to be homeless for a day, begging for change on Wall Street, so I could capture the experience in writing (as much as one can after one day).
I’m willing to go quite far. Maybe even too far. But how much book research
is enough?
It depends.
There are a couple questions an author should answer before deciding
how much to invest.
- Is the physical setting important? Follow-up question: Does the exact time frame (year, month, day) matter in this physical setting?
- Are you inventing a world? Follow-up question: What does the audience expect in your world?
- How familiar is the audience with the environment of the novel?
I’ll answer each one. Maybe these answers provide something more
concrete than “it depends.”
1. Is the physical setting important?
The obvious answer is, yes, of course it is. But is it really? If your
book takes place in Paris, France, you must ask yourself if the readers want to
know that Rue des Barres is cobblestone, unlike its intersecting street, Rue
Francois Miron. Does that matter? Or do your readers want to know that your
main character “…strolled down a cobblestone street, admiring the cathedral
gargoyles on either side who showered stone glares down upon him.”
There is no right answer here, just this question: are you going for
accuracy or are you going for mood?
Readers enjoy Tom Clancy novels because of his unswerving dedication to
describing every deck—every bolt—of a military-grade warship. They WANT
accuracy. If you’re writing a thriller, and the secret documents are buried
under a national landmark, every detail matters: the number of rooms, the year it was built, the security
measures, etc. Readers want to believe in your accuracy.
But if they’re reading for mood….
Mood is created by a combination of accurate details and invented ones.
Too much accuracy and you don’t create a mood. For example: “Babe, I picked up groceries for our
romantic dinner. I got some organic, gluten-free noodles from a company that
sponsors the right political candidates, cage-free, locally sourced eggs from a
farm that treats its chickens humanely and does not feed them ground up chicken
beaks, butter with no trans-fatty acids…”
One hundred percent factual and accurate. And horribly dull.
Follow-up question: does the exact time frame (year, month,
day) matter in this physical setting?
If it does, it means you’re trying to capture a very specific mood
which is essential for the story. Great! Be sure to capture those exact details
which make it different from what was before and what came after.
In King John, I wrote about
Burning Man in 2002. The year mattered. In 2002, Burning Man was roughly twelve
years old, and was well established as an insane costume party in the desert.
Crowds were up to roughly 30,000. Massive, but not the overwhelming 75,000
crowd event it was in 2014. More importantly, some of the deep criticisms that
began in 2004 and grew through 2008 had not yet surfaced. Beginning in those
years (and continuing into more recent years), burners felt the event had
become too corporate, too top-heavy with bureaucracy, had imposed too many restrictive
rules. The unpopular 2007 raffle for admission tickets created furious outrage among
dedicated attendees.
The year 2002 is important because it’s possible to highlight the art,
the music, the wild freedom and exploration at a time before more serious
disgruntling began. (Disgruntling is completely a legitimate word. Do research.
Look it up.)
One caveat to discussing the exact year or month. Usually, the
important details are expressed in atmosphere and mood. If I have my narrator
say, “Burning Man at this time isn’t so corporate,” that’s telling, not
showing. (Also, how does he know what’s going to happen in the future?) You’ve
got to do your research and then find a way to show your research, not tell it.
2. Are you inventing a world?
In 2014, I wrote a short story for the Goodreads M/M Romance Group event,
Don’t Read in The Closet. The title was Broken
Phoenix. I found this writing
activity to be a lovely diversion from writing my series, which requires a lot
of detailed research. Once I started writing, what surprised me was how much
MORE research I had to do for a fake, invented world. As the world’s creator, I
needed to understand and explain why the rocks on the ground lit up from the
inside, how many kilometers between important geographic milestones, why the
sky was the color it was. Why was the planet’s dog moon broken? Why was it called
the dog moon?
One of the oddest things I had to “research,” was the exact process a
phoenix goes through as it bursts into legendary flame. My main character (a
phoenix) could not “flame on,” so I had to explore and explain where he broke
down. What didn’t happen? Chemical malfunction? Did he not secrete the right
hormones? Was he inhibited by some mental anguish, such as lack of confidence? My
beta readers asked me questions I could not answer. Until I answered them, my
readers were not happy.
Just because there’s no Wikipedia entry for your made-up world, doesn’t
mean you’re off the hook. You have to “research” all the origin stories, the
languages, the technology (or lack of technology). Do you have to communicate
it all? No. Do you have to communicate all the details of this world in the
first paragraph of your story? No. Only do that if you’re a terrible writer.
But you must have worked through these details either in drafts or in your head.
Follow-up question: What does the audience expect in your world?
In reading the reviews for Broken
Phoenix, I learned a curious thing. I had written a shifter story. Any
being that can transform into something else (like a bird into fire and then
back to bird form), is a shifter. Seriously, I had no idea. I don’t read
shifter fiction. (I didn’t know the word “shifter.”) But apparently, there are
a lot of expectations in shifter fiction.
Broken Phoenix was criticized for not giving the more
detailed explanations in the backstory that shifter fiction traditionally provides.
I did not provide the entire history of these shifters. I did not explain how
they could or could not shift into other animals. Why birds? I did not explain
(deliberately in this case) how phoenix traveled between worlds.
I would argue that, as an author, I can provide (or not provide)
whatever details I want. If you don’t see what you were expecting, tough luck.
It’s my story. That’s a pretty shitty attitude, however. Authors are in relationship with their readers. I had
no idea I would frustrate readers who might have otherwise loved the story. I
know now! In the rewrites for that story (a second edition), I’m answering some
of the questions that I did not address in the first edition.
This isn’t just an issue of creativity. It’s research.
3. How familiar is the audience with the environment of the
novel?
If your audience might know San Francisco quite well—and you’re writing
about San Francisco—you could get yourself in trouble. Well, unless you do your
research. Again, you may not have to know which streets are cobblestone, but
you should know how long it takes to get from Chinatown to the Golden Gate
Bridge, or from which buildings you can see the bay. Details.
I myself find research difficult, so I cheated.
My cheat? Well, my first book, King
Perry, was set in San Francisco. I needed the book set in a time before
cell phones were ubiquitous, so I chose the year 1999. I benefited from the
fact that very few people could argue some of the city’s details with me. Ha!
Can’t catch me with inaccurate building names for a city that existed in 1999!
Another way I cheated is in the excerpt below. Vin and his weekend guest,
Perry, drive up to a fancy hotel in the financial district.
"This
chain isn't performing well financially," Perry says at last. "Their
San Francisco location was a big investment, and first and second quarters were
far below expectations. They could close this site before Q4."
"Is
this big news on Wall Street?"
"Yeah,"
he says, uncertainly.
I
watch him and wait.
He continues with a quick blush, "People in the bank are
talking, because they want to see the duck parade before the hotel
closes."
After the book was published, several readers emailed to tell me that
there was “no big fancy chain with a duck parade in San Francisco.” I agreed
and reminded them that Perry had mentioned the chain wasn’t doing well in San
Francisco. They said, “Oh, that’s right…” That was back in 1999. I explained
that in my imagination, the hotel closed down.
Ha.
Research problem solved! Fake hotel demolished!
In the end, the solutions to research issues are all about your
relationship with your readers. What do they want? How much do they need to
believe? Where can they suspend disbelief? At what point do they shake their
heads and say, “You’ve gone too far.”
It’s surprising, what matters to people. In King John, I referenced art that was displayed in 2002. I included
historical events from that year’s Burning Man. Still, someone emailed me to
say, “You never once mentioned where the Porta Potties were.”
Perhaps some research details are best left unshared.
If you’re attending the Great Northwest Meet-Up
tomorrow, come visit our research panel! I’m joined by Anne Tenino, Ethan Day,
and Jove Belle. We’re speaking from 11:10 am–12:00 noon, on the fourth floor in
Room 5. We’d love to see you.
Oh, and feel free to ask me how to make a stalk of corn glow in the
dark.
* * * * *
Edmond
Manning is the author of the romance series, The Lost and Founds. The books in this series include King Perry, King Mai (a 2014 Lambda
Literary finalist), The Butterfly
King,
and King John. King John takes place at Burning Man.
Giveaway!
Winner’s Prize: An eBook copy of King John
(Leave a Comment here and then click the link below)
* * * * *
Where to get your copy of King John:
***
* * * * *
About King John:
English attorney Alistair Robertson can’t quite believe an
astonishing tale of kingship and transformation he hears at Burning Man, the
annual counter-culture art festival in the Black Rock desert. Who are the Found
Kings? Is “being kinged” as magical as it sounds?
Determined to find the mysterious garage mechanic named Vin
who helps men “remember who they were always meant to be,” Alistair catches his
quarry amid the extravagant sculptures, fire worshipers, mutant cars, and
lavish costumes. After searching for three years, he’ll finally get to ask the
question burning inside him: “Will you king me?”
Wandering together through the desert, Vin Vanbly and
Alistair explore Burning Man’s gifting culture and exotic traditions, where
they meet the best and worst of their fellow burners. Alistair’s overconfidence
in Vin’s manipulative power collides with Vin’s obsessive need to save a
sixteen-year-old runaway from a nightmarish fate, and the two men spiral in
uncontrollable, explosive directions.
In this fourth adventure of
The Lost and Founds, beneath the sweltering summer sun and the six billion
midnight stars, one truth emerges, searing itself on their hearts: in the
desert, everything burns.
* * * * *
King John Blog Tour:
