research

Quick Links: Novel Research: 12 Ways to Ace Your Book

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Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Getting your facts straight in your story is more important than ever. Everyone is an instant expert since checking out information is as easy as googling on your phone. You know if someone finds an error, it will find it’s way onto your reviews. This makes storytelling much harder for authors and highlights how important it is to make sure you research your story details.  Thankfully K.M. Weiland at Helping Writers Become Authors has a great article on researching facts. What’s your favorite research tip?

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Novel Research: 12 Ways to Ace Your Book

April 10, 2016

Who What Why When Where Signpost Showing Confusion Brainstorming And Researchby K.M. Weiland

I’m starting to get paranoid. It happens with every book I write. I reach the end of the first draft, start tying off loose ends on the first round of edits, and prepare to send the book to my first round of beta readers. That’s when I inevitably start asking myself panicked questions about the accuracy of of my novel research.

Maybe these self-directed questions will sound familiar:

  • What if my novel research isn’t good enough?
  • What if I put a street on the wrong side of the city?
  • What if I’ve got the dialect all wrong?
  • What if I’ve included a glaring anachronism?

The book I’m currently at work on—my historical superhero saga Wayfarer—is set in London during the Regency era (think Jane Austen). In many ways, it has been the most difficult of all the historical novels I’ve written, primarily because it takes place in such a popular period. I had some leeway in writing about the medieval Crusades (for one thing, the language is so different, perfect accuracy isn’t desired much less demanded) and the American west (where legend has taken over fact in so many areas).

But the Regency period? Put a chapeau-bras out of place, and fanatical readers will know it.

Never mind that the book is also set in London, which means correctly portraying a city I’ve never visited.

And don’t get me started on the language. Unlike the Middle Ages, 1820 isn’t so far away that the language of the period isn’t still decipherable to modern ears. What that means, of course, is every word choice must be filtered through not just the demands of British English, but also the question: Did that word even exist back then?

Cue the paranoia.

The Two Sides to Novel Research: Accuracy and Authenticity

There are two good reasons for any author to indulge in this paranoia over “the facts” in a novel (whether it’s historical or not).

Reason #1 to Panic: Your Readers Are Smarter Than You

Scary thought, ain’t it? Now granted, not all of them are going to be smarter (aka, better read on your subject than are you). But I guarantee there will be a lot of them. No matter how conscientious you are in your research about Roman sewer systems or stamp collecting, there will always be someone who knows something you don’t. And if that person happens to read your book, they may well call you out on your mistakes.

Read the full post on Helping Writers Become Authors

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

How to Write What You Don’t Know

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So you are writing an article or a book and there is a subject matter that you would really like to add, but you don’t know very much about it and don’t want to come off sounding like a newb. Amy Gustine over on Literaryhub has some great tips on how to research like a pro.  What are your secret hacks for researching?

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How to Write What You Don’t Know

Research conceptFebruary 10, 2016 By Amy Gustine

One day I decided to stop letting fear prevent me from trying to write certain stories, specifically the fear of not knowing things. I didn’t disavow my penchant for realism, or deny the importance of accuracy. Instead, I resolved to find out what I could achieve with research. It began as a dare to myself, and also a kind of surrender to life’s limitations. I can’t always afford the time or money to do on-site research and there are places I wanted to go in my stories—Gaza, 19th-century Poland—that no amount of either would take me to.

I took up the task of researching from afar in a spirit of experimentation and learned that it was like most undertakings—you have to pick two: cheap, good, or fast. You can’t have all three. I always choose good and cheap, which means I’m not fast. Ninety-five percent or more of what I learn doesn’t make it into the story, but because I enjoy learning, and I suspect that everything is tied together, this doesn’t trouble me. It shouldn’t trouble you either, unless you’re in a hurry, and then you better pick a different profession.

To write what you don’t know, try these strategies: 

Read the full post on Literaryhub

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

 

WorldCat Service Lets You Search Over 10,000 Libraries Around The World

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This post by April Hamilton originally appeared on her Digital Media Mom site on 9/16/15. It’s included here because, combined with inter-library loans, this free service is an extremely valuable research tool for authors.

 

The very useful and totally FREE WorldCat site and mobile app let users search a global network of libraries for books, CDs, articles and more: pretty much anything you’d find in physical form in a public library.

 

 

Sign Up For A FREE User Account, Or Not…
It’s free to sign up for a user account, and having an account gives users the ability to create lists, bibliographies and reviews. But you don’t have to sign up to use the site’s search functionality. For example, look at this search results page I got for a specific book without having a user account (tap or click on images to view an enlarged version in a new tab or window):

 

 

Notice that the site used my location information, probably based on my IP address, to tell me where I could find libraries close to me (red arrow). Scrolling down, I can find a listing of libraries in my general area that currently have this book in their collections:

 

 

Read the full post on Digital Media Mom.

 

Writing the Book You Want to Read (Even When You’re Not an Expert in the Field)

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This post by Sally Hepworth originally appeared on Writer’s Digest on 2/14/15.

“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” ― Toni Morrison

I’ve always loved Morrison’s saying. The idea that everyone has the potential to write his or her own favorite book is an appealing one, and it’s natural that writers will want to write the kind of books they like to read. But it’s not always as simple as that. What if you enjoy reading about courtroom dramas, and you’re not a lawyer or a judge? What if you love the idea of creating layers to your novel by using architecture, but you’re not an architect?

How do you write the book you want to read if you’re not an expert in the field? Here are a few tricks I learned while writing my debut novel, THE SECRETS OF MIDWIVES:

 

1) Start by making a list of ALL the elements in the book you want to read

The book you want to read is more than just ‘courtroom drama’ or ‘architecture’ or ‘midwives’. While planning your novel, think about all the things that excite you when you read. Do you like a bit of romance? Some mystery? An unforeseen plot twist? (Remember: It’s okay to have more than one of these in your novel, in fact, it’s a good idea). Look at your favorite books and see what they have in common. Ask yourself: what drives the plot in the books I like to read?

Once you have your answers, make a list.

It will look something like this:
– Mystery
– Menace
– High stakes – death?
– Romance

This list will become your roadmap to writing the book you want to read. And once you have your roadmap…

 

Read the full post, which includes details of four additional steps, on Writer’s Digest.

 

Research Rejection, Part III

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This post by Stephen Brayton originally appeared on his blog on 10/24/14.

I posted the idea for this blog on Facebook wanting some comments and asking if other authors had experienced rejection. My thanks to David Schlosser and Bob Dunbar who responded with an example each. I can’t make up this stuff so I’ll let them tell their short stories in their own words:

David Schlosser:
I once wrote a scene in which a veterinarian sedates a bad guy and contacted the head of the US association of veterinary anesthetists to conduct research. He was polite and responsive until I asked what sort of chemical cocktail a vet would have access to in a vet clinic that would knock out a human. Then he said (IMHO, wisely, though it hadn’t occurred to me until he said), “Because I don’t know you, I don’t think I should answer that question.”

Bob Dunbar:
When I was doing research for my novel about the Alamo, a colonel in the Mexican army refused to allow me access to their archives, claiming that the Mexican army had never massacred anyone at any time during its history.

 

Read the full post on Steve Brayton’s blog.

 

Blindness Basics For Authors

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This post by Melinda Primrose originally appeared on her Primrose Path site.

Writing a blind character seems to be much harder than everyone thinks. There are many mistakes being made that I think a little research would go a long way to fixing. Most of the blind characters I’ve seen, either in books or in film media, fit one of two stereotypes. Either the blind character has superhuman abilities because of their blindness or they are completely helpless. Most blind people, in fact, fall somewhere between the two. How do I know this? you ask. I am blind myself.

I was given the label “legally blind” when I was 25. In my younger days, I had 20/20 vision with my glasses. The short version of the long story, which I may go into some day, is that many different diseases attacked my eyes and caused vision loss. Since my initial diagnosis, I’ve had over a dozen surgeries to try and keep what vision I have.

WAIT!

You said you were blind, you say.

I think that is the first thing most people get wrong about blindness. It’s not an either you have vision or you don’t Kind of thing. In the United States, legally blind is defined as:

 

Read the full post on Primrose Path.

 

Things You Should Know When Writing About Guns

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This post by Chuck Wendig originally appeared on his terribleminds site on 10/14/14. Note that it contains strong language.

[NOTE: The below post is not meant to be an endorsement for or a prohibition against guns in the real world in which we all live. It is a discussion of firearms in fiction. Keep comments civil… or I’ll boot you out the airlock into the silent void.]

Guns, man. Guns.

*flexes biceps*

*biceps which turn into shotguns that blow encroaching ninjas to treacly gobbets*

CH-CHAK.

Ahem.

If you’re a writer in a genre space — particularly crime, urban fantasy, some modes of sci-fi — you are likely to write about some character using some gun at some point.

And when you write about the use of a gun in your story, you’re going to get something wrong. When you do, you will get a wordy email by some reader correcting you about this, because if there’s one thing nobody can abide you getting wrong in your writing, then by gosh and by golly, it’s motherfucking guns. Like how in that scene in The Wheel Of Game of Ringdragons when Tyrion the Imp uses the Heckler & Koch MP7 to shoot the horse out from under Raistlin and Frodo, the author, Sergei R. R. Tolkeen, gets the cartridge wrong. What an asshole, am I right?

You can get lots of things wrong, but you get guns wrong?

You’ll get emails.

As such, you should endeavor to get this stuff right. If only to spare yourself the time.

 

Read the full post on terribleminds.

 

Research Unleashed! And Leashed.

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This post by Rebecca Meacham originally appeared on Ploughshares on 6/16/14.

I knew I had a problem when I started envying my dog’s cone collar.

Now, my dog’s problem was a hot spot. Allergic, itchy, hot, and double-coated, my German Shepherd had chewed her hind leg raw over the course of a single evening.

My problem was research. Engrossing, surprising, discomfiting and endless, my novel-in-progress was generating fact after fact, but very little story.

Neither of us could resist the itch of our obsessions, which were self-ruinous and spreading. For my dog, the vet imposed a “cone of shame”—a demoralizing, and mostly effective, plastic barrier denying her access. This is what sparked my envy, for what kind of restraint could I impose on myself, a writer whose project requires research—research that also derails the project at every turn?

 

Latest Findings: Novel Research Leads to Pornography

How does research become a problem? Well, for one, it’s larky. You wonder if your character’s pants would have buttoned or zipped, which means you need to know about the invention of zippers, and then, hours later, you’re pouring over sketches of Victorian pornography.

A surprising number of research inquiries lead to vintage porn.

 

Click here to read the full post on Ploughshares.

 

How Do Hitmen Operate?

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This article by Ryan Jacobs originally appeared on The Pacific Standard on 1/28/14, and will be of particular interest to authors of crime, military and espionage thrillers.

British criminologists claim that hitmen are more boring than we make them out to be, but their analysis can’t account for the behavior of “Master” killers.

If a hitman excels at his craft, he’ll operate quietly and without incident. In theory, the whispered meetings will be held in secret, the job will be executed with precision and grace, and no one will witness the escape.

For those reasons, the few criminologists who do attempt to study these misdeeds acknowledge the thorny methodological problems associated with examining “a secret world” to which they have no access. Of course, that hasn’t exactly stifled their ambitions.

A group of researchers at the Center for Applied Criminology at Birmingham City University in the U.K. has recently analyzed newspaper articles, court records, and a series of “off-the-record” interviews with informants “who have, or who had, direct knowledge of contract killings” in order to construct what they term a “typology” of British hitmen. For the record, these social scientists “define a hitman as a person who accepts an order to kill another human being from someone who is not publicly acknowledged as a legitimate authority regarding ‘just killing’.” The results of their detailed search of British cases that matched this description in the period between 1974 and 2013 only turned up 27 contracted hits or attempted hits “committed by a total of 36 hitmen” (there was only a single “hitwoman”), but the researchers used the sample to tease out the details and profiles of typical killers-for-hire.

The main thrust of the paper, which will be published in the Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, is that hitmen do not operate with the drama, professionalism, or glamour that mob films and spy novels afford them. In actuality, the majority of killers select jejune settings for their crimes, have occasionally bumbling performances, and are often hired by contractors with lame motivations.

Here’s the profile of an average British hitman, who seems more confined by the boxy restraints of reality than the undulating arcs of fiction:

 

Click here to read the full article on The Pacific Standard.

 

FBI 101 for Crime Fiction Writers: Interview with Scott Nelson

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This post, by A. M. Khalifa, originally appeared on the Crime Fiction Collective blog on 11/19/13.

Scott Nelson is the film industry’s leading technical expert on all matters FBI. Most recently he was Clint Eastwood’s main point of reference on J. Edgar, the historic biopic of the FBI’s founder. A former and highly decorated marine, Mr. Nelson rose to head the FBI’s public affairs office where he was instrumental in the creation of America’s Most Wanted, as well as convincing the filmmakers of the Silence of the Lambs to shoot on location at the FBI’s academy in Quantico, Virginia.

I sat down with Scott for a coffee and a chat near Westlake Village in Southern California, where he now runs a global security and risk management firm. I wanted to glean some valuable advice for crime fiction writers. This is is the first of a two-part interview. Part two will be posted on Saturday, November 23.

 

A.M. Khalifa: During your time heading the FBI’s public affairs office, did you ever work with crime fiction writers, and if so, what are they typically trying to research?

Scott Nelson: Yes. Typically crime fiction writers want to know how it works in the real world and then how those basic techniques and tactics can be tweaked to create more interest and more drama. Everyone is looking for that new story, and as times change that new story will always emerge. Plus, old stories can be retooled to present new facts and new views.

 

AMK: As an FBI insider, what is the number one misconstrued notion about the Bureau that you would like to set the record straight on here, once and for all?

SN: That the FBI always screws over the “locals” (local and state law enforcement). Simply not so. The Bureau works hand in glove with state and local officers and provides ongoing valuable training, research, services and support. In fact, many joint operations are run every day.

 

AMK: However, I think readers and viewers LOVE it when the smart, omnipotent FBI agent slights the incompetent locals and pulls rank and jurisdiction. They feel secure of a positive outcome when a favorably drawn FBI agent is involved. Do you agree?

SN: Yes, but likewise there is a tendency to show cops merely as doughnut eaters. And therefore, many cops – particularly suits in the front office – are quite defensive and constantly trying to prove their worth. I’ve been blown off on many occasions by locals who do resent the FBI and their own lot in life.

 

AMK: How accessible is the FBI as an organization to independent authors reaching out to it for technical information, and what specific mechanisms exist to deal with such requests?

 

 

Click here to read the rest of the post on the Crime Fiction Collective blog.