Researching Your Story – Part 1

I made a presentation to fellow authors and will share it in three parts.

Elevate your writing through research and create rich narratives that educate, inspire, and resonate with readers.

Research begins with yourself and expands to family, friends, experts, and experiences.

Write what you know. You’ve all heard that, but what does that mean? We have a lifetime of knowledge but some of it can be faulty. Research confirms the facts and eliminates errors. Look up everything. It can be something as simple as what movie was popular a particular year.

Writing is like a puzzle. You have to put together the pieces in order to see the full picture. Research creates the pieces.

Some of you may say I write fantasy and make everything up. Why do research? Readers connect to something familiar. You have to establish that foundation. J.K. Rowling researched witches, wizards, spells, potions and everything else in her stories. Then she put a twist on it. Instead of witches and wizards being old and ugly, they were students at a wizarding school in a castle. They rode brooms to play Quidditch. Sometimes potions blew up. She took the familiar and made it fun. Readers could identify with a teen becoming a good wizard and facing evil Voldemort. Her story connected with readers and research helped to do that.

Create your unique spin on a topic to give it a fresh look.

How do you begin research with yourself? What are your interests, talents, hobbies, occupations. What in your life do you enjoy talking about or sharing with others? Make a list and keep adding to it. What you don’t use in a current story, you may use in the future.

I played ice hockey for nine years on a women’s team at Kent State University. In “Tackling Molasses Crinkles” my heroine plays ice hockey which puts her on the same level as the football-playing hero. Balance and equality are important in a romance or mystery. The hero and heroine need to respect and trust each other. In a mystery the detective needs to be challenged by the villain or criminal. The more equal they are, the tougher it will be for the hero to win. Tension is stronger, and the result will be more satisfying.

Use your job experience to describe your character’s job.

I have had many different jobs: waitress, cashier, accounts payable, data recovery, secretary, computer operator, patient registration in the ER, and a journalists and photographer.

In my book “Tangling a Web of Deceit” Emily works part time as a computer operator in a hospital. This was the job I had for six years. I was familiar with the setting so I didn’t have to create the room or the devices. I knew the job duties my character would do and the layout of the hospital. I used the same hospital layout for “Raining Tears” where one of the characters worked as an RN.

Draw on your own personal experiences and then expand out to family and friends’ experiences using their homes, jobs, and activities. Use the things you are most familiar with and can write in detail. A word of warning. Don’t write three pages about stamp collecting. Simply drop in a few lines or have the character doing something that establishes their interest and knowledge. By picking information that is not common, you help to educate the reader. Who hasn’t read a book and said “I didn’t know that.” Look for those precious gems of knowledge to put in your story.

You are only going to use a small portion of your research so choose wisely.

Don’t forget to interview family members. Record it or take notes. Parents often don’t tell children any family secrets to protect them but as I got older, my parents talked about themselves and family more. When interviewing people, let them talk. Be friendly. Guide the discussion. Begin with simple questions and work toward more difficult topics. Make notes of anything they say you want to follow up on. Interrupt when they go off on a tangent or begin to repeat themselves but otherwise, listen.

Let an expert read the pages you’ve written and get feedback on what needs to be changed.

One of my characters in Raining Tears tried to commit suicide, and I had the paramedics put an oxygen mask on her. My brother, a former paramedic and police officer, asked if she had thrown up. I said yes. Water. He said they wouldn’t use a mask because it would capture the vomit. I changed the oxygen mask to nose plugs. Little details make a difference. Readers hate it when they spot a mistake.

I also needed a gun to go off when dropped. The same brother said newer guns have safety features that would prevent a gun going off when dropped, but an older gun could go off. I made sure to point out that the gun in the story was old and had been bought at a flea market. Problem solved. Research allows you to fix potential problems.

Research now expands to things you don’t know. Always look for opportunities to educate yourself about things that interest you or you think you would like to use in a story. In “Sailing into a Storm” I wrote about a 18th century sailing ship. I loved ships and wanted to include one in a story. I had written a local story about two brothers in Tallmadge who had spent the summer on a sailing vessel and saved the information. I visited the tall ships when they came to Lake Erie. I helped man the lines on a ship in Chesapeake Bay, and I did a lot of reading before and while writing the story. Videos helped me to know what the crew did on deck. My book isn’t an instructional on sailing, but the research makes the story more believable.

I also took a class on knot tying at the Naturealm. It was fun and informative. Hands on activities allow you to use all your senses to describe what you experienced.

“Sailing into a Storm” takes place in 1774, and I made the setting a fictional town called Riverside. Change the names to protect the innocent. Riverside is based on New London, Connecticut but by making it fictional, I can create the streets, shops, and homes that I need for my story. Draw a layout of your town and identify the buildings and owners.

Share experiences through the characters in your books. Take your readers whitewater rafting or skating across the ice to score a goal. If you enjoy it, your readers will enjoy it. But make sure it advances your story.

Be authentic. Use a real room or house and describe it in your story. Hale Farm is a great resource in our area. Williamsburg is another source for the colonial period. Note the structure of the house, the layout, the wall decorations, and the furnishings. Notice what is on the mantle. Photos provide a starting point so you don’t have to start from nothing. You can move furniture around, change colors, add more items. You are creating the world.

This works whether your room is historic or modern. Where is the couch, television, favorite chair? What is the focal point of the room? Where do people gather? What objects reveal the interests and values of the occupants?

Use visual aids like pictures, maps, and actual objects. Create a floorplan so you know how your characters move from one room to the next.

Go to your local library for research. Find books on topics that interest you and don’t skip children’s books that have great photographs on a wide variety of topics. Buy books at sales, flea markets, and yard sales. Find reliable information online and print it or save it to a research file. Keep it with your book file or duplicate information for general file.

Focus on books that interest you whether about history, hobbies, or an occupation.

I have lots of Civil War books, but I like the ones with pictures. When I can see the uniforms and equipment, it’s easier for me to describe it in my story. A picture is worth a thousand words.

I also have books on herbal medicine, dancing, boats, music, and science. In addition, I have classical books by Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Robert Louis Stevenson. I often have a character reading a book or reference something in a popular book for that time period.  

In a book I’m writing now, Inheriting Love’s Secrets the hero and heroine rescue two sisters from a brothel during the July 4th fireworks in 1876. As they’re running away in the darkness, he says “all we need is a dead cat and a cemetery” a reference to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer which was published in June of that year. She tells him not to say another word because she hasn’t read it. Think of how everyone was talking about Harry Potter in 1998 and each year a new book came out. People talk about popular books, music, politics, and current events in their time. Research to find out what were the popular topics during the time of your story. What are your characters interested in?

I mention books and songs that are popular for that time period, but only the titles. Be careful not to mention song lyrics and infringe on copyrights.

Don’t copy anything written in a book. I use reference books for the Civil War more to know the location of my characters and what battles they participated in. I described their actions and reactions to fighting in a battle from my own imagination. Your research should not become your writing.