Researching a book

[[deleted user]]

So, I was wondering if you could share how you go about researching and preparing your characters for a book. After you have the general idea and outline, how do you know where to go next?

[Jennifer]

Hi Marea--thanks for joining!

It's funny--it's sort of a mysterious process to me, and was particularly so for this last novel. Essentially I start the researching without a very clear idea of what I'm going to get out of it--it's kind of like taking a lump of clay and or stone and trying to figure out what shapes you can cut out of it (in fact, I find sculpting to be a strangely apt metaphor for the process of writing fiction). Obviously, with Pan Yuliang's story there were clear characters from her life that I needed to re-imagine--her uncle, her husband, the madame from the brothel--and for those characters I kept separate stacks of index cards with various bits of information I'd gleaned from my research (I'm very into index cards--a trick I picked up from my husband, a documentary filmmaker). When I was trying to create them, I'd start with the cards as prompts and just start writing. Eventually their voices and personalities would become more distinct for me and they'd sort of (without sounding pompous!) begin to write themselves, and in the process other characters would also start to emerge and I'd write them as well.

With "Gods" it was a slightly different process in that the characters didn't all present themselves at once. I essentially just started with the young girl Yoshi in my head, and a huge stack of index cards relating to what often felt like unconnected aspects of the Pacific War that nevertheless interested me--the Doolittle Raids, for instance, or the Dugway firebombing tests, or Tokyo during its colonization period in China. As I looked more closely at those events and periods, though, certain characters started to emerge (Cam Richards, my downed Doolittle pilot; his wife Lacy; Anton Reynolds, my conflicted architect; the pioneer village builder Kenji Kobayashi and his fragile Westernized wife Hana). At some point I had to sit back and try to figure out how they were all connected to the story--which was the hard part but also (in a weird way) the fun part of writing "Gods"--it was like trying to solve a huge narrative puzzle.

As for outlines-I believe in them in principle and tend to write them for myself as I go along, but they are usually more wishful thinking than anything else. I'll stick with them for a few items, but then something else will capture my interest and off I'll go, completely deserting the original plan and eventually writing an entirely different outline, which I will also follow for a few items....and so on. Not unlike the way I live my life, actually (!) Like self-set deadlines, though, I find them a very useful tool at times.

Hope that answers somewhat--again, thanks for participating!!

[Thomas]

I had a similar question in mind. Thanks Marea for getting it out there!!!

I have to admit that I have been fascinated by WWII and have read lots of books (fiction and non-fiction) and had never heard of the Dugway firebombing tests before. where did you find out about them? I read a little about them since I read your book and your comments here and I was amazed at how much they changed our bombing strategy in Japan and Germany.

[Jennifer]

I think I found out about them initially through an online search into the firebombing---it may have been either on Wikipedia or another military site that it I saw the term "Japanese and German Villages" and started to hone in on them. Obviously, I was interested in how they were built and used, but even more interested in who had built them. Eric Mendellshon, the German Jewish architect of German Village made a lot of sense to me. But when I began researching Antonin Raymond I was like: "Whoah. How did he end up there??"

[[deleted user]]

I find it interesting that your process is very similar to developing any artwork. I like the index cards idea though. It seems very organic and I think that shows up in the writing in a positive way. I can't wait to read "Gods". Good luck with all of its success.