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Feb
28
Research, or not to research.
Filed Under Art of Writing
That’s the question, isn’t it.
When you’re getting ready to write, you’ve done a bunch of world building. For the most part, your research should be done. Of course, things always pop up while you’re working on a chapter that you didn’t expect. So what do you do? Do you stop writing and research, or keep moving ahead, leaving yourself a note for when you do your revisions.
In almost all situations, I would recommend forging ahead, and doing the research later. You don’t want to get bogged down and distracted by all the neat things you’ll discover, and the tangents you’ll end up following. It’d be nice if I could follow my own advice, isn’t it.
In working on the script for the Domino Girls, the ghost of a Confederate Army Colonel is being added to the mix. He’s about to introduce himself to the twins, and I suddenly realized I know next to nothing about manners and etiquette from that time period. This is one situation, though, where I can’t just forge ahead. This information will affect everything have this character do from now on, so I can’t avoid it. I have to stop working on the script and do some research.
This is where my old habit of buying reference books for the sake of buying them usually comes in handy. I have a copy of Everyday Life During the Civil War, so I go grab it off the shelf and start looking through it. Lots of info about prices, clothing, and everyday life, but nothing about manners and etiquette.
My Google-Fu is with me tonight, and I find a number of useful links. One of them has links to a site that has scanned in copies of manuscripts in the collections of Robarts library at the University of Toronto. I manage to stop myself after downloading half a dozen etiquette primers (and believe me, that’s quite a feat - having broadband makes it waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too easy to feed my research material addiction). Now I have to read through them all and hopefully find what I need.
Still, there is a point where I will have to draw the line, stop researching and start writing again. If I haven’t found what I need, I’ll just fake it, saying he’s been watching what’s going on for the past two hundred years and had learned the changes in manners, and that will explain why it’s not 100% accurate.
What do you do when you discover while writing that you need to do more research?
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2 Responses to “Research, or not to research.”
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Hi, Lisa. I’ve been thinking of this myself, and wanting to write about it. The general rules I follow are: 1. Keep writing until I can’t go on without further research. 2. Do research only until I know enough that I can write about it.
Of course, there’s some flexibility to those rules. I have times I allocate to spontaneous research. It’s like Google does: They give their employees one day a week to work on anything they want. I give myself some time to do research into subjects tangential to what I’m writing.
BTW, research is also a great source of ideas. So I allow myself great leeway while planning a story and plotting it out.
Cheers,
-TimK
That’s something I try t do - allow myself some time to research while I’m writing. Like I said before, though, I have a tendency to get carried away. Before I know it, I’ve got a dozen or more tabs open in Firefox, and have downloaded a gig or more of pdf’s or graphics on something. I just finished burning several DVD’s full of research material I’ve gathered in the past two months.
Thanks for stopping by and posting a comment, Tim! I checked out your website, and I’ve signed up for your Writer’s Tips newsletter. I’m looking forward to getting my first issue.