First person research.
It is one thing to pick up a book (surprise!) and read descriptions and information that you then decide to use as background or pieces of the puzzle to your writings.
It is another thing to dive headfirst into the weeds so to speak and get your hands dirty.
Well, for the last few weeks, I have been silent. Not a word written since my last blog post. That includes work on my #wips. I have been neck deep in research, activities, tasks, and utilizing my hands, all in the name of my craft to ensure that what I write about it grounded in knowledge and my own expertise tackling subjects I will use in my plots and stories.
It is something I have always done.
Now, I can’t get into all the specifics of what I’ve been doing or where I have been. That would kill the surprise.
No. I have to leave some things to be discovered when the book come out. I can’t divulge and ruin the story!
What I can say is that I had to take a break. Find some time away from my writing to refresh and rejuvenate the soul. I had a great first author signing event that took me on a high of life and smile that would not go away.
Then, I just had to spend some “me” time.
And, that time away allowed a spark to fire for a project I have coming in the future and the time was right to jump feet first in and get inside the world that will be a piece of the pie for the book that the overall story sucks in and spits out!
Woo hoo!
Got it writer dude. So, what about the research?
Well, great question! As writers, we have many different ways that we choose to find the bits and pieces we throw into our novels and books. I have previously spent days and weeks in the bowels of university libraries going through their archives and first person accounts contained in books and newspapers as fodder for my own creations.
Traveled to locales and walked the streets. Driven the roads to the tops of mountains. Snuck inside places to get a feel for the interiors that eventually find a way into my words. Hiked the fields of distant lands to breathe the air and imagine what happened in the exact spot I then stood.
All for my craft.
Call it immersive, say it’s getting a feel for the details. In reality, it is more to the story of who I am.
I like to know what I write about. All within reason of course. As a writer, I have to take some liberties and not have the intimate relationship and background when it comes to certain things. To a certain degree, there is no way around it.
I cannot possibly know everything or have all of the hands-on I require to write the stories that formulate in my crazy head. While I do have many instances where I actually do, unless I only wrote about specific topics, there is no way I could know all the pieces of my story puzzles or have all of the hand touching and finger twirling tactile sensations of some of the grander parts of my imagined worlds.
Unless, I really am “that guy” in disguise that I write about.
Hmm.
I can’t and won’t say!
I do have to let you guess and wonder about me, don’t I? Mystique for the intrepid reader of my books.
I believe that in order for me to produce the best possible product for you, I must dig deep and go into the murk. Dive right in and sort through whatever I can in order for me to present a compelling plot and characters who have believability and can be related to on some level.
Not to say that taking some details and making them out of this world to a certain extent takes the train off the rails. I might throw in a few aspects that seem like they are so far-fetched to be implausible and completely made up. But, and this is where research and really getting to know my subject matter comes into play. I write with enough information to paint a vivid picture, tantalize with details that when you take a second thought at them, absolutely could be real or true.
As an author, I want you to believe me and trust in the plot.
Not to say that everything is gospel. No. Just that I have created enough uncertainty in your mind to second guess yourself and go, is what I just read absolutely made up, or is it grounded in reality where what this guy says could actually be something?
If I can succeed in that, then I am doing my job!
For me, it also goes back to my roots as a historian by education. Research was always central to college papers and exams. I had to read, read more, sort through newspapers, watch videos, and listen to people who knew more than me. All to gain insight and perspective in knowing facts, information, and the minute details that I could then use to support my positions. This preparation developed a framework for me to grab with both hands and use when I went on to be a writer professionally in my other life, and professionally in this life as a fiction author.
I got the best of both.
It all adds to the love I have for writing and telling stories. I base my plots around things that are real to a certain degree, extrapolate into what-ifs when I must, and go for it with imagination when it is required.
It is the type of fiction I like to create and the genres that give me the most pleasure.
I could go all insane and create everything from scratch and develop the type of make believe that others are so magnificent at doing in the fantasy and adventure realms of fiction. I give them accolades for being able to be so intelligent and keep it all together! That is a lot of work to well, work out the details and put it all on paper cohesively and keep readers enthralled.
Probably beyond me. I write what I know.
OK. You research a lot. Anything else?
You bet!
I will leave this to ferment in your head. I am a prolific reader and researcher of details and information. I have first hand knowledge and experience with different pieces of the puzzles I write about in my books. Which ones I have done, touched, or are based on real events and my own past?
Well, I guess those are the tidbits that keep readers engrossed in my words.
What I will say is that for anyone looking to be a writer, or really a storyteller, the devil is in the details. While you can make up absolutely everything for plot, you cannot lose sight of what a reader will accept or shuck off as nonsense if they do not believe you. Some aspect, even a tiny little one, has to be grounded in a truth.
Even, if it’s just a fraction on one.
Humans need some type of correlation to their world. A minute snippet that seems possible, plausible, even far-fetched but in the realm of “it could be” someplace or somewhere. Let their imagination connect dots.
Doesn’t that mean imagination can just run wild and a writer simply goes for it?
Not at all!
Even if every word, idea, plot point, and detail is constructed out of the depths of a writer’s vivid and totally insane world that is their mind, unknowingly, they have done research.
Read something somewhere.
Saw it and took the concept and tweaked it.
I am not saying plagiarism.
What I am saying is that even when we make it all up, we someway and somehow did the research to construct it. Dreaming it all up, that is research!
What?
Think about it. Even when it is completely made up from scratch, there are avenues of familiarity with something we have a reference to, even if it is vague or just a tiny sliver. A writer has some reference point that they then utilize to build their world. They might go all in and it’s just a glimpse of a memory that then takes us on a new journey into a fantastic creation never before seen.
But, it comes from some aspect gleaned from the cosmos of absorption and in the scheme of life, is actual research done eons ago that then get dragged from the bowels of the brain.
Readers then reap the rewards.
Jason McDonald 