The Rabbit Hole of Research
How a few notes can help you maintain your sanity
My favorite genre to write is historical fantasy. It’s an amazing combination of research and creativity. The blend of the familiar with the fanciful makes it easier for me to lose myself in a story that isn’t tied too closely to reality, but still has its feet on the ground.
With historical fantasy comes an avalanche of research. Once I’ve found a tidbit of historic info I want to include in my story, I need to find corroborating evidence. Even though I’m including fantasy, giving me license to pretty much do whatever I want, it’s important to me to get the historical facts right.
As I hunt down information that may or may not affect my story, I find myself surrounded by dog-eared books, pages of notes, and many open internet tabs. It’s perfectly normal for me to be looking for one piece of information, but find other fascinating morsels to chew on. That leads to more books, more notes, more tabs. I open up other manuscripts and type in quick notes. Soon, I’ve lost hours on the exercise. Most of the time, I don’t regret it. I find what I need, plus more, and I go back to writing. I’m a little behind where I wanted to be, but I’m now armed with knowledge that can make my story so much better.
Sometimes I cut corners. I look up info in a book, e-book, on a map, or on the internet, and write my novel at that moment. But this isn’t the best practice. Often as I’m editing, I think about an aspect of what I wrote in the past and wonder where I found the info. On rare occasion, I don’t remember doing the research at all. Way too often, I end up doing the research again, just to make sure.
So I’ve changed my research practice.
I like to open a PowerPoint document before I start researching a historical aspect of my book. As I read and look at images, I’ll add photos, drawings, and facts to the document. I’ll also add notes about how I’m going to use that info in my book. Will I stay true to history? Will I tweak it for the sake of my story? Will I come up with some backstory involving how history has affected a character that may never make it into the finished novel?
This is an extra step, but it saves me work down the road. I often use the same info in more areas of the same book, or I revisit a location or situation again in another book and use it in a different way. Having a document with all the research info in one place not only makes rediscovering the info easier, it gives me some peace of mind. It also helps me commit the info to memory far better.
Research is complicated, and there’s no wrong way to do it. What are your best tips and tricks for gathering information for your writing?
