How to Research information for your novel.
How to do about it. where to look. what to add to your novel and what to leave out.
When you set out to write a novel in the first developing stage you encounter a problem, not knowing anything you’re talking about and having to solve that problem. You might have an idea involving firefighters but not know anything how firefighters do their job.
Or you might want to write about a SWAT team and how they stop a bad guy, but you don’t know anything about how the SWAT team goes about their job.
In this blog, we will be looking at how to research information for your novel...
HOW TO RESEARCH INFORMATION FOR YOUR NOVEL
Table of Contents
Now you enter the world of researching. Having to collect information about something you know nothing about and put it in your novel to fool the reader you’re an expert on the subject. Just like how Tom Clancy convinced everyone he knew everything about how the CIA was tracking a soviet submarine in “The Hunt for Red October” to a point where after the novel came out the CIA interviewed him asking how did he know so much about top-secret information. Or Thomas Harris knowing about psychology in “Silence of the Lambs.” To a point where everyone thought, Thomas Harris worked in a hospital.
Many writers will take a great deal of time to research a novel before writing. Some writers are known for only releasing a book every 4 or 5 years because the rest of the time they’re researching. Some will travel all over the world interviewing anyone they can to make sure the information in their novel is accurate. Professionals in the field will read their book and agree all the information in the book is accurate.
MAKING THINGS UP AS YOU GO ALONG
Other writers are known for making things up as they write to a point where a professional in the field will read the book and laugh saying everything in the book is inaccurate.
Having to research for a novel is not easy, it takes time. However, researching is easier now with the Internet. There was a time when a writer wanting to research something had to leave their house head out to a library and track down other books such as encyclopedias or history books to find the information they’re looking for. Or they had to travel the world to see new locations and meet the locals to add to their book. But with Google maps and countless websites, today’s writers can acquire a lot of information faster.
BELIEVING EVERYTHING IS ACCURATE
Some writers will write a chapter containing a house fire in which the fire department shows up to put out the fire. However, the writer will base everything on what they’ve seen firefighters doing in TV shows. Believing what they’re writing is accurate. A real firefighter will read the book and laugh knowing everything stated never actually happens.
However, if the author were to visit a fire station and talk to a firefighter about how a real fire is put out the firemen would be more than happy to sit down with the author and explain the actual steps. This way the author will include the information in the book and the reader will know how it’s really done. Real firefighters will read it and like what they reading because it’s actually true.
THEY HAVE NOTHING TO COMPARE IT TO
You can’t blame anyone for believing what they read, they have nothing to compare it to. If they read how a firefighter acts they’ll assume it’s all fact. It’s not like your average reader is going to know how doctors, firefighters, policemen or scientists do their job day to day. If they read it in a book they’ll believe it.
Every major city has a SWAT team. They’re called in when something has gone bad. With a hostage or weapons are involved. They have to stop the problem as safely as possible. However, they do not get press converge. The media tends to avoid talking about them. But novel writers love writing about them. The problem is novel writers don’t know too much of how they work so they make everything up.
THEY LAUGH WHEN READING IT
Swat teams are portrayed in books in all the wrong ways. Most writers guess on how they go about their job, recusing hostages or stopping terrorists. But the problem is SWAT members read the book and laugh knowing none of it is accurate. The problem is everyone else reading it thinks it’s an accurate word for word.
Most operations by doctors in novels are all wrong. Ask any doctor who reads a book about hospital procedures written by a writer who’s never performed operations and they’ll cringe. They’ll wish the writer had consulted a real doctor before writing. There have been a few books written where the writer did contact a real doctor and ask them what really happens. Leading to an accurate description within the book on real hospital procedures.
IT MAKES THEM LOOK BAD AT THEIR JOB
The problem is when someone reads about something they don’t know they’ll believe everything. If someone reads a description of a surgery that’s all wrong they’ll close the book believing every word to be true. An actual doctor will wish this wasn’t the case. It makes real doctors look bad at their job.
In some novels, a passenger is called upon to land an airplane. It’s written by someone who does not know how to fly. An actual pilot will read the book and laugh at the description. Knowing if you tried landing a massive airplane as described in the novel you’ll crash it. Everyone else will read it believing landing a 747 is easy. But if the writer were to talk to a pilot on how to land an airplane they’d give you a proper description making for a better novel.
ADDING EVERYTHING YOU COLLECT
Researching a novel is a smart idea. However, there is one thing you do not want to do when writing. Do not overload your book with information you’ve collected saying, “I did a lot of work collecting this information I want it included.” Some writers will research something for months if not years. After they have collected all their information they’ll want every little detail included. Because if it’s not included they’ll feel they’ve wasted their time. So they’ll try to find a way to include a ton of information that’s not needed. Wasting the reader’s time. But the author will not be happy if it’s left out. Before writing you have to ask yourself if all the information you’ve collected will be added to your book. Don’t add it out of frustration slowing your book down.
If you fill your book with a ton of details the reader will lose interest. The reader cares about characters and plot. They want to know how the problem will be solved. If you weigh it down with small details on how every little thing works the person reading it might end up closing your book. It’s best not to let this happen.
THIS USED TO WORK LONG AGO
“Moby Dick” written by Herman Melville in 1851 had a large amount of detail on how whalers went about their job on a whaling boat. However, this worked in a time when there were no TVs or radios. People used to read long detailed books to understand how others lived their life. They had nothing else to do. They couldn’t go to the movies. Today if you want to learn about something you can look it up online or watch a movie. People can travel to other countries to look around.
However people today don’t want to read hundreds of pages on how others lived their life. They want the story to move forward. When you read Moby Dick you can’t help but feel the story stopping. Today people find it difficult to read Moby Dick because of how much information is in it about sea life. If it were written today literary agents would suggest to Herman to reduce the length by taking out all the extra information. It would not have so much information about life at sea. The story about the whale would take front and center. If someone wants to know that life on a whaling boat is like they look it up online.
HE FILLED THE BOOK WITH THE INFORMATION
We see the same thing in “Watership Down.” Here Richard Adams fills the book with information about life as a rabbit. The flow of the story is broken up by this information. Richard Adams knew a lot about the life of rabbits and added it all in. When a movie was made about it all the details about rabbits’ life were left out.
Stephen King writes countless books, up to two a year. But he does not spend years researching because his style is to focus on character. He knows the biggest selling point to any novel is character. He knows he could fill the story with details on how things work but he knows readers will feel bored. They prefer reading books where the characters’ conflicts are the driving force.
THE READER WILL LOSE INTEREST
There are countless science fiction novels that are not read because a reader believes it’s filled with details on how spaceships fly and astronomy. They’d lose interest in reading such things.
It does not give them an emotional reaction as character actions would.
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