More on Research

Lately, I've been reading stuff from another blogger who's been critiquing "Twilight," and one of her posts got me thinking about something that I think writers sometimes forget about: the occasional need for research.

In one of her posts, someone commented on how Stephanie Meyer didn't do any research on Washington weather because her description doesn't seem to fit with how it works in real-life. In another comment, someone else mentioned that Meyer picked a random date for the start of the story that doesn't make sense given with the timeline (e.g. the starting point almost seems to indicate that Bella first went to school on a Saturday or something like that). These comments got me thinking about research (an occasional hobby of mine) and how important it is for writers, whether it be a little or a lot.

In stories, especially those that have at least some kind of basis in the real world, a writer must be careful not to write something that's very inaccurate, like clearly not knowing what Washington weather looks like. Because otherwise, your story will be full of mistakes, and readers will notice it. An author who does no research at all will look lazy and like they just threw stuff together, but those who at least make an attempt to be accurate will have more realistic stories, plots, characters, locations, etc...

I've had to put this into practice with my current work-in-progress, a fantasy story that's partially set in our world. When I had a character suffering from extreme blood loss, I had to do research on the condition and treatment to make sure that his body was acting accurately and that he could be treated properly, even though magic was involved in his healing. In the same story, I mentioned other characters who were talking about the UK version of X-Factor. However, when I compared the story's timeline to reality, I found that they didn't mesh, so I did a quick wikipedia search and looked up what would have been big in the entertainment industry in that area of the timeline, which turned out to be Doctor Who-related. Another thing I had to do was figure out how long it would take for someone to drive from a village in western Ireland to the eastern side, which also took a quick search. And all this research (and others not mentioned here) took me less than five minutes and mostly involved wikipedia (maybe another website or two if I needed more details for whatever reason); basically, I looked it up, wrote it down in the story, and then moved on with whatever I was doing. It's not that difficult.

However, there are times where you can add things, like a fictional restaurant to a real-life city, but if your restaurant happens to be high-end French cuisine, you should probably do research to make sure that the menu is accurate.

In the end, basic research for a story is not difficult. Looking for accurate details for your story (whether it be knowing what kind of dishes were used in 800 AD or what kind of sword was popular in 1000 BC) helps make it seem more real, and it shows that you're putting effort into it and that you care about what details you put in there.



As an end note, for the blog I mentioned earlier, here's a link.

http://www.anamardoll.com/2011/02/twilight-twilight-deconstruction-index.html

Even though I don't agree with everything the writer says, she does bring up some very valid points about stories that have made me take a closer look at my own.