When you’re first writing your book, it’s not going to be great. The first draft is supposed to be bad. Your writer brain and your editor brain can’t exist at the same time, so your editor brain needs to be put on silent while you tell yourself the story. That means that all your characters may be pigeonholed by real people, your dialogue will suck, your action scenes will be laughably bad, your plot will be less than desirable, your geography won’t make sense, and nothing will be realistic or accurate. And that’s a good thing. The first draft is all about the words.
It’s not until the second draft where you can start to think about the ideas. At that point, you need to kick the writer out of the room and let your editor have free reign. And if you’re listening, that editor is going to tell you that more research is needed.
Think of it this way: if the expert of the topic were reading your novel, would they approve of your understanding?
Some of you may be screaming internally, saying no no no I don’t want to.
I know, kid, but you gotta.
As writers, we have a responsibility to uphold. Flying by the seat of our pants only works for draft one. For publication, we gotta show the world we’re the real deal. What we kind of think we know isn’t going to cut it. So, let’s crack those knuckles and get started.
Basic research should include going online and finding first-person accounts whether that’s articles to read, podcasts to listen to, movies to watch, and YouTube video tutorials. Interviewing people in real time will be very helpful.
Chances are, you already know what you need to work on but you’re procrastinating by reading this blog post to see if you really have to. So I’ll let you keep reading. Here are 3 examples of the kinds of research you’ll need to do and the questions to ask:
Writing characters that don’t look like you: Unless you’re writing a dystopic novel where it’s an intentional choice to have everyone look like you because you’re making political commentary, you should be writing characters that are different from you. But it is completely unacceptable to guess. DO NOT make the mistake of thinking you can understand your characters intimately enough to tell their story by making up their experience in the world. Please for the love of whatever you find holy do not base all your black characters off of that one classmate you had in elementary school or your male characters off of your fantasy lover or your gay characters off of your favorite TV show or your Japanese characters off of what you learned about Pearl Harbor from your history textbooks. I may sound like I’m being super dumb and obvious, but all of these are real examples. Don’t be that guy.
Remember, you need to be the expert. If someone who looks like one of your characters were reading your book, would they identify? How do you know for sure? There are all kinds of things you can’t know about a person’s lived experience until you start to see it from their eyes. The smallest details matter and then more you can learn, the more your readers will fall into your story.
Start by brainstorming how you can learn how to step into that person’s shoes, how to speak their voice, how to understand their experience. Interview people. Read works by authors who have been lauded for doing this well and do a craft study on how they portrayed their characters. Research how it’s been done poorly and avoid those mistakes; i.e. make sure you don’t have token characters, make sure your characters aren’t stereotypical, and please, please learn how to describe skin color without using food. Be careful about how you write the dialogue of non-native English speakers or bilingual folks. When describing looks, don’t only describe the eye color. Be careful that your descriptions make sense and aren’t unrealistic based on the fantasies we’ve been sold. At the end, check yourself by asking a beta reader who identifies that way to read your work.
Writing about guns: For my dystopic zombie duology, for instance, I needed to learn about guns for the first time in my life. I started my research by talking to my mom’s husband and getting the lingo. Some things to think about: If you’re writing about guns, learn about the various parts of a gun, how loud they are, what can go wrong during firing, what firearms are used for certain scenarios, the type of person who would carry certain guns, the bullet size and weight, how long it takes to reload, the sensation of firing a gun, the trauma of killing someone. Don’t trust the movies on this one. Watch YouTube videos with gun specialists. Go to a firing range and see how it feels. Would someone who cares about guns think you know your stuff? Would someone who’s handled firearms be put off because they can tell you don’t know?
Writing about a specific time and place: If you’re writing about a specific time period and place, learn about the technology that existed at the time, how did people travel, communicate? What were they wearing? What languages were spoken in the area? Really be careful here and seek out research that is unbiased. Try to get first-person accounts. Look at the language the writer is using to describe this period in time. Look at their background; how much care did they take in representing this time period outside of the colonizer’s lens? Are they taking too much care and crossing over the line of being objective and becoming impassioned?
And now it’s your turn. Close this blog post and get going on what you already know you need to know. Your story will be better for it and your readers will thank you.
Elegance Press 