A friend who’s starting a writing project recently asked, “Is it normal to do a lot of research? How much is too much?”
It’s normal to do a lot of research, even when writing a novel. It’s too much when you do nothing but research, for months or years, and never actually write anything. I know people who have notebooks stuffed with story ideas, stacks of file cards scrawled with chapter titles, mind maps of plot threads and cross-referenced character sketches… but no novel to go with all that, because they’re still doing research to “get it right.” But they’ll never get it right enough for their satisfaction, and so their novels will never be written.
At some point, you have to get on with it.
When do I stop researching? My new novel was a few days from delivery when I thought I’d better doublecheck on some medical and rock climbing terminology. I emailed my sister, who fortunately is an expert on both, and asked her if California rock climbers describe bouldering routes as “problems” or whether that’s solely a European term. I also asked her a question about cardiac tamponade. I got this urgent reply.
Hope I’m getting in by the deadline!
VERY, VERY IMPORTANT…. “BOULDER PROBLEMS”, NOT “Bouldering Routes”!! As used in a sentence, “I was working this gnarly boulder problem and popped off as I dyno’d for the jug.”
Note: NOT “BOULDERING”, NOT “ROUTES”.
She answered the medical question as well, by contacting several friends who are specialists in internal medicine, but she didn’t need to send me any emergency emails about that one. Heart problems aren’t always more critical than sports questions. And Sara: yes, you made the deadline.
4 responses so far ↓
Antony B // November 4, 2007 at 7:04 pm |
Have you ever made any embarrassing factual mistakes that ended up in the published version of a novel?
I’ve heard authors say that there is always an expert out there ready to tell you how wrong and uninformed you are on a given subject, no matter how much research you had put into it.
Ever experienced that?
(side note: I came across your blog after it was linked from the Guardian Books blog the other week. Since then I’ve read excerpts on MegGardiner.com and I’m now looking forward to picking up one of your books next time I’m in Waterstones.)
Meg // November 4, 2007 at 7:20 pm |
Good question, Antony. In fact, I think I should give it a whole post, so watch this space. And thanks for dropping by.
Research « lying for a living « Web Writer // November 4, 2007 at 7:54 pm |
[...] November 4, 2007 at 7:52 pm · Filed under writing Research « lying for a living [...]
Research - getting it right « lying for a living // November 6, 2007 at 4:05 pm |
[...] 6th, 2007 · No Comments In the comments on my post about research, Antony B writes: “Have you ever made any embarrassing factual mistakes that [...]