Post #230 September 28 2020 “Researching a Story: How Much is Enough? Part II” Why do writers need to do research? After, it was Ernest Hemingway who said “Write what you know.” If you do that, you shouldn’t have to do research. Right? Wrong. Writers do research for a number of reasons, which I’ll detail below. Maybe the bigger question, which dovetails with the question of the title, is how much research to actually do? Writers should do their research homework for at least the following reasons: 1. Any story, fiction or nonfiction, is improved with at least some background detail. However, there’s a caveat. A little goes a long way. At this time, I’m doing background research for an alternate history novel called The Eureka Gambit. One of the key characters is a Nazi special forces commander. Call him Otto. In my research, I learned (from his own biography; he was a real person) what kind of cigarettes he preferred. I could put that little detail in the story. But should I? Does it advance the story? Does is illuminate character? I haven’t decided yet. But those are the questions you should ask before info-dumping all your research on the poor reader. Again, a little goes a long way. 2. Another reason to do your research is that it helps put you, the author, into the story mentally. For my series The Farpool Stories, I had to do a lot of research and background for an alien species that was marine in nature, basically intelligent fish. I read everything I could about fish biology, whales, dolphins, etc and even decided to put much of that info in an appendix at the end of the story, as in Dune. Steeping myself in all this marine and ocean stuff put me in the best frame of mind to carry a story about these people, who were so very different from human beings. 3. Doing your research helps you understand and portray your characters better. This is especially true in that characters always have some interaction with the physical settings of the story. When you know these details, and know that little Willie grew up with a deathly fear of caves and dark places, it becomes easier to explain why older Willie always left all the lights on in his house all night long. Details matter. Details add realism to a story. Details enhance verisimilitude…the resemblance to the truth that every storyteller relies on to capture his audience. 4. Properly using all that research in your story helps pace your plot. You can intersperse action scenes with narrative descriptions of setting, like James Michener, whose novels often read like encyclopedias or textbooks, at least in their beginnings. Using details from your research can help build tension, perhaps by delaying critical details to bring the reader along, or dropping a few details in at just the right moment, to reveal something essential to the story. I’ve been reading stories from Nigel Hamilton’s FDR at War series, about President Roosevelt as commander-in-chief during WWII. At one point in the middle volume of this trilogy, Hamilton tells the reader that FDR’s presidential train (known as the Ferdinand Magellan) was heavily armored and he provides the exact number of millimeters of armor used. Did I need to know that to enjoy the story? Probably not. But I found it fascinating and made me want to know even more details. Details like that capture my attention, if not overdone, and I suspect it does so for many readers. 5. Accuracy. This is especially important in nonfiction or biographies, histories, etc. But even in fiction, accurate details from diligent research are important. Let’s face it, readers love to find and point out discrepancies and factual errors. Egregious factual errors make a story less believable. They destroy verisimilitude. They loosen the implied ‘contract’ between the storyteller and his audience. What if Og is telling his cave-dweller friends about how he bagged the big woolly mammoth all by himself but his comrade Grog knows it didn’t happen that way and is around to provide counter-points to Og’s self-serving history of yesterday’s hunt? Do you think the cave-dweller audience from 1 million B.C. is likely to believe anything Og says from then on? Do your research thoroughly and carefully. Then ladle in the details as and when they help the story or capture your audience. Stir vigorously. Let simmer for awhile. Your audience will appreciate details that your research has uncovered more if you whet their appetites with a little dollop at a time, and allow them to use their own imaginations. The next post to The Word Shed comes on October 5. See you then. Phil B.

Post #229 September 21 2020 “Researching a Novel…or Just the Facts, Ma’am” Nobody writes a novel without doing some kind of research. It can be detailed and extensive or barebones, but if you want to be taken seriously, you’d better get your facts straight. Several years ago, I spent some months researching, planning and outlining for my sf novel The Farpool: Marauders of Seome. I had electronic and real folders for character bios and backgrounds, book covers, Earth circa 22nd century, Uman-Coethi conflict and U-boat details, plus a variety of additional files and notes. The great question for any storyteller or novelist is how much research is enough? How much detail is enough? There is a term—verisimilitude—that writers sometimes use. It means ‘resemblance to the truth.’ No storyteller tells a story with all possible details. He’d be writing or reciting an encyclopedia instead of a story. The storyteller chooses details selectively to enhance the story and give it a flavor of being real. You should include just enough detail to transport your reader into your imaginary world and ground him there, believing that all this could in fact have happened. Which means that you do enough research to provide enough detail to achieve verisimilitude. In practical terms, that means you have to do a bit more research than you ultimately might use. As an author, writing about how a character feels or might react to a situation, I want to be able to pick and choose details to explain, illustrate or dramatize the situation in such a way as to put the reader right there in the character’s shoes. Little details can matter, especially if a reader has some experience with the subject matter. When I wrote The Farpool, I used the term valsalva maneuver to describe something that scuba divers do to clear their ears and sinuses when experiencing pressure changes. The concept was relevant to the story and I had to use it accurately to maintain verisimilitude. I had to research it to know what I was talking about. And I’m sure some of my readers are well familiar with this technique and would have bitten their lips in anguish or firebombed my house if I had used the term incorrectly. I should add that I’ve never scuba dived a day in my life. Ernest Hemingway once said all writers should have a built-in bullshit detector. Why? Because all readers have a built-in bullshit detector. What about science fiction stories, where the writer is taking us to worlds and times and alien cultures that have never existed anywhere outside the writer’s imagination? Here again, the details have to read true, sound true and feel true. And they have to be internally consistent. Often, the littlest detail—what someone ate for dinner last night, how they dressed for descending into that cave, what it felt like when they landed on the icy surface of Europa—if done right, can connect with the reader in just the right way and they’ll find themselves saying: “Yeah…I can believe it would happen like that!” Author Tom Young, writer of many well-regarded military thrillers, writes in Writer’s Digest some tips to follow when researching a story: 1. Write what you know (personal experience has a value all its own) 2. You can do research on the cheap (that’s why we have Wikipedia and Google and libraries) 3. You can find anything on YouTube 4. You can find things anywhere. Keep pen and notepad nearby during all walking hours. 5. Use all your senses 6. You can leave things out. I particularly like Young’s advice about number 6 above. To quote: “If you do thorough research, you’ll find more material than you need, and no reader likes a data dump. In my own writing, I could bore you to death with the details of aircraft and weapons. But a very good creative writing professor once advised me to let the reader “overhear” the tech talk. Say, if my character punches off a HARM missile that might sound authentic and pretty scary. But scary would turn to dull if I stopped the action to tell you that HARM stands for High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile, which homes in on anti-aircraft missile radars. Who cares? The damn thing goes boom.” In other words, a little bit of detail can go a long way if it’s chosen properly and used correctly. But it’s still necessary. You still have to do the research to dig out that little nugget and save it for the right moment in the story. Researching is ultimately about being prepared, ready to write the story with the flair and power that will grab the reader and pull them into your imaginary world and strand them there for the duration. The best stories, the most memorable stories, have memorable characters and memorable settings and details. Anyone remember the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey? The next post to The Word Shed will come on September 28, 2020. See you then. Phil B.

Post #228 September 14, 2020 “He Said What? Effective Dialogue for a Good Story” Every writer of fiction, every story-teller, must deal with fictional dialogue. Writing dialogue is a true art. That’s because dialogue has to serve many masters in any story. Here’s snatch of dialogue that opens my sf novel The Farpool, from the very first page… Angie Gilliam squirmed a bit more but it was no use. Something sharp was pinching her butt. The weight of Chase Meyer on top of her made it hurt like crazy. “Ouch…that hurts like hell…what the hell are you doing?” “Sorry…just trying to…it’s the Cove. Water’s choppy today—“ Angie twisted and contorted herself to ease the pressure. That was better. “Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea, huh?” They had packed a meal and grabbed a boat from Turtle Key Surf and Board—that was Mack Meyer’s shop, Chase’s Dad. They had puttered along the coast off Shelley Beach until they came to Half Moon Cove—they always did it in Half Moon Cove—and found a secluded spot a few dozen meters off shore…right under some cypress trees. Always smelled great there. Then Chase and Angie wolfed down their sandwiches, dialed up the right music on Chase’s wristpad so they could slam some jam properly and settled down to business. That’s when the wind fetched up and the Cove got way choppier than it usually did. Most of the time, you could lay a place setting on top of the water and have dinner like home, it was so placid. But not today. “Ouch…look…let’s give it a rest, okay…something’s not quite right…” Chase groaned and pulled out of her, cinching up his shorts as he did so. He lay back against the side of the boat, and turned the volume down on his pad…whoever it was screeching on that go-tone needed a few more lessons. He checked the growing waves beyond the Cove and that’s when he spied the waterspout. “Jeez…look at that!” Angie pulled up her own shorts, ran fingers through her dark brown page-boy hair and sucked in a breath. “Wow---that’s so wicked--“ There was a strange, wave-like agitation on the horizon just beyond the Cove, maybe a few kilometers out to sea, past Shell Key, easily. For a few moments, a slender multi-hued waterspout danced just above the waves, like a gray-green rope writhing and hissing on the horizon. It only lasted a few moments, then it collapsed. There was a calm period, then the ocean began seething again and became more agitated than before. Waves piled into the Cove, nearly upending the little boat. Before long, another spout had formed, all in an odd sort of rhythm. In the dialogue above, notice that I’ve thrown in some colloquial sounding words, some slang, chopped it up a bit, yet you can tell what’s going on and how the characters feel about what’s going on. Okay, so what’s going on here? Dialogue serves many purposes… 1. Dialogue has to sound real, without being real. Think about the speech you hear around you all the time. It’s filled with ums, uhs, fits and starts and circuitous, poorly constructed, often grammatically incorrect sentences. That’s the way real people talk…in any language. Dialogue has to sound like that, without actually being like that. That’s why it’s an art. A few selected ums and ahs goes a long way in fictional dialogue. It leads the reader’s inner ear to hear something that sounds real but it also performs other fictional duties as well. 2. Dialogue has to advance the story. Look again at the passage above. What do you know about the story: two lovers are getting it on in a canoe in some kind of cove. Their little tryst isn’t turning out so well, so they stop. They see a water spout. The ocean starts heaving. Strange things are happening. All this on one page. All dialogue has to do something to move the story along and it has to do this through the words of the characters. They see and experience things. They report and comment on what they see or hear or experience. They respond verbally to what’s happening: “…ouch, that hurts, stop doing that….” The reader lives vicariously through the characters so dialogue is really important….it has to sound real. You want the reader to empathize with your characters. Dialogue helps make the connection. 3. Dialogue has to reveal character and convey feelings and emotions. There are ways other than dialogue to do this, narrative ways. The writer could just say: “Jane felt sad and wished the pain would stop.” But in general, it’s always better to show rather than tell. Show Jane reacting in a way that conveys sadness. “Tears flowed down Jane’s cheeks and she sighed, ‘I wish I was dead…I can’t take this anymore.’” This reads a lot more powerfully and dramatic. The dialogue, when done well, puts the reader in the character’s shoes and practically compels sympathy, empathy, all those things a writer or story-teller wants. Now we want to know more about why Jane wishes she were dead, what’s driven her to this point. Hopefully, the writer and the story will reveal that. Done well, dialogue can really establish a strong emotional bond between fictional characters and the reader. Fictional dialogue carries a lot of weight. It’s not easy to do well. You don’t normally talk in stilted, formal phrases (unless the story requires it) so your characters shouldn’t either. Write dialogue like you talk and like you hear other people talking. Then clean it up a little and bend it to the story’s needs. As for me, whenever I hear a particularly colorful word or phrase, I write it down. Usually it’ll turn up somewhere later in a story. The next post to The Word Shed comes on September 21. See you then. Phil B.