Doing Research

Most of you are probably all groaning right now. I mean, come on, reaserch is only for those boring school projects, right, right? No. No matter what genre you are writing it, whether it be fantasy, historical fiction or otherwis, reaserch is the key o wriing an accurate and belivable story.

Well, what do you reaserch? The answer is practically everything. If you already know stuff, than you don't need to reaserch it. (Bad analogy, but) If you want the main characters of your thriller novel to do tests with alcohol in science class, than think again.

And with reaserch, you do not have to limit yorself to just going on the computer and reading books. There are some pretty fun ways to reaserch: You can watch movies, go to museum exhbiits, contact experts, and, if possible, visit the place that you are going to be writing about.

-El

I agree that it's important to know what you're talking about, however I also think it's important to create your own ideas. When it comes to things that are very scientific then it's important to know the facts, but when it comes to mythologies always feel free to make up your own. Specifically in Science Fiction or Fantasy writing it becomes easier to bend the rules, create your own race or culture, or even change a mythology that's already in place.

Research can be a really great way to get ideas for a story, but never limit yourself to what you find, it's always acceptable to expand on someone elses idea.

There is also a fine line between being creative and just being out there in a negative way lol.

OverEasy wrote:I agree that it's important to know what you're talking about, however I also think it's important to create your own ideas. When it comes to things that are very scientific then it's important to know the facts, but when it comes to mythologies always feel free to make up your own. Specifically in Science Fiction or Fantasy writing it becomes easier to bend the rules, create your own race or culture, or even change a mythology that's already in place.

Research can be a really great way to get ideas for a story, but never limit yourself to what you find, it's always acceptable to expand on someone elses idea.

There is also a fine line between being creative and just being out there in a negative way lol.

Yes, I agree. I never said that you aren't allowed to be creative; If you want to put a twist on Zombies, you should still know the facts you don't completely mess things up. You are allowed to bend and be creative, just use reaserch as the core to make sure you have a beliveable novel.

Just going to throw this out there, but... facts on zombies? Isn't that kind of an area where "facts" don't come into play at all? That's the beauty of creatures like that, if you want to just start from utter scratch and create a whole new version of them, you're totally allowed. Look at the film Fido, that was a totally different twist on Zombies, they're still technically the living dead, but they are used as slaves! And even in some cases have feelings of remorse and love.

Granted if you're going to write about... sharks, or something that really exists you need to know the facts about them. That's because there are actual facts about them.

But zombies or fantasy creatures?... they don't have facts. They have ideas, but there are no "facts" about them, because these are creatures that don't exist. That's the wonderful thing about them. I mean, if you create a 9 foot tall hobbit people might be confused, but really, you can do anything you like with them.

Hobbits are actually not found in mythology. They were from Tolkien's own creation, based on creatures from Norse myth.

And even if you're doing something like genetic mutation in a sci-fi story, you don't need to spend hours looking up how genetic mutation/alteration/splicing works. You probably have a good idea how that works, so run with it. Twist it up, alter the society to fit, take some of the facts and add in a bunch of fiction to make your plot work.

Fantasy is even looser. I've only done a rather minor amount of research considering how unfamiliar my world is to me (it's based on Mughal India). And I've barely researched my magic.

What you want to get completely right are things that exist, like Tiff said. If you're doing a fantasy with a lot of horses, you'd better know how horses behave, move, are treated, are saddled, cared for, and anything else you need/can think of. Or else, people will hunt you down and throw your books over your head, telling you what you did wrong. More likely, they will write you very nasty letters saying what you've done wrong.

However, should you say, make up a new type of horse, or base a fantasy animal on a horse, you don't need to know as much. You can alter everything about the feeding, caring and riding of this new animal. You can even make them not able to be ridden!

Research is a fantastic base, let me say that. Had I not done research on Mughal India, I wouldn't have come up with the plot twists I did. Would the story have survived without the research though? Most likely. It wouldn't have been as good, but it would still be a story.

Research is really just the icing on the cake in most genres.* It's general knowledge and common sense that's the actual cake.

*NOTE- This does not apply to Historical Fiction, in which you need to get everything right, down to what kind of house they'd live in and what they'd eat for breakfast.

I was just using Hobbits as an example because they're something most people know about lol but my other example was Elves that fly around and shoot people with air soft guns, if that's what you really want for your story, you can have it.

Ah, sorry about that. I said that because it proves that when dealing with myth, you can mix it around to create your own race. Hobbits were part Troll, I believe.

I think that while research is important, unless the facts are pivotal part of the story, if you're in "the zone" writing, you can just put a note to check up on them later. However, it is definitely useful to do some background reading prior to or during writing, to absorb information about the subject. Science fiction devices - particularly in near-future sci-fi - are often based on developing or prototyped technology. An interesting account of this process can be found in Scott Westerfeld's Bogus to Bubbly, a book describing the research he did for his Uglies series, which sounds like a really boring read, but believe me, it is not!

I do try to research everything I write about but because of my learning/reading difficulties, it can be very hard to comprehend. Here's an example of one from early March. My main character was half Indian; his mother was Hindu. After she died, my character learnt to speak Hindi and was going to convert to the religion. I tried my best to research all aspects of Hinduism, but I got so confused by it that I just made him learn the language and not convert.

You're completely right. Especially on the part about going to museums. I dragged my parents to Piratesoul Museum in the Florida Keys when my dad went down there for scuba, and it was amaaaazing. =D Learned a lot, but mostly it was amaaaazing. XD I saw the only surviving Jolly Roger flag.

I was wondering when research came into play in non science-fiction historical-fiction or fantasy genres?
If I'm writing and Indie Romance (not sure if that's real or contrived) should I be excessively worried about, i don't know, learning the history of a microwave because my main character eats lean cuisine? Or should I just write character sketches and not worry about that kind of research?