Beem Weeks's Blog - Posts Tagged "research"
Research Your Story
You've finished writing your book, allowed an editor to comb through it, even invited a few trustworthy colleagues to proofread the manuscript. Everything checks out. You send it to the publisher. It's only after it's been published, made available through Amazon, and been reviewed by a site or two, that you suddenly realize the world didn't have laptops back in 1969!
Sounds silly, right? Everybody knows laptops are a recent creation. But what about other inventions, simple items we take for granted, like car radios? Here's the thing: I read a great novel from a really good writer several years ago. The story took place in 1928. The main characters spent a lot of time tooling around those dusty roads in various automobiles of that particular era, listening to the radio, singing along to the songs of the day. Then it happened. A month or so later, while watching a documentary on the History Channel, I found the truth of the matter. Automobiles didn't begin to have radios until 1932.
Hmmm! I hadn't known that while reading the book. It really stands out now. The point of this posting is all about researching a subject, an era, or a person before you set pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). Nothing can kill a great story quicker than inaccuracy.
Younger authors today, those who are 20 or 25 years of age, can't comprehend that not-too-long-ago time when the internet was merely a nerd's ideal dream. The olden days saw pay phones on every corner, in most parking lots, and any other place the public might congregate. Why pay phones? Because cell phones didn't exist!
Imagine a 20-year-old author setting his/her story in, say, 1977. Not that long ago, really. The plot concerns the woman who found Elvis slumped on the throne. She tries to wake the king, gets no reaction; what does she do? She reaches into her pocket, snatches hold on her smart phone, snaps a picture, uploads it to her YouTube account, texts a message to the local paparazzi, and then finally calls 911. Sounds like a fine story--to a 20-year-old who failed to research the era. Most people will know that smart phones didn't exist in 1977. Neither did YouTube. 911 began it's life back then, but wasn't in every community at that time. Some cities had seven digit numbers for police, fire, ambulance.
When preparing to write my novel, Jazz Baby, a historical fiction piece set in 1925, I took a great deal of time researching the 1920s, Mississippi, New Orleans, Jim Crow racial relations, speakeasies, automobiles, the laws of prohibition, and many other relevant issues of the day. My protagonist, Emily Ann, is 13 years old in the Roaring Twenties--which is quite different from being 13 years old in, say, 2013. In 1925, a girl could be married off. College wouldn't likely have been an option. Careers for girls just didn't exist.
The world has changed a great deal over the past 88 years. Understanding what came before is key to writing a good, solid story. If I put Nike running shoes on the girl's feet, had her dreaming of owning a shiny Corvette, and tucked an iPod into her hip pocket, most readers would dump the book in the trash can after--or even before--the end of the first chapter. Why? Because if there are glaring inaccuracies afoot, it kills even the most entertaining of stories.
And even little things like lingo can detract from your novel. Emily Ann wouldn't greet a friend with, "'Sup, fool? Yo, peep this: Dog says Micky D's running a two-for-one on Big Macs. Wanna go get our grub on?" It's an awful lot of work to research such matters. But time and effort will be rewarded. Serious readers appreciate a solid read. Don't scrimp when it comes to getting the scene and the story right.
Sounds silly, right? Everybody knows laptops are a recent creation. But what about other inventions, simple items we take for granted, like car radios? Here's the thing: I read a great novel from a really good writer several years ago. The story took place in 1928. The main characters spent a lot of time tooling around those dusty roads in various automobiles of that particular era, listening to the radio, singing along to the songs of the day. Then it happened. A month or so later, while watching a documentary on the History Channel, I found the truth of the matter. Automobiles didn't begin to have radios until 1932.
Hmmm! I hadn't known that while reading the book. It really stands out now. The point of this posting is all about researching a subject, an era, or a person before you set pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). Nothing can kill a great story quicker than inaccuracy.
Younger authors today, those who are 20 or 25 years of age, can't comprehend that not-too-long-ago time when the internet was merely a nerd's ideal dream. The olden days saw pay phones on every corner, in most parking lots, and any other place the public might congregate. Why pay phones? Because cell phones didn't exist!
Imagine a 20-year-old author setting his/her story in, say, 1977. Not that long ago, really. The plot concerns the woman who found Elvis slumped on the throne. She tries to wake the king, gets no reaction; what does she do? She reaches into her pocket, snatches hold on her smart phone, snaps a picture, uploads it to her YouTube account, texts a message to the local paparazzi, and then finally calls 911. Sounds like a fine story--to a 20-year-old who failed to research the era. Most people will know that smart phones didn't exist in 1977. Neither did YouTube. 911 began it's life back then, but wasn't in every community at that time. Some cities had seven digit numbers for police, fire, ambulance.
When preparing to write my novel, Jazz Baby, a historical fiction piece set in 1925, I took a great deal of time researching the 1920s, Mississippi, New Orleans, Jim Crow racial relations, speakeasies, automobiles, the laws of prohibition, and many other relevant issues of the day. My protagonist, Emily Ann, is 13 years old in the Roaring Twenties--which is quite different from being 13 years old in, say, 2013. In 1925, a girl could be married off. College wouldn't likely have been an option. Careers for girls just didn't exist.
The world has changed a great deal over the past 88 years. Understanding what came before is key to writing a good, solid story. If I put Nike running shoes on the girl's feet, had her dreaming of owning a shiny Corvette, and tucked an iPod into her hip pocket, most readers would dump the book in the trash can after--or even before--the end of the first chapter. Why? Because if there are glaring inaccuracies afoot, it kills even the most entertaining of stories.
And even little things like lingo can detract from your novel. Emily Ann wouldn't greet a friend with, "'Sup, fool? Yo, peep this: Dog says Micky D's running a two-for-one on Big Macs. Wanna go get our grub on?" It's an awful lot of work to research such matters. But time and effort will be rewarded. Serious readers appreciate a solid read. Don't scrimp when it comes to getting the scene and the story right.
