The Wednesday Writer's Corner: How Important is Research?
One of the most
common questions that budding writers ask JC or me is, “Do you do a great deal
of research for your books?” The
short answer is, “Yes and no.”
We’ve purchased and read a ridiculous amount of books in the last ten
years . . . on vampires, medieval fortresses, Eastern European myths, etc, but
for the most part this research has proven to be a “jumping off point” for the
actual stories we end up writing.
“How does that
work?” you ask.
So, here goes .
. .
1) Inspiration for Story Ideas
Research into
myth and legend can be a wonderful way to generate story ideas. For the purposes of this post, I’m
going to avoid Internet research (which would be a topic for a different post)
and just focus on the books we’ve used.
Two books we’ve leaned upon heavily are Matthew Bunson’s The Vampire Encyclopedia and Paul
Barber’s Vampires, Burial, and Death.
One evening,
back in early 2000, I was reading through Bunson’s book for fun, and I came
across the entry for
“Dhampir.” The beginning of
the definition read, “The name given by Slavonic gypsies to the child of a
vampire.” That caught my
attention. I went on to read how
dhampirs were believed to be skilled in detecting and destroying vampires. Apparently, charlatans in medieval
Serbia and Yugoslavia would pretend to be “dhampirs” and convince villagers
that their village was beset by a vampire. The “dhampir” would then stage an elaborate show to rid the
village of its vampire—and charge quite a fee for the service.
I read this
entire entry aloud to JC, and he just stared at me for a minute, and then we
started talking. That concept was just too good to leave alone. Questions began flying. “What if we make the charlatan
dhampir a woman?” “What if she
really is a dhampir and just doesn’t know it when the story begins?”
So, we “got” the
basic idea for our story by doing research, but then it branched off into our
own creation.
I know many of
you are just going to groan at this, but Time Life published a series sometime
in the early 1980s called The Enchanted
World. The various book in the
series have titles like Night Creatures,
Ghosts, Spells and Bindings, Magical Beasts, and Giants and Ogres.
These books are not deep (smiles), but I have to tell you, they are
awesome for generating story ideas.
The one on ghosts alone is priceless. Of course, you don’t want to just “copy” something and add a
few new frills, but these books provide an amazing wealth of possibilities for
creatures or beings to play around with.
2) Political Systems
If you’re
writing a big fantasy novel, most of your readers are going to care about the
political system—even if you only pay it lip service. In some of the Noble Dead books, the political system is
intricate to the plot, and in some, it’s merely a backdrop. But remember that our canvas is large,
and our characters are traveling between countries (and later between
continents), so each country must have its own system. You can rely on almost any decent
history text to get an idea for how historical systems might work in your own world. We’ve used a variety of
systems from a straight monarchy . . . to a monarchy combined with a powerful
council of businessmen . . . to warlords fighting over territories, etc.
3) Smaller Details for Fantasy Worlds
Again, the idea
here is do research in your area of interest and then feel free to simply use
it as a springboard. But of course
there are areas where you want to adhere to “fact” in your story, such as how
far a person or a horse can travel in a day. For Child of a Dead
God, JC and I put a lot of research into how the ballistae would work for
the sea battle we mapped out.
But for those of
you who’ve read the Noble Dead Saga, you know we also use castles and keeps in
almost every book
If you’re going
to be using castles at all, there is one book that I cannot recommend
enough: The Medieval Fortress: Castles, Forts, and Walled Cities of the Middle
Ages by J.E. Kaufmann and H.W. Kaufmann. I think we would be lost without this book. There are diagrams and schematics of
castles and detailed discussion of weapons throughout this book. JC designed the layout of the sages’
guild in Calm Seatt after examining a typical squat, four-towered keep in this
book.
4) Details for Fantasy Stories Written in
Earth’s History
Now, I’ve been
focusing on conducting research for a fantasy world, but the rules will change
if you set your story in our own Earth’s history. Juliet Marillier has a wonderful fantasy series set in old
Ireland, and so her research would be used in a different fashion from what you’d
do in a world you created yourself.
But if you’re
writing historical fantasy in Earth’s history, you need to know “when” things actually
happened. In this case, you have to
have your facts straight—unless you’re writing an alternate history.
For example, I
was doing a vampire short story set in the twelfth century, and I wrote a
“hearth” into a fortress, and then I paused and wondered, “How soon did the
concept of a fireplace with any type of chimney come into play?” Of course after doing minimal research,
I ended up re-writing that section of the story.
For The Vampire
Memories series, I had some characters take a train from the east coast of
America to San Francisco in 1862.
I woke up in the middle of the night and realized the track hadn’t been
completed yet. I did some
checking, and it wasn’t completely ready for use until 1870 . . . so again, I
had to alter my time line. Trust
me, someone will notice those
details.
So, I guess my
final advice here would be that in creating your own world, do the research and
then use it as a “springboard.”
This takes more creativity, but fewer adherences to historical
fact. In writing historical
fantasy (set in the past of our world), know your facts. This takes less creativity, but some
serious research and constant questioning of oneself.
Onward! Happy writing.
