Research is the (Necessary) Pits

At SF Writer Con, many distinguished authors showed.

On that note, I have to give a quick shout-out to Penny Warner, a local to the Bay Area, who I ran into completely by accident at the SF Writer Con Gala. She was incredibly warm and compassionate in offering help to unpublished writers. This, despite her thousands of friends as a social butterfly, and her over sixty published novels in the mystery genre.

Another mystery genre expert that attended the conference was Rhys Bowen. While I didn't get a chance to speak to her personally, I found her to be charming and witty, particularly as she explained the nuances of how she went about researching facts that surround her fiction

Getting realistic information about locations, science, procedure, etc. is critical to creating an aura of genuineness and authenticity to the story itself, as you'd probably guess-- even in fiction novels. Sure, you can break some of those rules, especially in fantasy, but we as readers all know that sometimes if it's too much, we just want to put the book down (gasp!).

Anyway, she joined other luminaries/writers, Trina Robbins and Constance Hale, in a discussion about researching for books (non-fiction or fiction).

I've summed up some key points:

• Talk to experts - CALL people and leverage your network
• Go there yourself, if you can.
• If not, use Google Earth and news articles from the area for the past five years
• Libraries, museums, and more!
Do NOT use Wikipedia - too many mistakes and too little fact-checking
• Use at least two reliable sources to confirm
• Keep all your notes on file and jot down names, date of interview, dates-of-birth, etc.
• Use them to support your work, should anyone question the veracity of a section.

This inspired me in my own work to dig deeper. Much of my research for the current novel is from trust-worthy articles. However, some of it previously was from Wikipedia. For those, I've pretty much discarded them or began to ask subject matter experts in the field to confirm things in my story.

The past week I've spent with a friend who is a police officer and with three others in the pharmaceutical field (one in drug manufacturing, a pharmacist, and another in lab research). I'm beginning to see how ambitious I was in this project -- perhaps biting off more than I should chew!

That said, it's exciting to learn so much about these worlds and I am hopeful that it will lead to strong authenticity in my book. Research and edits are some of the toughest, but most rewarding, aspects to writing. They can both be fun too with the right mindset. Write on...