The Importance of Research in Fiction

Nonfiction, being based upon facts, is always researched. Fiction is a fantasy world whether you are writing of contemporary times, historically, or some future world. It's your fantasy so why do you need research to create the world? Simply, to make your world believable for everyone else.

Research also broadens your horizons as well as those of your characters. It's going beyond what writing what you know. Let's say you have a great idea for a mystery novel involving a police officer but you don't know anything about law enforcement policies, protocols, or how an officer would conduct an investigation. You proceed anyway thinking that it doesn't matter because you can "borrow" from all the television series... everybody else knows, right? The result is a cardboard character instead of a "living breathing 3-dimensional" character with whom your readers can identify. How do you know when the officer can break the rules and not suffer the consequneces or when they will definitely suffer them? Do you give up on the idea? No, you research to fill in the "blanks."

Every genre of fiction has its necessaries. Science fiction is bound by the laws of physics, chemistry, and evolution. While you may be focusing on one particular aspect, such as technological advances, you can't ignore the dependencies to those laws. Thrillers require indepth looks into the psyche so a good working knowledge of psychology is demanded, not only for the antagnonist (or bad guy) but for the main characters as well. The fantasy genre, while seemingly more susceptible to anything goes, is really one of the more difficult genres to write believably. A fantasy novel typically requires some aspects of all other genres to make the world and the characters real. Fantastical creatures need some knowledge of evolution and anatomy to be able to "build" functionally. There are even laws of magic which need adherence to make your characters seem human. Remember, Luke Skywalker failed to move his ship out of the swamp because he didn't believe he could, while tiny Yoda moved it at will. There are limits to everything. If there are no limits, the character is God rather than a normal human being with normal human being faults. The faults are what makes a character worthy of belief.

Romance is another that has a lot of precepts otherwise it falls very flat. For one, you can't write about romance if you don't believe in it. My first attempts at writing were in the romance genre. I failed miserably because I didn't believe there was such a thing. I wanted to believe. Romance novels promised me there was such a thing in the world but it eluded me. My concept of romance was you meet a man, you fall in lust, perhaps get married, raise a family... the end. There was no such creature as true love. It was a concept beyond my comprehension no matter how many writers have tried to explain it to me. However, romance involves the subtlies of relationships and depends a lot upon the personalities of the characters to make it romantic.

A group of well meaning friends taking their extremely shy but beautiful friend to a singles night club isn't going to be her idea of romance and will probably feel more like torture... unless the shy girl meets a man whose own well meaning friends played the same trick on him at precisely the time for him to meet the girl in a location where neither wanted to be in the first place. However, if we left it there, the story would be very short, indeed. Let's say the girl doesn't believe the guy really wants a long term relationship. She thinks his expression of his wants is a line he's handing her to get what he really wants: sex for the night and then a "goodbye". It doesn't occur to her... because of the way they met... that he is the real deal. He's going to have to work hard to get through that thick wall of shyness. Perhaps, after a time, he gives up because he has run out of ideas and lost heart. How do you bring them back together when you know, in your heart, that they are perfect for each other?

Before the idea is even worthy of consideration you have several concepts that need to be researched. What do you know about night clubs, especially singles' clubs? What do you know about how a man might communicate his wants and needs without seeming girlish? Perhaps his bumbling attempts at communicating such are the backbone of the story but how do you know he's bumbling? The characters will need occupations... not necessarily a paying job but something they do besides waiting in the wings for their next entrance into the story. The more significant the character the more detail needs to be put into their lives.

I could go through every genre and describe some needs for each but that would take a book in itself. The point is, research is just as vital to fiction as it is to nonfiction, if not used the same way. A fantasy novel I once read put it more simply than I can ever manage to do and get my point across. It was a story about a young man who was coming into some spectacular magical powers. He was using magic before he knew he was using it and cured a madman of his madness just by knocking the fellow away while thinking about the madness of the attacker. Later in the story, when the young man had discovered his magical gift for what it was, he asked how he healed the madman. His mentor explained the incident as: "You not only had to use magic to cure the madness but have some understanding about the madness that afflicted the man." Before then, the act wasn't believable as magic but when the explanation came later, it made perfect sense.

After my failure in the romance genre, I went on hiatus for 20 years. Just because I wanted to write didn't mean I could do it well. Of course, it didn't help that my significant other at the time was telling me the same thing. I convinced myself that I was no good and stopped completely. I changed majors in college (although I don't regret that) and decided it was not a possibility. I had no clue about the writing world and certainly no insights into romance to share. That was my true failure. Not researching and learning about the world to which I wanted to belong. Now some 22 years later, I'm once again writing but looking at it in a whole new way. I spend more time researching than actually writing, for now. I have several books in the works. Why several, you might ask? Well, all those ideas from the 20 year hiatus came crashing in all at once when I realized everything I had done wrong previously. I have written the beginnings to 6 novels and there are others clamoring for attention as well. In addition to those, there are several nonfiction books and countless articles that I would like to write.

I realized research was the key I was missing before. The idea alone is not enough. You have to be able to give the idea substance by knowing what it takes to make the world you are describing believable to those with whom you'd share the world. As a failed romance novelist, I realized I had to experience real romance before I could understand it well enough to be able to write about it. Yes, I have at least one romance novel in the works as well. No idea is unworthy of being committed to a piece of paper or a word document on my computer. Some may never realize the status of a finished novel but they do at least deserve consideration. Before you say you can't write something, give the idea the attention it deserves and research what it would take to make it a believable and entertaining story. At the very least, you will learn something new to add to your stock of "writing what you know."