Should You Research Your Novel Before, During, or After You've Written It?

Research—that word writers hate. 

One of the sobering facts of writing fiction is that all writers must research. Does your starship have an engineer?  Do you know how real engineers think, talk, and dress?  No?  Do research.  

Is your story set in an exotic locale?  Have you ever been there?  Do research.   

Does your story take place on a fantastic world of your own creation?  Does it resemble other fantastic worlds with which your readers might be familiar? Do research, my friend.

When In Rome . . .

The importance of doing research surfaced again while writing my latest work in progress. One of my central characters faces a choice that is rooted in overcoming obstacles in his past. 

Without giving away too much, let’s say the character is very long lived and that the incident in question occurred in First Century A.D. Rome.

The problem? I don’t know much about that era.

So, naturally, I will do research. But the question is, exactly when should a writer do research for a novel—before beginning to write, in the middle of writing, or after completing the first draft?

While you can find the method that works best for you, each strategy offers advantages and disadvantages.

Research Up Front

This is the ideal situation if you know in advance where your story is going, and what locations, customs, politics, science, etc., will play a role. 

But sometimes you don’t know exactly what you will need to know beforehand. Even the most meticulous outline can be derailed by an unexpected need to know something, such as how to ride a horse or what do they call that place where ministers sit during church services?  (The chancel.)

Doing a lot of unfocused research beforehand can also bog down your story with “Lecturer’s Syndrome”:  You now know so much about the topic that you have to share every piece of minutiae with the reader, whether it’s important to the story or not.

Research In the Middle

Doing research while writing your first draft is sometimes the only option available to writers who are on deadline. From my own experience, however, it's the least effective strategy.

Researching in the middle means you either continue writing while doing your research or you suspend writing until you’ve found what you need to know.

Researching while continuing to write can be fun. You get to shape your story as new information enters your brain. But the more you learn, the more you realize how earlier parts of your story are “wrong” and will need to be revised or rewritten later. Such a realization can inhibit writers from completing the draft.

 

Suspending your writing is usually the worst choice a writer can make. This means you have to start “cold” again at a later date. Writers, like anyone else, will look for any excuse to stop writing. Don’t give yourself that excuse.

Research After the Fact

The third option is to plow on through your draft and then do the research after you have completed it.

This is the method I am using for my WiP for four reasons:

• You can be really creative when you don’t know much.  (Think of when you were a kid and "had to" tell a fib to your parents. Sure, they caught on, but it was fun while it lasted.)

• The Story is King. The history, politics, culture, and science of a particular era serve the needs of the story, not the other way around. This isn’t to say you should completely ignore facts when writing fiction. However, the story comes first. The King has to have a vision before he knows how the various parts are going to fit.

• Following Anne Lamott’s maxim to give yourself permission to write a crappy first draft, you can liberate yourself as a writer if you know your first draft is going to be bad and that it should be.

• You may already know more than you think you do. There must be a reason why the King wanted me to write about First Century A.D. Rome. I must know something or can relate to something from that era. (And, in fact, as I’ve continued to write the story, details are starting to emerge which will focus the direction my research will take.)

If you don’t know anything about a particular subject, perhaps your King is telling you it’s time to explore.

There are drawbacks to doing Research After the Fact, as well. If you truly don’t know anything about the subject, you can find your character standing at a crossroads without any idea of where he will turn. 

Even if you know a little about the subject, indecision can bring your story to a standstill.

Follow the King

Whatever method you use, don't let research bog down your story. If you find yourself getting stuck, keep in mind that research is meant to get your story across to its audience in the most effective manner possible.

Trust your King and see where he leads you.

Mindful Violence? “Realistic” Super-hero Action in The Power Club

So, you’re writing a novel aimed at kids and you want to include some action or violence. You want to entertain your readers, but you don’t want to send a message that violence is “good” or an acceptable way of solving problems. 

Most of all, you don’t want parents writing you nasty letters.

What do you do?

This is one of the questions I grappled with while writing my recently published novel, The Power Club. While the answers I came up with may not satisfy everyone, I believe they accomplished what I set out to do: to show violence in a more-or-less realistic fashion from a kid’s point of view, even though the kids involved have super-powers.

To accomplish this, I had three over-arching themes I wanted to explore:

1. Even powered kids have to deal with bullies.

So, if you had a super-power, you think you’d never be bothered by bullies again?  Think again. What if those bullies also had powers?

Early in the novel, Damon, the main character, gets attacked in an alley by three other boys. Damon’s power to create darkness is no match for theirs.  One boy, Larry, can extend his fingers into metal-like poles, using them to attack from a distance. The second, Calvin, opens “holes” into other dimensions into which kids can disappear forever. The third, Rusty, is Damon’s natural antagonist: he draws power from the sun and emits a blinding flash of light which dispels darkness.

What can Damon do?

Well, you’ll have to read the book to find out. Let’s just say Damon taps deep into the well of his own abilities and discovers he can do things he didn’t think he could.

But there is a price.

Any ability which sets you apart from others must be used responsibly. Damon learns this the hard way, but, in so doing, he also learns the value of friendship and teamwork.

2. Going up against people who are weaker than you is a no-no.

Damon and his new friends in The Power Club go to the mall. While there, a gang of “ords” (people who have no powers) stage a demonstration which gets out of hand, threatening a young powered girl.

Damon intervenes to save the girl but places himself in danger—until the rest of the PC show up and fight the protesters. It's a lopsided battle: rocks and bottles prove no match for super-speed, teleportation, growing to giant size, and flight.

But instead of receiving medals for their actions, as Damon expects, he and the others receive a stern warning from the government: they must never fight with ords again, or they will be severely punished.

Damon complains that it was the protesters who started the fight, not the PC. No matter, as far as the government is concerned. Attacking ords only makes ords more afraid of powered kids.

The distinction between right and wrong is often blurred, and knowing what to do in violent situations can be difficult. Did Damon and crew do the right thing? You decide.

However, even “doing the right thing” sometimes leads to unforeseen consequences. It also does not always result in the recognition we think we deserve.

3. Damon and the rest have the makings of adult heroes—but they’re not there yet.

The climax of the novel occurs when Damon and some of the other PC members attempt to foil a robbery. Things do not go as Damon expects.

Why? For one thing, he’s dealing with two cold and calculating criminals instead of a disorganized and angry mob. For another, these criminals came prepared to battle super-powered teens.

Let’s just say Damon learns that being hero sometimes involves sacrifice. 

In the real world, violence is to be avoided. One of the harsh contradictions of the world is that violence sometimes cannot be avoided, yet it does not solve problems—as any war can teach you.

In fiction, violence can serve as an escape valve, letting readers blow off steam by living vicariously through characters who have more power and a greater ability to act than they possess.

Fictional violence can also be used to show readers the consequences of real violence.

In The Power Club, I tried to strike a balance between both of the above intentions. Having a super-power can be fun and, in some ways, it makes Damon “better” than others. But having a power does not solve all of his problems; it often creates new and worse problems.

But it also gives him a chance to become the hero he knows he can be.

Mindless Violence? The Role of Action in Modern Super-hero Stories

Back in the 1980s, Comics Buyer’s Guide ran a cartoon depicting two stalwart Marvel heroes, Daredevil and Nightcrawler, in a wrestling match. The caption read, “Mindless violence as you like it!”

The cartoon poked fun at the tendency of some fans to prefer violence over any kind of plot, character development, or theme—the elements most of us think of as “story,” and which writers love to write.

The irony is that, in the three decades or so since that cartoon ran, mindless violence has escalated in comics, films and TV, and especially video games. One recent book goes so far as to pin the blame for the horrific trend of mass shootings on the rapes, murders, and carnage our children are exposed to in modern video games.

This is not the place to argue the pros and cons of that debate. However, for many fans of super-heroes, violence—or, to use a less inflammatory term, “action”—is a significant part of the genre’s appeal. 

Think of any Spider-Man, Avengers, or Batman film, or even non-super-hero blockbusters such as Mission: Impossible and The Matrix. What’s the first scene that comes to your mind? Chances are, it involves some kind of violence or action.

(For me, the first scene in Marvel’s The Avengers which springs to mind involves the Hulk—the green-skinned epitome of mindless violence—and his famous “Puny god!” line. Mindless violence?  Perhaps. But funny as all get out.)

Cut to the (Car) Chase?

A conversation with two friends today got me thinking about the role of action in super-hero stories.  One friend in his early 50s said he watches super-hero films and reads comics solely for the action. He has no interest in story lines. He wants car chases and explosions.

(This friend, by the way, has never to my knowledge gone on a mass shooting spree. He’s a devoted family man who recently won the employee of the year award at his job and who spends his free time teaching kids how to draw.) 

The other friend, same age, likes a balance between story and action. He took the Transformers movie to task because, once the characters transformed and started fighting each other, he couldn’t tell who was who.

Then there’s me. I’ve largely moved on from comics these days, though I still love a good super-hero story.  (Avengers was one of the truest comics-to-film adaptations I’ve ever seen and an enjoyable movie in its own right.) However, if given a choice, I’ll prefer story to action every time.   

My most recent favorite TV series, Downton Abbey, is about as far removed from super-hero action as you can get.

Without a good story, action does not satisfy me.

 

Heroes and the High Cost of Violence

Our conversation, in turn, got me thinking about the role of action in my own super-hero stories, especially the two available through the links at the top of this blog: the comic book GOLD DUST and the novel THE POWER CLUB.

If you’re looking for slam-bang, wall-to-wall action, pass on both of these. That isn’t to say there’s no action in either—there is—but the action supports the other elements I described above (plot, character, and theme); it does not take their place.

By keeping action to a minimum and using it only when necessary, I sought to achieve a particular effect: to make violence more significant, memorable, and (in a few cases) horrifying.

GOLD DUST, for example, is about a hero seeking redemption. Mangold, in a flashback sequence, seeks revenge for the murder of his teammate by trying to kill a super-villain. He misses and kills a bystander instead. 

From that moment on, Mangold tries to reclaim what he has lost: the sense of being a hero, of making a positive impact on the world, and to win back the trust of the people he protects.

The present-day action in GOLD DUST largely figures in two scenes, one involving a mugging and the other a burning building. Both end with our hero behaving in a somewhat less-than-heroic fashion.

My purpose was to show that the world is no longer as cut-and-dried as Mangold wants it to be and that sometimes even heroes need help.

My larger goal was to get readers to question the nature of heroism and to recognize that, while heroes are flawed, they remain heroes because they keep trying.  

If I had to sacrifice a car chase or a punch-‘em-out with a super-villain to achieve that effect, so be it.

Was I successful? I don’t know. However, no one has ever complained to me that the story needs more action.

Action Does Not Equal Conflict

Besides, physical action is not as fun to read, in my opinion, as interpersonal or internal conflict.  Mangold butts heads with his surviving teammates, who have also had to pay a heavy price for his mistake. He also wages war with his own demons while trying to come to terms with what he has done.

Do these ideas resonate with readers today, or should I have had Mangold and crew gang up on a group of super-villains instead?  What do you think?

(In a future blog post, I’ll discuss the action in THE POWER CLUB.)

Damned Fine Writing: Book Review of "Priory of the Damned" by Kenneth Hursh

"Of several hundred nun's hospices coast to coast, Margaret had no doubt hers was the only one with a vampire on the payroll."

That sentence, coming on page 212 of Priory of the Damned: A Love Story pretty much sums up Kenneth Hursh's dry, quirky horror novel-with-a-sense-of-humor.

Full disclosure: Ken Hursh is a member of the Monday Night Writers Group, the august body of critique partners I've been privileged to facilitate  While reviewing a novel I've had a hand in critiquing may seem, in the words of a famous Vulcan, oddly self-serving, Priory of the Damned is worth reviewing because it shows how dedication, hard work, and feedback can help you bring your own goals to fruition.

 Of Nuns and Vampires

Margaret Georgescu, one of Priory's two protagonists, married young, but when her husband went off to war and was lost on a Romanian hillside, she turned her grief into a calling. She became a nun and spends her twilight years running a nun's hospice in Kansas.

But, two years ago, the husband she thought was dead re-entered her life. He didn't die, after all; he became undead. Vampires need fresh blood, and Margaret has all those dying nuns lying around . . .

If the premise alone doesn't strike your curiosity, check out the book for Hursh's quirky writing style, which somehow finds humor in the horrible and humanity in the sacred.

Take David, the vampire, for instance. Far from being an evil predator, he merely wants to satisfy his need for blood in the least harmful way possible. David has experienced his demonic side in the past, but he now keeps it in check, living out his existence as the groundskeeper of St. Anne's priory, just so he can be near the woman he still loves.

Then there's Margaret, now a prioress, who has aged while her husband remains eternally young. Torn between her vows to God and her love for the husband she once lost, she assists David in his nocturnal endeavors by leaving the windows open in the rooms where nuns are near death.

Margaret seesaws between rationalizing her choices and being convinced that God has a special punishment in store for her. Meanwhile, she conspires with David to keep his activities secret from the five other nuns who work at the hospice and from the meddling priest who comes by from time to time to deliver last rights and eat free food.

And when a world-famous "living saint" (a la Mother Teresa) is brought to St. Anne's to die, things get really complicated. Margaret must hide David's activities from her bishop and a private investigator and convince David to "go hungry" until the old woman dies.

The problem is, she refuses to die.

Seeing Is Believing?

This two-person story is told with an alternating point of view. It would be hard to imagine the story being as effective any other way, as David and Margaret's very different perspectives provide revealing insights into their relationship and how they perceive the crimes they are committing.

When David uses his special abilities to make one of the other nuns forget what she's seen, Margaret wonders how far he can go and how far is too far.

Perception is one of the underlying themes of the novel, and, through its lens, Hursh explores other themes such as sin and redemption, and love and evil.

Furthermore, he is a master at misdirection. Characters who at first seem important drop out of the story entirely. Other characters who are initially kept in the background become significant in surprising and inevitable ways.

Certain point of view shifts are jarring, but not to the point of throwing the reader out of the story. And while Hursh easily ramps up the tension throughout the novel, one scene goes unexplained and would be more in home in The Exorcist than here.
 
Priory of the Damned is about two people who face an impossible situation neither of them asked for, and who are caught between doing what their senses of decency tell them and survival.

The choices the characters make often lead to even worse situations, just like in real life. In real life, as in the novel, sometimes we have to take it one day at a time.