The Hazards of Research

I have a love/hate relationship with research. It's necessary but it can create a whole mess of issues...

First there's procrastination. You're really into the idea behind your story. You want to know more so you can understand it better. You read and discuss and read and discuss (ad infinitum) all under the guise of better understanding your characters. You know that if you keep it up for long enough you're going to get that fantastic little insight that will make your story unique. But of course you aren't writing. You aren't getting the story finished. An unfinished unique story is always worse than a well written, finished piece without a shred of original thought.

Next there's world building. The world in your mind is so amazing, so fantastic and so awesome... If only you knew enough to anchor it in a reality people can relate to! The problem here lies with balance. As soon as you fall in love with your world more than you do your characters the balance is off. I'm sure there are people who love to read well crafted descriptions of interesting worlds where nothing really happens, but for the rest of us you need to reign it in. Your characters live in the world not the other way around. The other problem with over-building your world is one of credibility. The more you write, the more people have to pick holes in. You want to write just enough to make your world believable and enjoyable. Nothing more!

Then there's lack of focus. The things you research have to relate to your characters and their immediate world. It's so easy to imagine how your idea could have wider reaching implications and let your mind wander so far that your passion is for the idea rather than the story. Worse yet, you could find that the characters you've just written about for ten thousand words aren't nearly as interesting as those that just popped into your head. The chances are if you've written that much then it's worth forcing yourself to stick with an idea and see where it takes you.

You can scare yourself too. When dealing with big ideas it's easy for a writer to come to the conclusion that it's too big for their story. The idea that there are too many complications, implications and variables to keep track of just isn't true. Even the biggest idea can be boiled down to the following question: How does it affect my character? Your readers aren't there for an essay on the next big idea. They want to be engaged by interesting characters that experience interesting things. You're more than capable of doing that so don't be afraid.

This is far from exhaustive but those are just a few of the issues I've faced. They can be overcome with confidence, determination and blind ambition.

Morbid Research

Knowing things is useful! We know this... Stories are generally better if they ring true. So my current project requires me to know more about police morgues than I do already. Nice huh?

I wonder how many people have googled for "morgue body identification procedure"... I mean it worked... I just just... You know... Wonder...