Let's Get Real

Hi! I thought maybe today we could discuss the issue of researching background for your story. It's important, and possibly not for the reasons you might think.

When you have an idea for a story, as a general rule, you are more focused on and excited about what happens between and among the characters than you are on and about the specifics of the world in which they live. I mean, who the heck gets all turned on and stoked about what lawyer Bella's office looks and feels and sounds like? Why would you care that law school takes three years post-undergraduate-degree to finish if you're a full-time student in the US, which means that unless Bella is a legal Doogie Howser, she's probably about twenty-four years old by the time she's out of school and taking the bar exam? Or that doctor Edward might have attended Dartmouth's combined program and fast-tracked his way through undergrad course requirements in three years? What's the big deal about the fact that Forks is fifty miles away from Port Angeles? Who will honestly notice if the characters in your New York City story drive everywhere instead of taking the subway or cabs? You just want to get on with the action, and are really pretty tempted to either gloss over the finer points or to just drop whatever sounds good to you in there and hope that it works.

Researching isn't sexy, but without it, the world you construct for your characters is flat and dull, and the reader can't trust that these people exist in a real space. Fudge the details too much, and you shortchange the characters, the story, and the readers.

People will tell you to write what you know. And that's fine advice, but I think you should write whatever the heck interests and motivates you, PROVIDED that you're willing to devote adequate amounts of time to building a plausible universe for the people who will live there. You can write about astronauts, or doctors, or cowboys, or beauty-pageant winners. Why not? I see no earthly reason for you to limit yourself to only writing about occupations and worlds with which you have first-hand experience. Blech. Booooring. You live in a digital age, and don't have to spend a zillion hours harassing the reference desk at your local library for details on things like medical school programs. It's all there, right in front of you, on your computer screen. You don't need to trust Wiki for this, because you can actually poll real people who live where you want your characters to live, and who do what you want your characters to do. There is a forum somewhere out there for absolutely EVERYTHING. Visit Dartmouth's website if you want to know about their medical degree programs. Visit Sperling's Best Places if you want first-hand accounts of what life is like in New York, or Port Angeles, or almost anywhere else.

See, it's not enough to merely say that a character lives somewhere or does something as an occupation. Your readers want to immerse themselves in the world you create, and in order for them to do so, you have to give that world a rich texture. This is not to say that you need to spend thousands of words describing the world in painful and excruciating detail; I can't speak for any other readers out there, but I don't require so much detail that I feel as though I could take over whatever job the character is doing and move into her house. It's all about choosing enough important details so that your writing comes across as confident. Your character will take certain things for granted, and since you live in your character's head, you should take them for granted as well. Don't treat these things as "new facts" in your writing; treat them as though they are comfortable and worn-in facts. For example, if you character is a teacher, you don't need to explain what a seating chart is, but you should have the character scan the seating chart to see if Lauren Mallory is in this class. The teacher knows what a seating chart is for, and the confidence in that knowledge is what makes your reader believe that the character is actually a teacher. So, rather than say "I reached into my briefcase and pulled out the chart that showed me where every student was sitting, noting with relief that Lauren Mallory was not among them," you can say "A quick scan of the seating chart showed me that Lauren Mallory wasn't in this class, and I breathed a sigh of relief."

Imagine your characters sitting (or standing, as the case might be) in their place of employ. What are they seeing? What are they saying? What is being said back to them? What would they notice as cues that would require some kind of action or response from them, and how would they respond to those cues? What sort of jargon would they use with their coworkers? What is generally annoying about the job, and what makes it fun or engaging, if anything? How do they spend their day? You can take a few little liberties, but in the main, you should be able to offer your reader a realistic "feel" for the environment, and if you don't have first-hand experience, that can only be achieved through research.

Once you've firmly established the walls and floors and general sense of the world, you don't need to keep revisiting it chapter after chapter. The same goes for establishing geography. If you're writing about Seattle, for example, actually take some time to study the place. How do people get from one side of town to the other? Where do they shop? Where do they live? Once again, you can take a little artistic license, and by all means feel free to invent things like restaurants and street names, but you should have a basic sense of the place before you start to write it into your world. For example, five minutes' worth of research will inform you that there's a Subway restaurant in Forks, but no McDonald's. The population hovers around the 3k mark, so it's not a hotbed of retail activity (I mean, no malls, you know?). It does not, to the best of my knowledge, boast a large and super-hip nightclub. It is a small town, and if you start adding a bunch of big town/city elements to the place, you destroy the vibe and take the reader out of the story as a result. Yes, it's inconvenient that the people of Forks need to schlep up to PA in order to visit a Wal-Mart or a Costco, but on the other hand, isn't it wonderful that Forks only has two traffic lights and is surrounded by beautiful nature?

Alternately, you can just invent a place. Fictional towns and cities are wonderful because they can just become whatever you need them to be, and nobody can complain about them. However, if you go that route, try to create a place that is realistic, as opposed to merely convenient. Small towns generally don't have upscale malls. Big cities generally don't have single-family homes with detached garages in the downtown area. If the story is compelling, the reader will willingly suspend their disbelief on any number of things, but you need to create an environment that makes some kind of sense.

You are the one-person welcome-wagon for your readership. You invite them into your story, and ask them to pull up a chair and stay for the duration. Did you give them cozy armchairs, or those molded plastic affairs? Your readers will be as comfortable there as you let them be, and these details provide the cushion that creates the comfort. A thoughtful author, like a thoughtful host, anticipates the needs of the guests involved, so serve your readers enough tasty, nutrient-rich facts and details to keep their minds from rumbling, but not so much that they beg for mercy and develop indigestion.