How Do You Research? How Much Do You Need To Research?

[Catrin Lewis]

Sigh. Alas, the days of my undergraduacy were spent studying business and IT subjects, so I never started learning history until my mid-late 20s. I still made up for lost time by reading as widely as I could, studying everything from the fall of Rome (and back to the Sumerians, Egyptians and Greeks), through the Byzantines, the rise of Islam, the Viking age and the Crusades, on to the Mongols and the eventual Renaissance (and beyond).

True, it's a tremendously long subject, and the list above only gives you the "highlights".

Catrin, just wondering: what do you make of the period roughly bordered by 500-1000 AD? This used to be called 'The Dark Ages', but I've recently read The Bright Ages by Perry and Gabriele, in which the two authors argue that 'the Dark Ages' is a misnomer. (I've also seen the same argument put forward in Dr. Ian Mortimer's Medieval Horizons).

It's hard to know what to make of it. The 'Dark Ages' in Europe were not gloomy and uneducated everywhere, but equally there was plenty of war, poverty and misery.

I also feel that 1500 AD is a bit generous for ending the Middle Ages, maybe. But then again, it depends on context: are we talking about Constantinople's fall in 1453? the Battle of Bosworth Field, 1485? Columbus's sailing of 1492? Or the English reformation (1517)?

Or perhaps we mean literature and art, in which case the Renaissance begins in Italy ... but again, exact year or place are impossible to define. Can we date it back to 14th-century Florence, with the writings of Petrarch and Dante, and the paintings of Giotto? Or maybe 1401 Florence, with the rise of Ghiberti and Brunelleschi? Ack. There's so much debate around this subject, maybe I should stop before professional historians start flaming me.

Yeah, the dates are all very approximate. "The Middle Ages" was a long time, at any rate. And the term itself implies it was all just one long interruption between the Classical Age and the Italian Renaissance.

As to the earlier part of it, I can remember where I was sitting (at my drafting table in Summer studio in architecture school) when it hit me that the "Dark Ages" are called that not because nothing happened during that time, or even less, because the sun never shone then (Though maybe that was true for A.D. 536!), but because our awareness of that time is dark.

I haven't thought about the pre-1000 period a lot lately. I have to admit it didn't interest me that much in college, me being an architecture student and more into buildings than jewelry and other decorative arts. I've come to appreciate it a lot more since, especially books like the Lindesfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells.

Gotta admit, though, it's the 12th century Renaissance that excites me the most. So darn much going on!

Your own interests are, dare I say it, inspiring. I'm glad I'm not the only one with a strong historical perspective.

 

[Rath Darkblade]

... because the sun never shone then (though maybe that was true for A.D. 536!) ...

Ah, the Volcanic Winter of 536 (also known as the Antique Little Ice Age). I remember reading (and and being fascinated by) Catastrophe by David Keys. So much had changed because of it, although it was probably one of the worst times to be alive.

I'm not sure what you mean by the 12th-century renaissance? Do you mean the first agricultural revolution (I think I remember this), or maybe the first and second Crusades (which led to cultural exchanges between east and west)? Sure, those crusades led to so much more -- but ...

Your own interests are, dare I say it, inspiring. I'm glad I'm not the only one with a strong historical perspective.

Thank you! I just finished reading about the reign of Charlemagne and his sons, a fascinating period that briefly united France with western Germany, northern Italy and northwest Spain. (And then Charlemagne died, and his sons bickered endlessly, and that was the end of that).

And I remembered thinking: Yup, as usual. This is why we can't have nice things. Great job, guys. =P

 

[Homer Potvin]

I think there's several types of research that vary in importance. There's historical research, obviously, which can be overrated at times depending on the story. You kind of get the same pitfalls as fantasy and SciFi where the reader is out of their element but the characters are unaware that anything out of the ordinary is happening. Too much detail can result in a POV violation where it feels as if the characters don't belong in their own story. Too little, obviously, and it will sound like bullshit.

Then there's cultural research, which is similar to historical but is more about how characters think and behave than the settings and props around them. And that doesn't have to be anything extreme, but simple cops and robbers stories where the characters have to be believable cops and robbers. There's usually a perception gap with things like this. Courthouse dramas are a great example where actual lawyer work and judicial proceedings are beyond tedious and boring but their portrayal in media is always more exciting. Definitely a balance.

Then there's technical research, which is relatively cut and dry. If you want to write about rocket scientists developing a super-awesome rocket, you better know a thing or three about how rockets and the science behind them works.

End of the day, it's very important, but probably contributes less than 25% to a story's appeal. It doesn't take a lot of searching to find wildly popular stories that were poorly researched but didn't hurt their appeal because the story was so good. As opposed to lame stories that weren't hurt in popularity because the research was so good. You kind of have to remember that your typical reader is fully invested in escapism and would probably be reading non-fiction if they were overly concerned with accurate fact.

 

[JLT]

I think there's several types of research that vary in importance. There's historical research, obviously, which can be overrated at times depending on the story. You kind of get the same pitfalls as fantasy and SciFi where the reader is out of their element but the characters are unaware that anything out of the ordinary is happening. Too much detail can result in a POV violation where it feels as if the characters don't belong in their own story. Too little, obviously, and it will sound like bullshit.

Then there's cultural research, which is similar to historical but is more about how characters think and behave than the settings and props around them. And that doesn't have to be anything extreme, but simple cops and robbers stories where the characters have to be believable cops and robbers. There's usually a perception gap with things like this. Courthouse dramas are a great example where actual lawyer work and judicial proceedings are beyond tedious and boring but their portrayal in media is always more exciting. Definitely a balance.

Then there's technical research, which is relatively cut and dry. If you want to write about rocket scientists developing a super-awesome rocket, you better know a thing or three about how rockets and the science behind them works.

A good summation, Homer, particularly the point about courtroom proceedings. It's a concession to artistic style, in the same manner that Agatha Christie's drawing-room summations, where the detective reveals the killer, don't happen in real life but are expected in the story.

End of the day, it's very important, but probably contributes less than 25% to a story's appeal. It doesn't take a lot of searching to find wildly popular stories that were poorly researched but didn't hurt their appeal because the story was so good. As opposed to lame stories that weren't hurt in popularity because the research was so good. You kind of have to remember that your typical reader is fully invested in escapism and would probably be reading non-fiction if they were overly concerned with accurate fact.

True, but a good story can be torpedoed by research that's so sloppily done that it loses credibility with the reader who happens to know more about the topic than the writer did. I could probably enjoy every word of a well-written but poorly researched book on South Sea islanders in the time of the Crusades, as long as it isn't glaringly modern or inconsistent, because I don't know squat about that. But a story set in a hang-gliding club in California would have to be mighty accurate to get my nod.

Two examples:
In one of Mary Stewart's Merlin books, she has the protagonist being delayed because his horse had thrown a shoe. The problem was that in pre-Saxon England, horses weren't shod. Similarly, a reference to a type of pistol in Tom Bergrer's Little Big Man was spotted by a firearms expert who said that that model hadn't yet appeared on the market. But in either case, the mistakes didn't really interrupt the flow of the story.

Little Big Man was otherwise so well researched that it drew the praise of not only Old West buffs but Native Americans. One prominent activist (I can't remember if it was Dennis Banks or Russell Means) said of it: "Now here is a most amazing thing, a book written by a white man about Indians, and there isn't a single lie in it." That's the sort of review any writer would die for.

 

[Montecarlo]

I recently wrote a scene and I spent hours and hours researching it, trying to iron out every single kink and make it as plausible as possible. What direction storms normally blow in from, what communication devices would technicians have, what is the best medical condition to fit the desired scene structure, etc etc.

I probably only had 3-4 sentences that even touched on those details. Otherwise it was just telling the scene. But knowing everything about it gave me the confidence to write it out, probably saved me some embarrassing mistakes. The whole thing needs to be fact checked by a real expert but it was a good starting point.

 

[Homer Potvin]

But knowing everything about it gave me the confidence to write it out

Good point. Confidence is everything in the writing world. Even more so with experience, I would say. I ripped up the keyboard when I didn't know any better.

 

[Homer Potvin]

True, but a good story can be torpedoed by research that's so sloppily done that it loses credibility with the reader who happens to know more about the topic than the writer did.

This is very true. And why I can't watch anything about restaurants or the culinary world. Like The Bear. Like, I'm not even watching the story but looking for things to rag on. Fortunately for the creators, the other 99.5% of viewers don't care.

There was a scene in the old school Law and Order (one of the Chris Noth/Jerry Orbach jams) where they walked through a kitchen for like 15 seconds the got me screaming at the TV. I think it was a case of broccoli sitting on the expo line that set me off.