The Limitations of Research

Second to firsthand experience, research is probably the most important aspect for the would-be writer. Of course it could be argued that actually sitting down and typing your soon-to-be bestseller is the most important, but to anybody who actually writes that kind of talk is blasphemy. Seriously - nobody who actually writes actually wants to follow through. Not when there's a whole internet out there full out of other aspiring authors too busy putting off their masterpiece in favor of wasting bandwidth with likewise delusional souls who believe that, someday, somebody somewhere will give half a damn about their precious.

And that's why research is great. It's a grand opportunity to delay productivity in favor of surfing the web, usually accompanied by drawn out AIM and chatroom sessions among wannabes whilst keeping a browser window open (and minimized) so you can claim you're hunting background stuff for that suppressed germ of a novel (also minimized). To the uninitiated, this is pure unadulterated bullshit.

Pfft. Shows what they know.

But research, like mind altering substances, has a downside. And like mind altering substances the ultimate result won't be obvious for some time (although excessive research probably won't result in you standing on a dimly lit streetcorner in the wee hours of the morning selling yourself for that one I-swear-to-God-this-is-the-last-reference-source; but I suppose that depends on the degree of your addiction). Usually the worst of the side effects lie dormant until you've compiled sufficient materials to adequately cover in depth all the fun little nooks in crannies that - honestly - your intrepid readers will overlook.

Then it strikes the beginning writer. With a vengeance.

Let's say you've finally got it. You've reached the point where you know your subject matter backwards and forwards, at least from a technical standpoint. In due course you've accumulated a small library of data in various formats. You could probably take a test and recognize most of the relevant information, maybe pass if you're lucky. You won't have the same understanding as if you'd actually...you know...gone out and done it, but still.

So you resign yourself to inevitable fate. You sit down at your computer (your typewriter, presupposing you're one of those literary types who thinks people care that you use a means of word processing that's been obsolete for the last half century; alternately, you may just be one of those with a sadistic bent towards yourself) and commence to grinding out what will someday become the Bestest Selling Novel Ever, henceforth marked for brevity as the BSNE.

And this is where the problems start. You're typing along. Making good time, even. And then you hit a point in your writing when you pass beyond your firsthand experiences with human interaction, dialogue, sex, drugs, rock, roll, or sub-molecular engineering.

No problem, right? That's why you did your homework. Now's the time to fall back on that reference cache you've been building all along. Sweet, eh?

Well, no.

Because by and large, trying to write on technical knowledge gained secondhand has one of two possible outcomes:

a) it completely stalls the progress of the story whilst you go into gory details of your newly acquired expertise, giving your hard-won readers the impression that they've transitioned from your otherwise smooth style to a mistakenly-inserted clipping from a shop/field/armory/heavy equipment manual, or,

b) you only thought you understand the concept, so you jar the reader out of the story while making it painfully obvious (or hilarious) that you don't know jack about shit

(I suppose theoretically you might actually get it right. Of course, that makes for a far less entertaining and snarky blog, so I ignore the possibility altogether. Nobody wants to read about things going right.)

Either way, this doesn't bode well for your future. Unless of course you were smart with your cash advance and stocked up on tuna, peanut butter, and pork and beans. If so, you may yet be able to move into the nearest hobo jungle and live well. Perhaps you may become their king. And I salute you.

For those of you who still cling to the feeble hope that you'll someday make a living solely off your writing, this presents new problems. Chiefly, you've alienated a chunk of your target audience. You know those people who didn't respond when you asked for help on the boards? Yeah. Apparently they possessed the knowledge you could have used. And while they weren't willing to help you during the creative process, they're more than willing to leave you a one-star review on the on the retail book site of your choice. Cold, huh?

Well, no. Not really.

Certainly, it would have been helpful for the been-there-done-that guys to come riding to your rescue. But they weren't obligated. You were. The chief quality control inspector for your work is you. You can't count on help from fellow board members, internet dwellers, ersatz reviewers, or editors. If you want it done right, it behooves you to learn it for yourself. And no, self-taught doesn't amount to much when it comes to technical detail.

This is the Achilles heel of researching for fiction. This is why so many otherwise competent writers fall flat in the most crucial aspects of their story. Not because they don't have the heart or the desire, but because they exceed their practical grasp.

For instance:

Let's conjecture that you've formulated a story around, say, a NASA engineer. Fine and good on paper. Unfortunately, the trouble here is twofold. Short of actually being in that aspect of the realm of all things aerospace you don't have the nuts and bolts hands on knowledge necessary to know whether or not your story is plausible. Assuming your story IS in fact plausible, you'll likely find that any actual NASA engineer who takes time to read your story will - despite their assurance that it's not bad - keep close to the vest that it's painfully obvious that you're not a NASA engineer.

For the record this isn't something limited to your high-end sciences. It works out the same for a number of topics frequently appearing in fiction. Since the blog here is trending western, I'll make the example in that vein. Personally, I've read entirely too many westerns where it becomes painfully obvious that the author has never ridden a horse, fired a gun, or slept outside. Why is it obvious? Easy. I've done all of the aforementioned (though in truth I've never tested my luck to the point of shooting from horseback).

If you've never been shooting, having an eagle-eyed gunslinger for a protagonist is probably not the best choice. If you haven't spent at least a little time looking at the world over a horse's ears, you'd do well to avoid the professional jockey or ace horseman as a hero. If you've never slept outside, you probably ought to seriously reconsider the feasibility of writing a western. This goes double if you've never been further west than, say, New Jersey.

Of course, this isn't to say that it's impossible for you to succeed with the aforementioned limitations. But it does mean that the odds are very, very long.

It also doesn't mean that you need to give up your aspirations. Rather, it means you need to be approaching them differently. Get out. See some of the world. If nothing else, get a job - you'll learn all sorts of fascinating minutia that you can turn into credible material for a workable tale, even if it's not your project of choice.

Also, you'll make money that can be traded for products or services. Much easier than bartering with canned goods.