The Importance of Research

Without good research, we can put our characters, and thus our stories, in unbelievable situations. Readers will throw our books against the wall.

With good research, we can be in the same unbelievable situation, but readers will be right there with us.

Are you with me here?


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Arson Dogs

I love doing research for my books.

For Red Tide, I learned about Human Remains Detection Dogs, sometimes referred to as Cadaver Dogs. I purchased a couple of reference books about training and techniques. 

I also learned about Karenia brevis, the name for saxitoxin, sometimes called harmful algal bloom (or HAB), but more commonly called red tide. Fascinating stuff.

With The Missings, I needed to know about organ donation: how it worked and why so many lives were at stake. It was a sad eye-opener.  I also needed to learn a little about undocumented people living in our country. Another sad eye-opener.

Learning more about police procedure was critical, and I will be forever grateful to the crime scene investigators and detectives who helped me make the details shine. And for the police chief of Aspen, Colorado, for helping me with a critical plot point.

In The Missings there's another possibility early in the book explaining deaths in the area, and I had to research cults. The little bit of information I obtained made me want to shut down. The normal presentation of some very dark material bothered me, and I was glad the story I was writing wouldn't be in that place very long. 

But because cults both fascinated and repelled me, I knew that The Sacrifice would have one front and center. I learned about Santeria. 

And I wanted to help bring depression out of the closet. To make depression both real and unashamed, my wonderful, strong, primary male character shows how he's living with it day in and day out without dwelling in it. To me, Mex Anderson and everyone who battles those demons, are heroes. I learned a lot.

And now, I'm writing Flame Game, with a wonderful new dog named Kaji, Japanese for fire.

Here's something I ran across this week. Check it out:

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Research: Accelerant Detection Dogs

The story I'm working on now features an accelerant detection dog named Kaji.

Research is critical to crafting a believable story, and You Tube is one of the best places to find research that will provide some flavor, not just facts. Often, flavor is far better than information to keep the story moving forward at a good pace and not getting bogged down in what feels like a lesson.

While I do a lot of research, preliminarily and while I'm writing, it can get in the way of actually finishing the manuscript. At some point, I have to pull my nose out of Google or You Tube or a reference book and write.

When I'm done with the first round of edits (the ones I do on my own), I'll ask one or two professionals to check out particular scenes for authenticity. In the case of this manuscript I'll ask a firefighter and a handler for input.











It's all better with friends.

When Research Gets Uncomfortable

I've just spent most of the afternoon researching really ugly things. Horrible things. The occult and various religions. Human sacrifices to protect a drug cartel. Innuendo regarding musicians and Hollywood celebrities.

Things I've read about in novels and seen in movies. Fiction.

But there's something about a website that looks just like any other website that made everything real to me. I didn't dwell in these places, but I understand that others must. And they aren't reading a bit of fiction, or watching a movie for a good scare. They're not even writers who are trying to get a few things right. People like me who pop in and pop out and thank God for their lives, and that they are writing fiction.

A lot of the people visiting these websites are not anyone I ever want to meet.

But I might have to write about them.

CR: Snake Skin by CJ Lyons.

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Fact in Fiction: Research Ain't What it Used to Be by LAUREN CARR

Lauren Carr fell in love with mysteries when her mother read Perry Mason to her at bedtime. The first installment in the Joshua Thornton mysteries, A Small Case of Murder was a finalist for the Independent Publisher Book Award. A Reunion to Die For was released in hardback in June 2007. Both of these books are in re-release.

Last year, the first installment of her new series, It’s Murder, My Son was released. It has received only rave reviews from both reviewers and readers. The Mac Faraday Mysteries take place in Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, where Lauren and her family vacation. The second installment is entitled Old Loves Die Hard.

She lives with her husband, son, and two dogs on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV.

(Lauren tells me that the beautiful canine balancing out her headshot is Ziggy. And the one who is keeping her company while she writes in her office is Beagle Bailey.)




Last year, when It’s Murder, My Son was released, I received a phone call from a reader. In the first installment of the Mac Faraday Mysteries, bankrupt homicide detective Mac inherits an undreamed of fortune and an estate on Deep Creek Lake, Maryland. The reader hunted me down to discuss a scene in which Mac and Archie are served a bottle of champagne at his five-star inn.

The former wine steward told me that I had written the scene wrong. When I explained that I had modeled that scene from numerous personal occasions at many fine restaurants, he replied, “Well, those weren’t five-star restaurants.”

Maybe a hundred years ago, before the information age of the Internet put all of the facts right at the readers’ fingertips, writers could get away with fudging on the facts. Not so today. Readers are much more savvy.

Back in the 1940’s, movies showed police interrogations with them locking suspects in bare room with nothing but naked light bulbs glaring in the suspects’ face to force a confession, and private eyes investigating murders on a regular basis. Most of the population, having never met P.I.’s or encountering the police trusted what they saw on the silver screen to be the truth.

Then came cable television and networks like the TruCrime channel, Discovery, and A&E with shows like Cold Case, Forensics Files, 48-Hours, or American Justice to give readers a glimpse into how criminal investigation and the justice system really works.

As a result, much of the mystique behind all of these genres has dissolved away. The facts are now common knowledge. A fourth grader knows that a homicide detective is not allowed to smoke a cigarette over a dead body and then toss the butt to the ground and grind it into the dirt with his heel because he will be contaminating the crime scene.

Research. The word creates flashbacks from my first research paper in college. The topic was on the playwright Henrik Ibsen. Before the Internet, I had been sentenced to spend hours in the library reading the driest material you could ever imagine. I almost dropped out of college because I thought I was going to die of boredom. If this was what writing was about I didn’t want to do it.

When I first started writing fiction, I considered research a fence around my imagination of where I was prohibited to go, but I have discovered that the opposite is true.

Research for fiction is actually more fun! In the last year, I took a gun class in the name of research. I’ve been on ride-alongs with real police officers. This September, I’m going to the Writer’s Police Academy in Greensboro, North Carolina, to train with the pros! All this in the name of research.

Consider research an opportunity. If you jump into writing a book based purely on your imagination with nothing else, then you have a limited number of ways to go with the plot. But if you do your research, talk to people within that profession, gather stories, then you will find other avenues that can lead your story in interesting and unexpected directions.
Remember the saying, “Fact is stranger than fiction.”

For example, in the gun class I took last summer, a classmate brought in her Smith and Wesson revolver. It was pink. Not painted pink. It was made of pink metal. Before that class, I never knew they made pink hand guns. I held it. Fired it.
Now, Archie Monday carries a pink Smith and Wesson in her purse. That piece of reality added an interesting little detail that helps to bring the character of Archie to life for the reader that I never would have thought of if I hadn’t taken that class.
The murders in Old Loves Die Hard are committed in Mac Faraday’s private penthouse suite on the top floor of the Spencer Inn. As I had planned the scene, the hot water is on, but after running all night it is cold. However, the bath room is not flooded because of the overflow in the tub.

As I was writing that scene, the question crossed my mind: Do hotels run out of hot water?

This is a five-star hotel. If they run out of hot water, guests will complain, the hotel management will investigate, and the murders will be discovered sooner than I wanted for my storyline. (They may not know how to serve champagne, but they aren’t going to let their guests complain about having no hot water without investigating the matter.)

With a half hour of research on the Internet, I discovered that most suites in many top hotels and resorts have their own hot water heaters. So, if the hot water ran out in that suite, only the murder victims would have been affected and they weren’t going to be complaining.

I did not expect to discover that, in recent years, a lot of hotels, in going green, and as a safeguard, have put timers in their units. If the water runs too long, either because it has been left on or a leak in the plumbing, then it will automatically shut off in order to save water and prevent flooding and water damage not just to the suite but the floors below it.

With the use of this research, I was able to have the body of Mac Faraday’s ex-wife found in the tub, the faucet is turned on, but the water is not running because it had been shut off by the timer.

Look at research as a way to build content for your novel instead of thinking of it as a boundary or chore you have to do.
While the word "research" may bring back those images of a boring night spent in the library feeling like your eyes are going to bleed if you have to read one more dry word, research for your fiction can actually be a fun process, especially when you’re holding a pink handgun imagining yourself as a character in one of your books brought to life.







Lauren has her books priced at a fantastic $3.99 on Amazon for Kindle. Check 'em out and make sure she has her facts straight.


























CR: While the Savage Sleeps by Andrew E. Kaufman

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Write What You WANT to Know

I was talking to someone the other day (a small press publisher) about my mss. She wanted to know what the complete was about, and what the one I'm working on is about. It was just a general getting-to-know-you talk, not business related at all (at least on the surface). The conversation went something like this:

Me: The first one's tagline is 'Money may not be able to buy love, but enough of it can buy a new heart.' It's about the black market for organ and tissue needs.

Pub: Interesting. And the other one?

Me: This one's tagline is 'Sometimes the dead shouldn't stay buried.' I'm writing about Human Remains Detection dogs (PC for Cadaver Dogs), and how a dead serial killer unwittingly helped to expose a current maniac.

Pub: Do you have to do much research?

Me: (I took a quick moment, but should have taken two). . . . No. I rely on personal experience.

I'm sorry, but I thought that was funny at the time. Still do.

At some point in all of our lives, we're told to write what we know. Can I just say . . . BORING? I say, write what you want to know more about. Yes, you can write what you have a passion for, but usually, that involves a soapbox, and soapboxes don't translate to fiction very well. Write what you're curious about, and do the research to make it work.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

What's yours?




CR: The Pure in Heart by Susan Hill.

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Leave Rabbits and Top Hats to Magicians

Don't you want to scream when you're reading a terrific, suspenseful, well-written and well-edited book, and the characters get into an impossible situation, and you can't wait to see what the author came up with, and (take a breath) . . . voila! . . . magic! Suddenly, out of nowhere, they are saved. By something utterly unbelievable.

(Castle fans will know what I'm talking about, if they watched the other night.)

This contrived plot device is known as deus ex machina. And it's something to be avoided, unless you're a fantasy writer and then I think you can pretty much get away with anything.

Research in to autopsies and toxicology screens tore a hole in an important part of my plot, requiring re-thinking (and I'm not always good at thinking in the first place) and re-twisting (ditto). While Stephen King may be able to do all of his research after he's written the book, I find I need to get the big stuff taken care of early.

So I've spent the last few days working on a scene where two of my characters come to a conclusion based on events and information that occur in previous chapters. Although nothing was contrived, it was important to me that their conclusion be logical and not merely a plot device. My thanks to my trusted writing friends who pushed and punched me into giving the scene the meat it needed, hopefully without creating a boring information dump. I'm pretty sure it's a lot closer now than when I first asked them to take a look.

What about you? Have you ever been tempted to employ a deus ex machina? Do you remember the last one you read?


CR: The Pure in Heart by Susan Hill.

It's all better with friends.

Police Procedural Detail Alert

It's those tiny details that can you get in huge troube with your readers.

So take heed.

Today's tough talk might be tomorrow's bad information. I mean, when you refer to a Crown Vic in your manuscript, don't you feel just a little tough? A little in the know? Like maybe you have some insider's juice into the workings of a police department? I know I do.

Although most police departments don't replace all of their cars overnight (or even every ten years) you don't want to miss this little detail:

Ford plans on ceasing production of the ubiquitous Crown Victoria next year. Here's the full story.


This information is thanks to Pat Browning.

Is there anything else we should be aware of?


CR: Live to Tell by Lisa Gardner.

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Next Scene, Anyone?

I've been talking off an on about how much I'm enjoying writing this new manuscript.

Preparation met creativity with this one.

I was attending a writer's conference late last year, and that strange combination of boredom and antsiness crawled under my skin. Know the one? I left the session I was attending, and wrote the gist of the idea by hand in my moleskine notebook in a quiet corner of the otherwise frantic main floor of the hotel. It was both calming and exciting. An altogether different combination that I loved.

It felt like destiny. Except that I had another manuscript I needed to finish. So, this one, a romantic suspense (my first) with some dogs as prime players (my heart) had to be shelved (until a couple of months ago).

I made myself pull the pieces together, because this one's a bit more layered and complicated than the first one I wrote. I did some research, and brainstorming with trusted friends. On my desk right now are 13 file folders ranging from Biological Threat Agents to NecroSearch to Prisons/Supermax to Timeline. Also on my desk are three reference books with sticky tags hanging out all over them, helping me get this thing done right. I hope.

So, I have notes and plot points and character studies . . . and the one thing that makes me stumble?

What will make the Best Next Scene?

I ended the last scene with one of the best hooks I've ever written. Seriously. I'm not sayin' it's the best hook anyone has ever written, it's just one of the best ones from moi. So, the following scene needs to be powerful.

I thought about jumping to the antagonist, but that would diminish that fabulous punch. And if I were a reader I might be ticked off. So, one more scene first. And it has to be amazing.

So, writers out there . . . how do you determine your next scene?



CR: Shadow Dance by Julie Garwood. (Have you checked out her website?)

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No Gorillas in the Mist

So far, the manuscript I'm working on is what I'd always dreamed writing would be like. Knock wood.

Yes, it's work, but it's incredibly gratifying. The story is there, I don't need to go hunting (much) for it. It's all in a wonderful refreshing mist hanging right in front of me. All I need to do is pull the molecules together and get the words down. This is the first time I've ever experienced an almost living organism with my writing, and hope this is the way things roll for me from now on.

What's the difference between this one and the others I've worked on?

1. The entire story began with a mystery. A tiny news story caught my eye, and my Intrigued Button was pushed. Pay attention to those little headlines that make you look twice.

2. I've worked hard at learning the craft of writing. The critiques and edits and courses I've taken are giving me confidence. Finally.

3. I began with some solid research into the story concept before I ever wrote a word. Research has a way of redirecting your story. It adds both credibility and depth because, with good research, you don't have to gloss over a story concept in hopes no one will look too close.

4. I found some amazing characters. Strong, flawed, passionate and unafraid. These characters came to me fully formed, even those who withheld their secrets. They've brought in sub-plots and issues I hadn't originally considered.

5. Brainstorming. Friends who are also writers are the greatest gifts I could have (aside from a puppy). From fleshing out plot ideas, to seeing the best motivation, to knowing what the first scene absolutely had to be.

6. A road map. Brainstorming early (alone and with another writer) led to notes and a rough synopsis. Not everything is spelled out (I'd be so bored) but the major plot points are there for me to know in which direction to aim.

7. The Story. And I'm back to the beginning. The initial concept had to be intriguing enough to mushroom into more. Without depth and color and mist-ery, a writer can only go so far. I just hope I can meet the challenge of the story.


Right now I'm in Writer Nirvana. Hoping that if there are any gorillas in the mist, they're there to bring tension to my characters, not to me.

Have you found an evolution with your writing?




CR: Rain Gods by James Lee Burke.

It's all better with friends.

First Lines and Research

I know I've blogged about these topics before, but here I am again . . .

I wrote my first lines for my new manuscript this afternoon. They're down. Until they aren't. But right now, I like 'em. They're a bit dark. A bit gloomy. A bit on the horror side of suspense.

The urge to write more because of my first lines bodes well that a reader will have the urge to read more. I'm happy.

But I've come to a screeching halt because I know I need to get some more research under my belt. It's important that I know the subjects involved in my scene not so I can regurgitate facts in an information dump, but so I can flavor my scene with authenticity. And that means I need to know A LOT, not just a little.

This story is calling out for me to write it. And man, I'm tempted just to go and go and go. But this story is also calling out for me to get it right. So for the rest of the afternoon, and maybe weekend, I'm sinking my teeth into research.

How do you do your research? At the end, like Stephen King? As you go? Or do you get a good deal done before you begin?

Oh, and . . . do you like the new look to the blog? I'm thinking one thing it clearly says is that the spines of books are spaces meant to be used. Kind of like Nate designing a minuscule apartment. Plan well, and wonderful things can be accomplished in a limited space.



CR: On Edge by Barbara Fister.

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The Importance of Research

Along with being in the throes of a terrible cold, I'm in the throes of researching my next story. I began with resource material I had in my bookcase: I found bits of information in Forensics for Dummies and Forensics and Fiction both by D.P.Lyle, but not nearly enough of what I needed.

Then I went to Google and online groups, looking for sources and people who might be able to help. After printing out a few articles, I ended up at Amazon, ordering No Stone Unturned—The True Story of NecroSearch International, the World's Premier Forensic Investigators by Steve Jackson, FBI Handbook of Crime Scene Forensics by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Buzzards and Butterflies—Human Remains Detection Dogs by J.C. Judah. They arrived yesterday, and already they're getting hit with my highlighter and stuck with sticky notes (and probably a few germs).

These will be a great start, will probably keep me out of trouble, but I'll want to sit down and talk with people who are really involved in those worlds if I can.

Why is research important? It's fiction, right?

I'm a fiction reader who enjoys learning factual things through stories. I get downright cranky if I find out the author led me astray.

I have friends who have been known to refuse to read a really good book because the writer got something wrong in the first few pages.

My first complete manuscript (currently stewing and waiting for a read-through) has medical elements in it that needed to be right. I not only did some research on my own, I found a personal resource. Why? I assume people in the medical field also read from time to time. Assuming they might be a part of my audience, I owe it to them to take the time to get things right.

Writers owe it to their readers to tell a good story. A good story has elements of truth. Truth isn't usually something I can make up. Bits of researched facts bring volume to my writing, not in words, but in depth. My reader is more likely to experience a different world, if they recognize that it was created with some level of expert knowledge. If they trust me.

And there's one more very important thing that Robert Liparulo brought to my attention. In Bob's opinion (and I agree with him) the major cause of writer's block is one of two things: either you don't know your characters as you should, or you didn't do your research.

So, I'll be going back to my character development and cadaver research. And crack open more cough medicine.

CR: Heat Lightning by John Sandford.

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Tiny Transgressions?

What makes you give up on a book? Or do you?

Somehow, I needed to be over 50 before I realized life was short. I can now pass on a book I've begun reading if it doesn't grab me. Before, I'd slog through the entire thing, probably turning into a major grump to everyone around me. Now, life is better when I can agree to allow myself a DNF when necessary. (Did Not Finish.)

Beyond writing and plot, there isn't a lot that will make me close the covers of a book. If the facts presented cause me to stretch my believability a bit, I can usually remind myself that this is fiction. As long as the story and characters are believable and intriguing, I can let a little tampering with facts slide.

But many readers can't. Or at least, think they shouldn't.

Recently, I read a very well written debut novel I agreed to review for Armchair Interviews. Dream House was a challenge to pigeon-hole to a genre—definitely not suspense, or mystery, or even crime (though a crime was committed). It was a book much more general in scope. I recommended it personally to a friend of mine who I know appreciates more general, even literary, fiction.

Was she expecting suspense since that's my usual fare? Maybe. To be truthful, I was too. So maybe, when in the very beginning, she had trouble with the way the crime scene is handled by the police and cleanup crew (believe me, this has very little to do with the story) she stopped reading. Period. And I think she missed out on a book she would have otherwise loved.

Whose loss was it?

Research is important. As a writer, I want to do my best to make sure a little thing like a bungled not-that-important scene to the story doesn't stop a reader cold. I even wrote about it here. But as a reader, who is looking for a compelling story, I can forgive the occasional flub.

Probably.

"I'm always looking for the author who can lift me out of myself."

~HENRY MILLER

CR: In For the Kill by John Lutz.

It's all better with friends.

Cookin' My Book

The truth is, even if I had a recipe for writing, I probably wouldn't follow it. But wouldn't it be cool to have a choice?

I enjoy cooking. I enjoy trying new recipes and then quirking them up a bit.

Strike that.

I enjoy cooking and trying new recipes as long as I have the tools and ingredients. And time. Oh, and the audience. Picky, picky.

The tools for writing are up to us to discover and implement. Online courses, hands-on classes, books on writing, critique groups, reading, Google, reference librarians and good ol' bichoking. Nothing is handed to us. Some tools will work and some won't. But they're all part of the cooking process, and belong in my kitchen.

My writing recipe included some ingredients that didn't go well together. My good friend Joni pointed out the mismatched and flawed ingredients to me over lunch last Friday. She kindly referred to parts of my premise as "truthful fiction." Sheesh. Together, we came up with some options to revise my recipe.

Thankful that my manuscript isn't polished and ready for representation, I've squared my shoulders and made the decision to be a responsible chef and get the recipe right.

So, starting yesterday, I'm reading through from the beginning and tweaking to make the character of Chase Waters more plausible. It will probably force me to eliminate some scenes all together, but I'm hopeful to find some new little gems . . . er, ingredients.




Still reading Dead Famous. It's making me think about series vs. continued characters vs. stand-alones. . . .

It's all better with friends.

Do All Information Dumps Stink?

Following on the trail of doing awesome research, the next obvious stop is the Information Dump--not to be confused with the Information Highway where one is actually moving forward.

An information dump is the place in your novel where you are compelled to share all you have learned. The story stops (uh-oh), your chest swells with pride, and you spill your newfound knowledge. Some might say "spew."

I've created one of the most glorious information dumps ever. Have you?

A medical foray for my manuscript resulted in intriguing, juicy information. Why in the world wouldn't it be of supreme interest for everyone? I mean . . . all cool things to know. Right? And I wasn't getting all "Tom Clancy"--going into detail about the instrumentation in a submarine. This was medicine! And besides, if Tom Clancy can do it . . .

Part of my problem is I've always loved learning about real things from reading fiction. Put a non-fiction textbook covering any topic in front of me and full-blown hives would soon be followed by a headache. But put a STORY in front of me, with real information thrown in, and I'm a sponge. Go figger. (This is why good research is important--readers like me rely on it.)

In the story I'm writing--Broken Bones--I wanted to use that intruiging, juicy information. So I had a totally boring character (set up as an expert on the topic) sitting with her legs crossed, doing the info dump. (Sounds like a dance, doesn't it?) Without a doubt, every reader everywhere would soak up my fabulous facts, and be forever grateful to me for putting these tidbits in front of them in such a compelling manner.

Duh.

Suspense stories that are not moving forward for any reason begin to ferment. And rot. And stink. Pacing is crucial in suspense. Don't allow your story to stop. Ever.

The smell emanating from my pages became unbearable. I ended up not only cutting the scene, but also the character. Lively and Unique ended up replacing Boring. Way better.

Research (for your topic) and backstory (for your characters) require very similar handling. Most of it is for you--the suspense novelist--to know. The knowledge you ground yourself in will show through even when you're not forcing it.

Avoid backstory (I still struggle) and avoid information dumps (I still struggle) and you will have a stronger story.

Your readers will thank you.

It's all better with friends.

Exactly How Important is Research?

You write fiction, right? So you have a certain creative license, right?

Ahem. . . .

Maybe the question should be: Exactly how important is respect for your readers?

I have a friend who I'll call Gun Guy. He's something of an expert having spent most of his adult life in law enforcement, hunting, private investigation, hunting, managing security operations for a large corporation, hunting, refining his skills at the shooting range, and oh yeah . . . hunting.

Gun Guy loves a good read. An otherwise decent detective novel gets used for target practice if the author messes up the weaponry. Sloppy and inaccurate details take him out of the story, and every writer knows that's one of the worst things you can do.

Do I blame Gun Guy for his passion? Not one iota. He's the perfect example of a reader I want to please. I both respect and fear his opinions.

Woe to the suspense novelist who doesn't do their research--even when 90% of what you learn never makes it into your manuscript.

The story I'm slaving over now involves a lot of medical issues. Medical? My background is mortgage banking and Mary Kay. I probably don't have a lot of medical knowledge in my internal database. Rather than make it all up, I've gone and found experts to help.

As a suspense novelist, you aren't looking for the perfect scenario. A perfect medical scene translates to b-o-r-i-n-g within the pages of a novel. Instead, you're looking for a plausible one. You don't want any reader--EVER--to toss your book against the wall (or shoot it full of holes) because you haven't respected them enough to investigate the facts.

Which brings me to the internet. What in the world did writers do before Google and other search engines? That said, I can't emphasize enough the importance of having a flesh and blood person off whose fabulous head you can bounce your newly acquired information.

In the end, you're right. Suspense novelists write fiction. Novels are supposed to entertain. But that doesn't mean we don't owe it to Gun Guys everywhere--and to the story--to make an attempt to get our background information accurate.

It's all better with friends.