Research

Have you had to do research for something you're writing? I mean, aside from school or some sort of work related task? How did you go about it? Where did you draw your information? How did you cite it? Did you create a bibliography, using parenthetical notation or some other methodology? Did you even credit to your sources?

I have an ongoing research project for a trilogy I'm working on. I've used Wikipedia, but mainly as a source for articles, journals and books to reference. I've used Google-Maps to print large scale and detailed closeups of the area where a significant portion of the story occurs. I've also downloaded hundreds of pictures of the terrain, flora, fauna and architecture so I can accurately describe the region.

I used the local library to find countless reference books and more journal articles, copying, transcribing and committing to memory the parts I needed. And I have sorely abused my husbands trust in our financial management by ordering book after book after book from Amazon.

And here's what I learned: research can do funny things to the book you think you're writing. I started off with a very clear vision in my head, but the more I researched and made notes, the more the story grew and expanded. The more I thought I cleared plot lines, the more I realized I had to go back and perform MORE research.

Things like not being able to accurately depict how a soldier would act in a specific situation when it's abundantly clear how much society has changed in the past hundred years. It's impossible for someone from our generation to really understand the psyche of a soldier from World War I or even World War II. We are a different country, a different people, a different world.

I didn't realize this until I read the following:

"The hard truth was that human beings had never been slaughtered in such numbers or so rapidly as in this hideous war. Nor with less to show for it. The machine gun, automatic rifles, massed artillery, poison gas, flamethrowers, the airplane, and the tank made a mockery of old-style textbook stratagems and old-style battlefield heroics." 

(McCullough, David. Truman. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992).

The reading of this one paragraph changed my outlook on the entire book and sent me digging for my reference material. Because I got IT.  That mysterious IT that makes us want to write something meaningful, something prosaic and greater than ourselves. The IT that makes us want to dig deeper, work harder, longer, more fervently than we have before. IT. The argument. The SOURCE of our inspiration.

I finally realized, research has a means beyond our immediate goals. It transcends the basic need to flush out dialogue, scenery, time, place, etc. It becomes more than the background - it becomes the heart, soul and body of many of our stories. Not all, certainly. Not every story. But for me, it became so much more than my original concept. So much more than I had dreamed of. It became it's own story, and I'm simply the device transcribing it for the masses.

Research. It does some interesting things to your head - and your plot line!

Have a great weekend!

On the mountain...

Something different for today...


On the mountain, the clouds lay shadows like giant thumbprints on freshly kneaded bread. 
The gray-green fuzz of new growth from spring rains soften and mellow the harsh, rocky outlines; inviting me to walk among the sage and Tecate Cypress, which grows nowhere else.

On the mountain, the air is clean, scented only with the brush and bloom of the season. The sun is strong and harsh, making the dips and curves of the trails that take me into shadow and shade feel cool and damp by comparison. 

On the ridges, among the cactus and the scrub oak; the wind scours the rocks into weird hollows and crevices that match the burrows and hives of the insects and reptiles, the bobcat and burrowing owls.

On the trail leading from Dog House Junction near Dulzura, to the peak overlooking the ocean; the Coronado Islands and the mountains of northern Baja, you challenge yourself for words, for air, for water. You climb upward on a twisting, turning, dusty truck road. Unpaved, barely marked, no billboards or phones or people distract you. And you wonder why you are there, on the mountain. 

And when you reach the peak, no one waits for you there. No one slaps you on the back, hands you a drink or a banner or a ride back down. No one disturbs you as you turn, silently, your breath having returned only to be taken again at the view of all that lies below you, on the mountain. 

Or no view at all, the clouds rolling in from the Pacific; cool grey fingers of moisture and solitude seeking to penetrate this hot, dry place. The lake lies below you, somewhere, in all that mist. The city too, dark spires of buildings poking through incongruously detached from the streets below. The noise and the crowds and the quickening pace of traffic are far below and you sit, the sun setting lower as the seconds slip by, enjoying the feel of sweat drying and heart beating and brain relaxing as you find yourself. 

On the mountain.

Finding your "G" Spot while Blogging from A to Z

Aww, come on now - we all have one. We all either know where it is or want to know where it is. Most of us are glad we found it, or hope someone can help us find it. Some of us are intrepid (brave) enough to search for it on our own.

Get yer mind out of the gutter! What do you think I'm talking about? Geography, you wanton pack of lust-bunnies! Geeze, do I have to spell everything out?

Geography is essential in all story telling, whether Sci-Fi, Romance, YA, Memoir. It doesn't matter (unless your writing some do-it-yourself guidebook) what the genre - the character has to live somewhere. The events have to happen somewhere. The journey takes you somewhere. 

You may not talk much about the location, or you may give a full and complete description of time, place, culture. You may hint at generalities or be quite specific; down to the type of house, the foliage and the decor. But it's still there, underpinning the events, dialogue and dilemma's that your character(s) are dealing with.

In my first book, geography is key. The MC spends six years traveling the country, looking for something she can't identify, only to find it in the same kind of small town she left at the beginning. My second book, although taking place in a specific location, could really occur anywhere. Some stories need a concise "point" on the map, some don't.

Think about it: would Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" worked anywhere other than Weed, California? How about "To Kill a Mockingbird"? No, they needed the precise place and time of their creation to carry the impact of the language, the events and the perspective with which we observe them.

But what about Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants?"  Do we really need to know that it occurs   along the Ebro River of Spain? No, not so much. In fact, I alway's pictured it somewhere in the arid regions of Northern Africa or the Middle East. Or even in the desert southwest, where I'm from. Because the setting is the backdrop. The geography is important because of the mood it invokes, as given in the title - not the actual map-coordinate.

Now, what if you took the hills away? And the train station? And the bar? Would it be the same story? Not likely. The bar creates the scene, the hills create the since of longing and the train station slows the pace, as both the reader and the characters wait, wait, wait for a train that represents a monumental shift in their relationship and how we perceive them.

Again - geography. Make your G-spot matter!

Many thanks to the gifted and talented Susan Scott for the late night inspiration (dare!) to go with the topic! You can visit her at: http://www.gardenofedenblog.com