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Texas Author | ||
| Julie Lake | |||
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Gloves help protect fragile old photographs. |
Digging Up the Facts |
| Every book requires research. | |
| The trick is doing enough research without falling into the abyss. | |
| The abyss—also known as interesting websites, books and information quests that suck up your time and energy—does not have electrical outlets for computers and is also very dark. | |
| That makes it really hard to write in there. | |
| Sometimes you must rappel down into the abyss to unearth a key fact. When writing an historical novel, you may need to know, for example, how people fought fires back in 1900 (with horse-drawn or steam-powered wagons). Or whether the moon was shining on a particular night. (check out the U.S. Naval Observatory’s website) And if people ate peach cobbler at the turn-of-the-century. (You bet they did.) | |
| The Truth Behind Sand Castles | |
| Research, though, goes beyond reading books or surfing the web. |
My husband and I made this sand castle in South Carolina in 1989, just a week before Hurricane Hugo struck the area. |
| It often involves talking to people, visiting the location where your story takes place, looking at photos, making a certain food, and many other activities. | |
| As part of my research for my children’s historical novel, I built sand castles, rode a steam train, studied old photographs and read essays written by survivors of the Great Galveston Storm. | |
| I also talked to people who’d experienced more recent hurricanes and asked them questions like, “How did the wind sound?” and “What was it like after the storm?” | |
| And Did They Chew Gum? | |
| Much of my research takes place before I start writing a book. Once I get a good working knowledge of a subject, I start my first draft. The process of writing the story and imagining my characters moving about in their world helps me pinpoint new information to research. For example, where did people go to the bathroom in 1900? And even more important, did they chew gum? |
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| My initial goal is to do enough research to get me excited about a story idea. Then I start writing. From time to time, I take breaks to do more research. This research frequently gives me new ideas for my story or leads me to change part of my plot to fit the facts. With luck, you wind up with a compelling story that's supported by a strong skeleton of facts and research. | |
| Now, excuse me while I visit this new website I heard about... | 
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