Writing Corner: How I Write - Research

Some writers loathe research, they created their world and they just want to write it. I love research, sometimes a little too much. I have to force myself away from looking into anything further, I start out wanting to know what flowers are present at a certain time of year in a particular location and end up reading about spring festivals in the area or about a cross-town rivalry in high school American football or something.

Prior to writing Out of Touch (OOT), the first novel in the Touch of Gray (TOG) series, I had two extensive research periods. The first when creating the world and characters (world building fun), then after plotting OOT and discovering what more I needed to know to write the first book. Subsequent books and short stories only require me to research stuff for that particular book or story, thank goodness.  I greatly admire writers that have multiple series in multiple worlds going simultaneously. The amount of research needed for just the world creation alone is staggering. I am writing in the TOG world for as many years as I can, thank goodness. I don't want to think about creating another whole new world anytime soon.

Like everyone, I start out from Google, Wikipedia, and YouTube, then go from there. Each book or short story has its own notepad I use for research, plus I have a one for TOG. For this, I usually just post a short description and paste any URLs I found useful, separated by chapter. This makes it easy to refer to if needed while writing or editing. For the world of TOG, here are a few things I had to research.

• History: mainly Native American history especially from 1800-1880s in the US and Canada, plus Mexico
• Immigration, asylum, and residency policies of various countries
• Forensics: criminal investigations; jurisdiction or jurisprudence; basics of pathology, toxicology, and forensic science
• Deputization process, commandeering laws, drafting of civilians
• Geography as I had to restructure North America to accommodate a fourth country. I consider Central America its own area separate from North and South America, even though Central America is on the North American continent. It is similar to how the Middle East is its own area, even though technically it is mostly on the Asian continent.
• Culture and Language/Linguistics as pertains to Native American tribes. Like the different Puebloan languages (6) spoken by the various tribes (21) and how similar or non-similar they are, or their everyday versus ceremonial clothes, etc. Puebloan tribes are just some of the multitude of tribes represented in the TOG as the fourth country I created is formed from a coalition of many tribes. I focused on tribes of the Southwest US/Northern Mexico as Albuquerque is where the story takes place, but as the world expands, I research tribes in other areas as needed. Gray is not a Native American, but she lives in their country and respects the ways of her adopted country.
• Guns, animals, plants, architecture, religion, alternate or Green energy, various forms of government, and much more

Now you can see why I spent over a week just researching the world. Further research is need after I construct the plot of a book. Below are some of the more narrow topics I researched for specific sections of the books.

• Locations: Gray investigates cases from multiple countries and as the story warrants, I may need information on roads, airports, parks, bodies of water, forests, schools, local slang or language particulars (ex: toboggan refers mainly to knit hats in the South and parts of the Mid-West in America, while other areas may call them beanies, stocking caps, skull caps, or tuques. If you call a knit hat a toboggan up north, then be prepared for odd looks as toboggans are only sleds up there. There are a couple of posts about this on the internet if you are curious).
• Time period: Gray reads memories and some of her cases are events that take place in the past. So I may need to research time appropriate cars, music, clothes, slang, current events of that time, etc. I try to be very specific as this can be very broad research project. I construct the memory first, then I focus on what details I need to pepper throughout the memory.
• Police and Laws: Gray mostly works cases submitted by local police departments. So she could receive a petition from South Carolina. I need to figure out the police structure; is it a municipal police department, county, or state and why would it be from one of them. What are the state specific statutes on murder as in America, murder is a state crime and only occasionally prosecuted at the federal level. Or if it a case from Canada, how is their police or laws structured. Etc.
• Stuff I don't know (much of my research time is spent here, TBH). For instance, in OOT, Gray connects to the memory of an amateur sailor missing at sea. The person knows how to sail, knows the boat, etc, so now Gray learns this from his memory. Which means I had to research this extensively. I am not a water person, I've been on a boat only a few times and it was mostly on lakes. My father is ex-Navy but he was mainly on aircraft carriers or other large vessels. I had to research personal boats, navigation, solo sailing, drift and wave patterns, Coast Watch procedures, etc. All for a small scene of the story.

I hope you've enjoyed this glimpse into the type of topics I researched for Touch of Gray. Some people enjoy learning the behind the scenes work that goes into a project, while others just want you to show them the baby and not discuss the labour and delivery (a sentiment expressed in a Chicago PD episode). I figure since you clicked on the post, you may enjoy the details.

I plan on a few more posts about 'How I Write', like: when I write, what I write on (both what kind of computer and programs used), keeping track within a scene, etc. I tag or label all of my 'Writing Corner' and 'How I Write' posts if you would like to read previous topics. I also have a page devoted to my Writers Corner posts updated monthly with links. If you would like to suggest a topic for my blog, feel free to leave a comment or fill out this handy 'Contact Me' form with suggestions.

Happy Reading!