Seldom does the audience know what goes into a novel from a research standpoint. And while they may not know the details of what’s right, they’ll definitely let you know if something is wrong. The more broadly distributed the knowledge, the less you can get away with just making stuff up.
With Akeldama, I needed to know how the Catholic
Church runs and which churches are prominent.
That’s because there are a lot of Catholics in the US and around
the world, and getting wrong something so widely known would make folks quickly
dismiss the book. On the other hand,
most folks don’t know basic survival techniques in an austere environment, so
writing about how to survive alone on a new world is something where the truth
can be stretched a bit.
What writing has done is given me appreciation for
research. Even if the reader doesn’t see
the work that went into something, the time involved can be consuming. In Schism, I wrote a scene at a state
penitentiary. I’ve never been in prison
and wasn’t part of the MPs when I was in the Army. So I called up a few buddies, some who served
and some who saw prison firsthand, and got some knowledge…all for a page and a
half of action and dialogue. It was
important to me to be authentic, but the time involved versus what was written
was grossly out of proportion. And
that’s but one example.
So the next time you read a well written novel, appreciate
what went into it beyond plotting and character development. Chances are that the author spent more time
researching for authenticity than writing.
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