So I’m writing a novel that involves multiple real-life cities. But I am concerned that I’m spending too much time on researching settings rather than actually writing.
When researching real-life settings, when do you tell yourself “that’s enough research, let me just suck it up and write”?
Summary
The novel I have in mind is a financial thriller. A renegade video journalist dreams of a pretty girl hacker who reaches out to him online, and they join forces kicking the behind of a power-hungry banking cartel.
My suggestion: if the amount of time you’re spending on research bothers you, then it might be time to start writing. If you have to go back and do a little more research, will that derail your writing?
In my experience, research is iterative. I think I have enough, start writing, and realize that I absolutely have to know when people switched from preparing deceased family members for burial at home to hiring professional undertakers. (Or something like that.) So I do more research. And repeat.
If it’s a location that you can’t visit easily, you might want to do as much writing as possible before you schedule a research trip, so you’ll know what you need to know.
I deal with the city research by only ever setting stories in places that are familiar. London, Lisbon, Cambridge, New York, Stockholm, Paris being a few on my list. Refreshing my memory with some Google Streetmap work.
Although of late specific locations have been replaced with unnamed generalised places and regions that are reminiscent of actual places somewhat like Thomas Hardy’s Wessex or Jane Austen’s vaguely Hampshire/Dorset (where is .“Longbourn” in Hertfordshire for example?).
Not necessarily — sometimes my writing happens when I journal or take notes on my research, which is partly web searches and partly my mom coming by with some random cute meme or horrifying video. Or conversation.
Thanks — almost forgot the spirally method of writing. Spiral in the sense of “research <=> write” and moving between the left and right sides of the double-sided arrow.
I agree 100%.
To that effect, I “designed” my own tags to use in Scrivener.
For example: using substitutions, --t gets replaced with =Transition> ; --dev gets replaced with =ToDevelop>
So basically what I am saying is that I don’t stick too much around if the details won’t come to me spontaneously. Writing is my priority.
Later, using search tools to locate “=” (that I only use for my personal tags), I go back and upgrade those parts.
→ I don’t think it’d be such a good idea to interrupt the composition process to rather do research. (Note that I am more of a pantser.)
The little you know, if it was enough to feed you an idea, should at this stage suffice.
→ Two different brain zones involved, and I don’t see how it could be productive to randomly switch off one to solicitate another.
@thegirlclaudia during my last visit to New York I experienced a major difference from London. I drink cappuccinos and when out and about that has to be Starbucks as they are said to be the most caffeinated of all the high street coffee shops, Except that in New York it is weak as dish water despite the extra shots I have; typically a grande with a total of six yes six shots. The London version is twice or three times as strong with the same number of shots. Oh and the McDonalds are as different too not that I eat there any more.
