Since September I've been working on a new project. This new book is a departure from the writing I've done so far, not only because it's my first novel for adults but also because it's a historical novel, taking place in various European settings. So even when the book was mostly just a web of fragile ideas, I knew that a large part of the work I'd be doing in order to bring it to life would be research.
Researching a book is an absorbing process. There's something quite magical about beginning the early reading and thinking before your ideas are quite solidified. The process becomes detective work, a matter of doggedly following lines of enquiry and areas of obsession until patterns begin to emerge. An intriguing fact or a moving detail from the past can be the spark that illuminates an entire story. Unrelated topics, when you pursue them, can end up converging in surprising shapes. And during this process, the book seems to take form visibly as you work. Research is hard work, but if you are attentive to the real world and its infinite stories, that world ends up doing a lot of the work for you. It's a bit like shining a torch in a dark room, steadily, bit by bit, until a shape emerges and the book feels more like something found than something created.
But here's what I've actually been doing...
Reading
Researching a book is an absorbing process. There's something quite magical about beginning the early reading and thinking before your ideas are quite solidified. The process becomes detective work, a matter of doggedly following lines of enquiry and areas of obsession until patterns begin to emerge. An intriguing fact or a moving detail from the past can be the spark that illuminates an entire story. Unrelated topics, when you pursue them, can end up converging in surprising shapes. And during this process, the book seems to take form visibly as you work. Research is hard work, but if you are attentive to the real world and its infinite stories, that world ends up doing a lot of the work for you. It's a bit like shining a torch in a dark room, steadily, bit by bit, until a shape emerges and the book feels more like something found than something created.
But here's what I've actually been doing...
Reading
Reading widely is probably where all research starts. For this new book I've read memoirs, geography, history, sociology, books of folk stories and fairy tales, eyewitness accounts. Gradually, your focus on a time or place becomes sharper and more comprehensive, and you are able to begin writing. At this point, you begin to get a definite sense of the particular books, documents and archives which you still need to access - the newspaper your character would have been reading in 1968, say. Which leads to...
Visiting libraries
Visiting libraries
As a writer, it would probably be impossible to work without libraries. Not only do I borrow nearly everything I read from my local library, but many of them have specialised archives and collections, reference sections where you can work, or the means to order books that are otherwise out of print (for example this book which I felt a bit sorry for when I took it out: a 1960s account of travels in the Mediterranean, written by a sociologist... last borrowed 42 years ago). University libraries are usually well-stocked and willing to issue writers with an access card. Then there are vast labyrinthine libraries like the British Library, which I've always thought must be one of the single best things about being a writer in London!
But sometimes you need to do more immediate research, or the books you need are so old that they aren't really books, more like original documents - if you need to consult these books, you have to go to them. Which leads to...
Visiting places
But sometimes you need to do more immediate research, or the books you need are so old that they aren't really books, more like original documents - if you need to consult these books, you have to go to them. Which leads to...
Visiting places
In November and December, I spent some time in Italy doing research for the book. This trip wasn't solely for research. I had organised months ago to spend some time with family there, and I was very lucky that this trip coincided with a roadblock in my research about the Italian settings and plot-lines of the new book. Partly, this was just because of the fact that getting hold of foreign-language reference books in the UK is surprisingly difficult. And there were certain specialised libraries, archives and museums who were very kindly helping me from a distance but who had original material - documents and collections - which needed to be consulted in person. So while everyone was at work I worked on my research - visiting archives, pacing the streets and taking hundreds of location photographs, and studying material in libraries all over the city. It's heartening how much encouragement and help I received, particularly from the librarians and archivists - who were patient with my strong English accent and extremely generous with their expertise. The whole experience reminded me of a truth about writing, that the author's name goes on the cover but countless people make the book. So my trip wasn't really a research trip at the start, but I managed to make it work out that way (partly because, since writers usually start from what they know or at least what matters to them, I'd actually chosen settings that were already part of my experience; it was just a matter of finding a way to spend some time investigating them differently).
What emerges from all this, though, is that there are many ways to research - it's the research itself that's the thing. Writers, as creative professionals mostly with lower-than-average incomes, are used to working daily to financial and logistical limitations, and there are usually ways of working things out. Stef Penney famously suffered from agoraphobia and wrote The Tenderness of Wolves without ever visiting Canada, and was praised for evoking the place very powerfully. On the other hand, there are writers who travel much further than average in the service of research. Elizabeth Gilbert is a prime example - for her recent novel The Signature of All Things she visited all kinds of settings for research, alongside her meticulous reading and study, and as a result, from the early reviews I've read, has crafted a wonderfully intricate story out of the detailed material she gathered.
I think the key with research is actually just that: the detail. Both Penney and Gilbert, in different ways, were actually doing the same thing, using the resources available to them in order to get at the heart of certain truths - about places, about people, about times, and most importantly of all about ideas. It would be possible to read a thousand books about Canada, and then write lifelessly about it. It would be possible to travel around the world and describe the places superficially, as though you hadn't really been there at all. Research - like all writing - becomes about perseverance, going to the depths of the subjects you are writing about, in order to make what you are saying truer and more valuable, not for its own sake. This was where both Penney and Gilbert clearly succeeded in their efforts to capture place and time. And there are all kinds of ways to achieve this.
What emerges from all this, though, is that there are many ways to research - it's the research itself that's the thing. Writers, as creative professionals mostly with lower-than-average incomes, are used to working daily to financial and logistical limitations, and there are usually ways of working things out. Stef Penney famously suffered from agoraphobia and wrote The Tenderness of Wolves without ever visiting Canada, and was praised for evoking the place very powerfully. On the other hand, there are writers who travel much further than average in the service of research. Elizabeth Gilbert is a prime example - for her recent novel The Signature of All Things she visited all kinds of settings for research, alongside her meticulous reading and study, and as a result, from the early reviews I've read, has crafted a wonderfully intricate story out of the detailed material she gathered.
I think the key with research is actually just that: the detail. Both Penney and Gilbert, in different ways, were actually doing the same thing, using the resources available to them in order to get at the heart of certain truths - about places, about people, about times, and most importantly of all about ideas. It would be possible to read a thousand books about Canada, and then write lifelessly about it. It would be possible to travel around the world and describe the places superficially, as though you hadn't really been there at all. Research - like all writing - becomes about perseverance, going to the depths of the subjects you are writing about, in order to make what you are saying truer and more valuable, not for its own sake. This was where both Penney and Gilbert clearly succeeded in their efforts to capture place and time. And there are all kinds of ways to achieve this.
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