On several occasions in the last few days, I’ve mentioned in passing that time spent researching is repaid four-fold. This is because you will write faster if your mind is full of information which inevitably gives you direction.
1. Visual knowledge will help you evoke a scene effectively, provide fine details of surroundings, colour, movement. It will bring readers into the scene right beside your character.
2. Background information will lend authority to your take on a situation. You’ll know why your characters are behaving in a certain way, how others might react, even what course of action is most probable. Your readers will, too.
3. Knowledge of specific details - a festival, a ritual, a particular group, place, country or even school, a point of law or a particular case, will infuse your work with authenticity. If you want to write, for example, about a child dying in the care of a nanny (lots about it in yesterday's Metro in London, UK) think how much more you’ll produce if you spent an hour or two on researching case studies, the nanny’s background and state of mind, comments from people who knew her (I read this morning that there was actually a support website for a nanny who was convicted recently. Intriguing.) her home situation, the parents’ domestic situation and the personalities of all concerned; psychological reports or comments from experts on the behaviour of some of the principle players. Is there a common element to the cases? What came up in the court transcripts? All this can really provide ballast for your story – accurate material and authentic information on which to build your story.
With the appropriate information at your finger-tips, you can move confidently forward in two vital areas.
The information you have will generate direction, scenes and events which will increase your narrative development and flow.
Your knowledge will enable you to write swiftly as the ideas and words tumble. Rather like petrol fuels a car engine.
With a deadline looming we tend to assess progress by the number of words we’ve written. But don’t forget, writing is also about thinking – and we think better when we have the material to think about. I’ve often found that a day or two spent researching and thinking results in thousands more words simply writing themselves.
Keep going - you're flown, struggled, walked, run over the big hump, that's great going. |
