First Sunday Q&A: The Perils of Too Much--or Not Enough--Research
I came to the skills of research late--almost too late, for the unknown territories I decided to explore in my two recent novels.
Q: I admit I love research—maybe too much. It’s my profession and also my favorite part of writing. I view it like putting together a very complex puzzle where each piece has its importance in making a good, true picture. And the truth of the picture is vital to me.
Sometimes I can’t tell when to stop researching and start writing, though. Is there too much research? How can you tell when you have enough in your pocket? What’s the best approach to balancing the two?
A: One of my past students is a historian and her writer’s group is all historians like her. She asked me to visit one of their meetings and talk about my writing life.
I loved working with this writer, and I was eager to meet her group, but I had some reservations about my ability to hold my own while talking with writers who were super skilled—and passionate about—history. History, to me, is founded on research. I am not a rockstar in that arena.
I deliberately stayed clear of research-heavy writing for most of my writing career. Leery of getting in trouble? Of someone who knows more than I do about a topic writing me (in fury? in scorn?) about my obvious mistakes, how I misrepresented an important fact?
When I was a food journalist, I had a safety net. I either worked with a fact-checking team at my publisher’s or I wrote about stuff I knew well from working in restaurants and developing recipes. I was already an expert in how to cook, choose ingredients, season, and store food. I knew food science. I’d lived it.
Personal essays and memoir are about your own thoughts and feelings, not often about facts—although they can bring in a topic of research if it’s a fascination to you, of course. I felt at ease writing in this genre too. It could all come back to my personal experience and opinion.
Fiction looked like an even easier ride. Or so I thought.
But we get pulled places we long to explore, and they are not always safe harbors. I had to venture into serious research territory for my first novel, even more for the second and third.
When this lovely group of historians met with me on zoom, it was really no surprise that eventually they began asking me about research for my second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue. I left the conversation with great respect for these skilled researchers. With much relief that I didn’t have to be one of them.
But I did understand the dilemma, even more, that most writers face between research and writing. How to do both, without sacrificing one for the other?
It comes down to: How do we keep our passion alive in our creative efforts—research, for instance—but still get our books written?
To me, it also comes down to three areas, which I want to explore in this post.
How important is research, and how does it weigh in different genres?
How do you go about the process of researching?
How do you tell when you have enough? How do you find balance between the fascination of discovery and real progress on a book project?