"Do I have to do research?"
That depends on several things.
1. What you are writing.
These are all almost saying the same thing, so I'll see if I can differentiate enough for you.
NUMBER ONE; WHAT YOU ARE WRITING
NUMBER TWO; HOW WELL YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE WRITING
NUMBER THREE: IF YOU ARE WRITING FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
NUMBER FOUR: IF THERE ARE ANY VARIABLES IN YOUR STORY YOU AREN"T FAMILIAR WITH
NUMBER FIVE: HOW REALISTIC YOU WANT YOUR STORY TO BE
Which brings me to a very important point. All these facts that make your story more believable; do they have to be true? Well, yes and no. I mean, sure, you can maybe get by writing a story just using your common sense and hope you're close enough to the mark that nobody notices. You can hope that. But the truth is that Somewhere, Somebody knows. If you're writing with foreign languages, someone out there knows that language, and they'll butcher your story if you butcher their language. Someone out there lives in London, and they're going to know if I put two landmarks close together that really aren't. Someone out there knows that you can't use water to get Crisco off your hands, so if your character greases a pan and then just shoves their hands under the faucet for a second to get it off, they’re going to wonder what in the world you’re thinking.
So basically what it boils down to is: do you respect your readers enough to want their trust? Do you value your readers enough to do the research so that you're giving them real information? Do you value your own writing enough to make it as accurate as possible? I sure hope so.
For me personally, here are a few things that if a person gets wrong, I pretty much stop reading:
Bottom line, do the research. You'll probably have fun doing it, and it'll make your writing more realistic and believable even if you aren't consciously putting anything you learned into the story. You’ll feel more comfortable with what you’re writing about, so things will come easier. And even if you’re wanting to go against what’s “normal” or “accepted”, as a writing teacher of mine once said, “You have to know the rules to break them. Otherwise it’s just an accident. Don’t be an accident.”
Questions? Comments? Write me.
Everything, unless otherwise stated, copyright Shiloh, 2005
2. How well you know what you are writing.
3. If you are writing from personal experience.
4. If there are any variables in your story you aren't familiar with.
5. How realistic you want your story to be.
I don't know about you, but I, for one, was not alive during the French Revolution. So when I'm writing Mademoiselle a story that takes place during the French Revolution, I cannot write from personal experience. Now, for me personally, I may not have to do as much research as another writer, because I happen to know a lot about that time period. However, I still do research, because there are so many different aspects in the story that I want to fit in. With historical stories, the more historical context you put in, the more believable they are. I mean, sure, you could write a story that took place in North America in the 1940s and make no mention of WWII --however, would you let yourself trust a story that omitted a World War when everyone knows it affected nearly everyone? I wouldn't. For Mademoiselle, I not only researched what big world affairs were going on at the time, but I researched what life was actually like for people in her position, for people in the Caribbean. I have a list of hundreds of plants that were grown in the Caribbean during that time period. I have a chart of temperatures for that area at different times of the year. I have an old map of the area. I have pictures of the clothing worn, and lists of popular foods. Is all this absolutely necessary? Perhaps not, but for me, I like to feel comfortable with what I'm writing. To me, if a story is written in a place, time, or situation that I'm unfamiliar with (which is most of the time), I like to get as close to empathizing with the story as I possibly can.
Now, if I write a story about a seventeen-year-old girl who lives in Northeastern Texas in suburbs of DFW, I'm not going to have to do as much research as if I'm writing about a 32-year-old mother of four who lived in Ireland in 1840. I'd say I know about the former pretty well, since I am that. However, if that girl is a competitive field hockey player, I'm going to need to do a little research on that. If she's driving to Waco (a city south of Ft. Worth), I'm going to mapquest it and get an estimated driving time, even though I've made the drive myself, to make sure it's realistic. The more you know about what you are writing, the less research you're going to have to do, but you can always find something to research in a story.
This requires the least research out of all, especially if you are writing almost moment by moment from experience. For instance, the first chapter of the story Amazing.com, is from my personal experience. Even the things the boys yell at the hockey players are almost direct quotes. So for that chapter, I did absolutely no research. I didn't need to. I knew exactly what I was writing down. If you're writing from personal experience, you can even get things wrong. I remember when I was younger, some people started making a big deal because the time frame that Laura Ingalls Wilder said it took her family to travel was impossible --it was either a lot more or a lot fewer miles; I can't remember which. Did I care? Not really; it didn't detract from the story. However, if she had told me that every night her family curled up to watch Friends reruns, I'm going to have some trouble believing anything she says.
I don't know everything. For instance, I didn't know what was a reasonable salary for a fish gutter until I talked to a fisherman in Rockport, Texas. I didn't know what the process for fostering was until I talked to a family I know who adopted their two kids after fostering several others. Languages fall under this category, too. When October and Orlando flew to London, you can bet your buttons I did research and came up with a trip itinerary for them, mapped out how long it would take them to get from place to place, and posted on a message board to find out how long was reasonable to be spent at each attraction. Now, would someone have called me on it if I hadn't done all that? Perhaps not. But if someone is writing a story about something I know about --say someone is writing about Irish step dancing and tries to convince me that a treble jig and a slip jig are the same thing-- it discredits them. I have a harder time letting myself believe their story. And if it's too big an error, I may stop reading the story all together.
Let's jump back to Mademoiselle for a second. Did I have to create a timeline for myself of events that took place in the French Revolution, even when Lourdes is on the other side of the globe? Well, no. I could have just gotten the important dates and left it at that. However, with this timeline, I can show how any event at all still reaches across the ocean to her, and that makes the story more believable to the reader. If I'm reading a story and the author has obviously done their research because they're getting things right and historical figures or battles or whatnot that even I've never heard of, I'm going to be impressed and I'll be more likely to let myself believe what they're telling me.
Children. If you have a child doing something unrealistic for their age, I'll call you on it, and if it doesn't get fixed or gets worse, I'll stop reading if I haven’t already.
Texas. Hollywood stereotypes Texas horribly. If you mess with my state, I'll call you on it, and stop reading.
Medical things. I may not notice if you get something wrong medically, however if you're putting a cast on a buckle break for six weeks, I'm going to have some serious questions for you.
Cultural bias. If you make stupid assumptions about other cultures, I'm probably going to call you a bigot and never read your story again. No, not all Mexicans are poor, not all Middle-Easterners are terrorists, not all black people are in gangs.
Don’t even get my started on fanfictions, which seem to almost all be written by the most unknowledgeable, not-going-to-research-no-matter-what authors ever.
There are many, many more, but I'll stop.