When You Hate to Research

That’s me, by the way.  I don’t really enjoy research and am never going to get lost in it and forget to write a novel.  In fact, what Advanced Fiction Writing says is absolutely true:

If you hate research, then [you] are probably not doing enough of it and your fiction writing is going to suffer in various ways.

* Sigh * Yup, it’s true.  It also doesn’t help when I see another writer produce a huge list of questions about details to research and all I want to do is hide because I’ve instantly gotten overwhelmed.  Don’t mistake this — I like some of the information I find because it does inspire creativity, like researching Chinaman’s Hat in Hawaii:

Screen reader: Palm trees and grass frame an island shaped like a hat the Chinese immigrants used to wear.

Butt the process of research is at the opposite end of creativity.  I’d almost rather do proofreading.

Almost.  Proofreading is pretty boring!

So it starts with making the research as efficient as possible.

I have to know exactly what I need.  What I’ve been doing is identifying details in scenes that I need to research.  Like if the scene is set outside, “What are common trees in Hawaii?”

Screen reader: Shot of a monkeypod tree in Hawaii, which resembles an umbrella.

Then all I have to do is bring the list of questions with me and hunt down the information with a fast scan through.  I also have to make sure I take good notes so I don’t have to repeat the research. Been there, didn’t want to do it, but got stuck doing it anyway.  I’ve always had a problem with being able to take useful notes, so I’ve been experimenting with visual note taking.

The time to do the research is also a consideration.  I ran across a reference in a book where a non-fiction writer would do footnotes when he wasn’t feeling particularly inspired.  So I try to do the research when I know I’m probably not going to be writing.  That way, it doesn’t feel like it’s cutting into the writing time.

Do you hate to research?  What do you do to make the process of it less painful?

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How do you take these three diverse subject — a princess, a boatman, and a lizard — and make them into a story?  My short story “Six Bullets” turns the princess into a soldier who has to fight an army of warriors of a river.  Check out the Forward Motion anthology, A Princess, a Boatman, and a Lizard.

 

Temples and Worship in #Hawaii

One of the most fascinating things I discovered in researching Hawaii as a basis for my fictional country in Miasma is that there was a unique culture that developed there.  The Hawaiians loved being out of doors–no surprise, considering how beautiful the islands are.   The Hawaiians believed that gods were in everything around them, and their worship was conducted in open air temples.  There were two types:

Simple: This temple consisted of an altar, consecrated images, and a raised platform.  The “consecrated images” are the tubular images Hawaii is famous for.  There’s some great photos of them on Travelographer.

Complex: This type of temple includes all of the above, plus a refuse area, burial grounds, and oracle towers.   The tower might be 20 feet high and covered with kapa, which is a type of cloth made in Hawaii.  Since these were more elaborate, they were often built at the direction of a powerful chief who could recruit the people to do it.

After reading up on the culture, I could easily imagine the Hawaiians setting up a temple near a waterfall like my picture to worship the god that made it.  Or certainly, in my case, the people of my fictional country!

What imaginary travels have you found in your research?

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Also check out my other posts on this setting for Miasma:

Magic Not Volcanoes

One of My Settings

 

 

Hawaii Five-0: Action in Paradise

Hawaii was a great initial reason to tune into the TV series Hawaii Five-0.  It’s a Hawaii 2.0 of the original series which starred Jack Lord.  One of the comments made at the time of the new series premiere was that the original version was an average detective show with Hawaii, a great theme, and Jack Lord’s hair (hair makes people watch a show?).

It’s still a detective show, but it has Steve McGarrett now as a Navy SEAL (that’s a very elite military role that only a few attain), so there’s lots of action in episode.  But it’s a fun kind of action, meant simply to entertain.

My favorite characters are not the main stars, but the Asian actors who play Kono (Grace Park), Chin Ho (Daniel Dae Kim), and Wu Fat (Mark Dacascos, who is also appearing on Iron Chef America).  First time Mark Dacasos appeared on the screen, my response was, “No way!”  His casting made me want to see more.

Thankfully, one thing the show has stayed away from is dressing Grace Park as often as possible in skimpy clothing or bikinis in every episode.  There’s some of it, yes, but we viewers don’t see with regularity in scenes with the guys.  Many of those scenes have clothing that is appropriate for for climate and locale (sleeveless t-shirts).  Whereas, on Charmed, which had all an women cast, the way the characters dressed made me wonder how the women could be respected for anything.

Kono has a pretty decent role in the show — it doesn’t feel like she’s a token female the networks told the producers to add (Caitlin on Airwolf), especially since the show also has two other semi-regular women characters.  Kono’s had some storylines about her, and she’s — my own personal favorite — had some action scenes of her own.

But I have to say, one of the things I like best about the show is simply that’s in Hawaii. Since Magnum P.I. went off the air years ago, nothing’s been filmed there, and it’s such a great location.

What’s your favorite part of the show?  Tell me about it!

I hope you’ll have a look at my story Grateful for a Gift to ‘Any Soldier,’ published in The Washington Post.  Also check out Voice of a Soldier: Operation Liberty, an anthology of stories about soldiers.  My story “Clarity” is featured in the book.

 

Action, Adventure, Earthquakes — 3 Interesting Facts

An earthquake makes a great action scene.  Hollywood’s done a number of movies, including Earthquake and 10.5.  More recently, the TV series Bones had what looked like an earthquake but turned out to be a water main break.  As the shaking starts, Booth says something like, “Washington DC doesn’t have earthquakes.”

A year later Virginia was struck by a 5.8 earthquake that damaged the National Cathedral and the Washington Monument.

Hollywood is all about making the earthquake exciting, so moviegoers see the ground splitting open and then snapping shut after it swallows a hapless Red Shirt.  Or the ground splits open and follows the fleeing heroine (hmm — Didn’t know earthquakes could see and think).  Of course, the reality is quite different.

These are some interesting facts I discovered while researching earthquakes for my contemporary fantasy, Miasma:

Richter Scale

The Richter Scale is no longer used.  According to the Southern California Seismic Center:

Because he [Richter] defined his scale in terms of these torsion seismometers, once these instruments were replaced by more modern equipment, the conversion used to turn seismogram readings into a measure of magnitude was no longer the exact same scale established by Richter in 1935.

Thank goodness fore research.  This would have been easy mistake to make.

Taking Cover

When I was growing up in Southern California, we went through earthquake drills.  One of the things taught was when an earthquake starts to get into a doorway.  That’s now outdated advice, according to the US Geological Society:

In past earthquakes in unreinforced masonry structures and adobe homes, the door frame may have been the only thing left standing in the aftermath of an earthquake. Hence, it was thought that safety could be found by standing in doorways. In modern homes doorways are no stronger than any other parts of the house and usually have doors that will swing and can injure you.

Locations

When the word ‘earthquake’ is mentioned, we immediately think of California.  The state has been the site of several very destructive major quakes — I’ve been in two.  For Miasma, I based my story on Hawaii, and that state has earthquakes.  In the last week, there were 14.  Just for a comparison though, in the same time frame, California had 398!

What kinds of interesting facts have you run across in your research for your book?  Tell me about them!

I hope you’ll drop in for a visit with my article Writing a Novel When You’re Right-Brained on Vision: A Resource for Writers.  I also have a guest blog on setting on Sue Santore’s blog on October 28.

 

Describing Clothes in a Novel

I attended a Civil War Fashion Show this morning, as part of research for my next book, Masks.  I know I’m going to need to come up with a second plot for the story, and since the modern day part of the story ties into the Civil War, I’m playing with the possibility of the second plot being during the Civil War.

This got me thinking about clothes in the story.  A lot of writers don’t describe characters or clothes.  Some of the reasons I agree with.  I read a few of the Chick Lit books, and they dropped designer names left and right to describe the character’s clothing and shoes.  I was bored because it felt like it was just showing off designer label knowledge.  Telling me a pair of shows is a Givenchy didn’t add anything to the story.

Yet, I always bring clothes into the story in some way.  But not like that.  And it’s for a very simple reasons:  Clothes are setting.  With my contemporary fantasy thriller Miasma, it’s set in a place like Hawaii.  So it would be typical of the characters to wear shorts, t-shirts, and sandals.  If a character wears something different, there’s often a story-related reason.  I have a running joke about shoes, because the main character and his sidekick can’t wear the standard footwear.  Kind of makes it hard to fight monsters or run from them in beach shoes.

Likewise, if a character ended up in a situation where what they were wearing was completely inappropriate the environment — no jacket, and it snows — clothes suddenly become a very important part of the plot.  With the Civil War, things like patterns might denote what social standing a character has.  Someone who is wealthy might have a dress with a large print or lots of trim.  Or an enlisted man’s pants might be stained and worn.  So describing clothes can have a big impact on not just the setting, but the story and characters as well.

By the woman the model in the photo made the dress she is wearing.  She said that a lot of the materials dresses were made of from the Civil War can no longer be found today.  No one’s making them, and where they are available, they are terribly expensive.

 

Challenges of Research

One of the biggest challenges of research is coming up the right keywords to find information on your topic.  There’s the most obvious keyword, but sometimes that doesn’t yield much information, or maybe not what you’re looking for.  I still remember the horror story of doing a paper for a theater class, and I barely squeaked out enough material for the short paper.  I thought I’d looked everywhere at the time and resigned myself to it being a too narrow subject I was stuck with, but years later as I do my Hawaii research, I think my lack of keywords may have contributed to finding barely enough information.  I just looked at the basic subject and didn’t try alternatives variations.

Hawaii’s the basis of my setting for my book.  Not just what everything looks like, but a lot of the elements of the culture.  Some of the cultural aspects are probably not going to be available — during the early 1800s, one of the monarchs dismantled the religion and then the missionaries came, so it changed Hawaii very drastically.  The major source of scholarly information I’ve been able to find was published in the 1930s.

I started first with the basics:  I ran a search in the library’s online catalog.  I didn’t do the internet, because I wanted to make sure the information I was getting was accurate.  Hawaii as a keyword yielded about four pages of results — mainly tour books — before it became novels.  I tried Hawaiian and Hawaiian culture.  Found a couple of non-fiction books, two of which were very good.  One was someone living in Hawaii in the 1960s, and the other was an archetecture book with full color pictures.  I probably should have started with the enclopedia for a broad idea, but the tour books were shiny and got my attention.  The tour books had plenty of great places tourists would want to visit, and some delved a little into the culture.  Not enough.

Time for the encyclopedia.  World Book was very good, and then I used something that’s not available online — I browsed the other books in the same row.  Whoa, what was that?  Encyclopedia of Religion.  Yup, there was something in Hawaii on it, mixed in with Polynesia.  Back to the row again.  Encyclopedia of World Culture.  Another section on Hawaii.  And yet a third refernece.  One of the references reminded me of Man, Myth, and Magic.  Not a lot there.  I also checked an architecture one, without any luck, despite the fact that a book above mentioned a specific name of a popular architect.

One of the culture books got me thinking about art, so now I started looking for art.  Art encyclopedia.  A good write-up that gave me more insight into Hawaiian culture.  Hot on the trail, I headed for the art section for three books on Polynesia art.  Monster books, very heavy.  Ran across a cool book on the history of the Hawaiian shirt (no research there.  I just had to look at it).  Hawaii also has volcanoes, so I looked at volcanoes, though they focused more on how volcanoes worked.

None of the above two paragraphs were in the online catalog under Hawaii.  I had to work at thinking about where else the information could be hiding, then flip through the book to assess what it did have.   I think I’ve got enough material now, so off to story.