Are you writing? Reading? (Procrastinating?) Today the Tuesday Femmes are talking about what we know, and how we know it. And then, what we do with it. Research I mean. Or no research?
Research or invent?
ALEXIA GORDON: I invent. I use real geographic locations--southwestern Ireland, coastal Virginia--but I make up the names of the towns, the names of the streets, the locations of buildings, the distances between point a and point b. I read about an author who visited Broadmoor to find out what a facility for the criminally insane was like and of an author who went hiking in the Alps to retrace the steps of a spy who fled the Nazis along the same path. Time and budget constraints prevent me from doing that type of on-site research. I try to make a quick visit to a place similar to the place I'm inventing--an island in the Great Lakes, an Irish village, a small southern town--to get a general idea of what such a place would be like then I use the internet to research specifics like what Georgian architecture looks like, where do the train lines run, and so on.
CATRIONA MCPHERSON: I've done it various ways. When I set a book in my home village of South Queensferry, I used real names and had a map and everything. (It was 1926, so the lawyers didn't get too antsy.) The research was me walking round with my dad and listening to him telling me stuff. I can recommend it! I've set books in real houses.
AS SHE LEFT IT took place in my pal Diane's house in Leeds. She read the book in the house. And THE CHILD GARDEN was my love letter to the house I lived in in Galloway for ten years. Sigh. And QUIET NEIGHBORS used a whole real town - Wigtown.
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Well, all my books are in Boston. And Boston is Boston. And I try, much as I can, to make it be realistic and correct—I always worry that someone will email and say—hey! Beacon Street is one way, but not past Mass Ave. So when I can, real is safer. Plus , after 30 some years as a reporter here, it’s familiar. Who knew I was doing book research all that time? (The hilarious part, though, is when I am at the real place where something happened in the book. I’ll say--oh, here’s where Jane was mugged by the bad guy! Then I think no—I made that up….
Stay true to reality or tweak as needed?
CATRIONA: I do tweak. In QUIET NEIGHBORS, there's a book shop on the site of the helpfully named "The Bookshop" but it's a different one. My fictional bookshop is based on one in Norfolk, a few hundred miles to the south. I've also used a Galloway village - Durisdeer - and plonked it down in the county of Fife (in BURY HER DEEP), flattening an existing village and throwing up a volcanic mountain. The power is dizzying.
Tweaking went wrong for me once, when a woman turned up muddy and flustered to a library talk in Queensferry, having spent the afternoon looking for Cassilis Castle. I said at the end of the book that the castle was actually in Galloway (Cardoness) and I'd dragged it north for plot purposes. But she'd only read half the book and didn't know. She was quite annoyed, as I remember.
HANK: Well, all my books are in Boston. And Boston is Boston. As I said. But! Only sort of. For instance, I don’t have a murderer live at an address that exist. I’ll sort of open up the map and insert a new Hank street between two real streets.
In SAY NO MORE, there’s an exclusive neighborhood near Fenway Park. So Fenway is Fenway, and there is a real neighborhood there, but It’s not called what I called it, and the streets are invented. Still, it all looks like it would if it were real.
But in TRUST ME (the new book), I made up an entire town. Because I needed things to be the way I wanted them to be, and the history of the town to be what I wanted it to be. It still feels like a proper Massachusetts suburb. And if you didn’t look it up, you might think oh, Linsdale, I’ve been there! It’s right near Newton. But...it isn’t. It’s only in my head.
And I say in the acknowledgements: Please understand--and forgive--my manipulation of geography!
ALEXIA: Tweak away! Since my settings are made up, sticking to reality isn't an issue for me.
What do you only get face-to-face, feet on ground and what can you get through the internet?
HANK: Oh, all of the above. I spent some time today looking at maps of Boston Common, what streets are there, and all, and which direction. And google Earth is terrific—you can really walk thought the area! It’s mesmerizing. But I would have preferred to be there for the actual setting—how the old elm looks, for instance, or if the sidewalk has frost heaves. And I always look up the time of sunset, so I can be sure the light changes at the right time, and whether the street lights would be on.
ALEXIA: The internet provides me with facts. So many facts. I've been amazed at what you can find with a few well-chosen keywords. However, I agree, Hank. Google can't give you the feeling of a place. You need to be on-site to understand what it feels like to be somewhere. It's one thing to read about riding a ferry in a storm, or having high tea in a fancy restaurant, or seeing the view from a hotel balcony. But reading about these things doesn't give you the same information experiencing them does.
CATRIONA: I agree, Alexia. I pore over maps but visiting a place always surprises me. One time I was researching the site of an action scene that I thought would be in deep green countryside - Thomas Hardy land - but when I actually climbed the hill all I could see was the sea laid out before me, a massive sparkling sweep of water. It would have been ridiculous to have Dandy Gilver on that hill not mentioning the sea. Phew. And then there's things like not mentioning the sudden bitter cross-winds as you turn a corner in Manhattan, or the length of time it takes to get up from the deepest tube stops in London, or the fact that it's still daylight at ten o'clock in June in the Scottish Highlands . . .
HANK: And knowing reality advances the story, right? It always does for me!
So Femmes and friends, how about you? Tell us your research secrets!
Great post. One other problem with relying on maps and photographs is that they don’t always show how hilly or flat a place is. And as Catriona mentioned, only by being there do you really get a sense of what you can see or feel (or smell) from a certain vantage point. Much easier to invent a town!
Posted by: Kathy Lynn Emerson | February 27, 2018 at 04:01 AM
I don't know much about most places, so I take authors' word for it most of the time.
One exception was a book I read where the action led the characters to the town where I live...and the authors got the freeways wrong. How hard is that to look up on Google Maps? Seriously! I was already annoyed by the book, and that did nothing to change my mind at all. (And there was no reason plot wise to change it. This was just a lazy mistake.)
Posted by: Mark | February 27, 2018 at 08:46 AM
Kathy, so true! And I always find something I wouldn't have--it always advances the story!
Posted by: Hank Phillippi Ryan | February 27, 2018 at 11:51 AM
Mark, so frustrating! And more so in that it would have been just as easy to get it right. What a coincidence, though, for you to be reading it!
Posted by: Hank Phillippi Ryan | February 27, 2018 at 11:52 AM
Argh, Mark. That's such an easy thing to check too. Some things are very difficult - like whether people in Edinburgh would by ready-made fondant icing in 1984. Still my thorniest research question ever.
Posted by: catriona | February 27, 2018 at 01:29 PM
Oh Hank, I pity the poor tourist trying to find Linsdale . . . because I know you will make it THAT realistic.
I do love reading books set in places I have been, extending the travel with literary adventures. <3
Posted by: Storyteller Mary | March 01, 2018 at 07:40 AM