Research and its use in writing! Hayden Lee and Thomas Bickerdyke

Research is an important first step in writing; it allows the writer to gain a wider understanding of contextual issues (if period) and a wider knowledge on his/her subject (whatever it is s/he is writing). For example if the author writes a book about fighter pilots they would want to do research on fighter planes from whichever era the book was set in in order to deliver a more realistic, descriptive and well rounded piece of work. The research can be gained first hand, by going and learning how to say, fly a plane or it could be secondary research using the internet, books, etc on the different parts of a plane and how it works, this enables the writer to enforce more detail whilst writing and to develop more interesting plots etc. As opposed to no research, where the piece would not have as much weight and it would lack detail, which would make it bland and uninteresting. Research would enable the writer to write with a wider understanding of the topic so with more confidence and on a more authoritative level.

Research will usually take time and is often done before starting the piece of writing or near the beginning. Depending on what it is you are researching it could take quite a while, if you were going to have a piece of writing about the ancient Greeks you would need to learn more about their customs and gods and everyday life in order to best set the scene with an accurate depiction of what it was like in that time. Or for example, you want to use archaic terms in your work to make it more authentic and effective since your piece is a period drama but you only know a few archaic terms. Research will enable you to use more terms as well as correct any mistakes you have made for example you have misused a certain archaic term and it has affected your drama by making it amateur(ish).

Another thing that needs to be researched isn’t just ‘the what’ but also ‘the where’, it's not just about what you do but where you do it. A famous example of an author who travelled to places such as Spain during the Spanish civil war and learned about the place he would set his books is Ernest Hemingway, similarly Jack London spent some time in Alaska during the Gold Rush and learned about the land there before going on to write some of his most famous works set there.

Another way of doing research is interviewing people who know about what you wish to write about, for example if your main character is an engineer you could go and interview an engineer to find out about the job, or if you were going to write about a cult or a paranormal horror story you could interview a Demonologist, or if you were going to write a book about dinosaurs, a paleontologist. Research like this will help develop and strengthen your idea/plot for your piece, as it will shape how you think. It will also show you what other writers have achieved and how they used different techniques in their work. Sometimes doing this can provide you with ideas and things that you haven’t thought about before.

Something to keep in mind when using research is that if the piece of writing is non-fiction then although you want to be accurate you can also take some creative liberties with the writing. Can people really out-run an explosion? No but it makes for a great scene. Does Jack London know the thought process of the animals he  wrote about? Not really. If you lay accurate foundations for the work though people will be able to forgive, and appreciate, the odd moments when you suspend fully accurate realism for a better story.