Research and writing

When I was a kid, I always imagined that I would write some day. I didn’t realise – at the age of nine – exactly how much time would be spent on research. I had been given the old adage of ‘write what you know’ and somehow imagined that that knowledge alone would be enough to create interesting worlds and adventures for my characters.

This makes it hard, even as an adult, to reconcile the time I spend on research as being ‘writing’ time. Of course, I am able to understand it more logically now – I know I want my stories to have verisimilitude (even the ones about zombies and vampires) and for that to happen I have to look things up. For my last big writing project, I used real maps to help myself get an idea of distance and a sense of place, even though none of my locations were real ones. For my current WIP I am undertaking a lot more research – internal layout of buildings (again for that element of credibility, and also so I don’t have my characters walk around in circles), the lifetime of pre-packaged pastries, the length of time it would take a boat to drift down a certain distance along the Thames – to name but a few of my investigations. I have a mental list of the other topics I will need to research before I am finished, and I know that each of those inquiries will take up precious ‘writing’ time when I am not necessarily getting words on the page.

I am sure I will get used to these alternative demands on my time; it might just be a case of setting certain days aside for research and reminding myself that it is as much a part of ‘writing’ as the typing it out part.