research on novel

How to organize research for your novel

Follow this step-by-step guide to learn the modern process of organizing research in Milanote, a free tool used by top creatives.

How to organize your research in 7 easy steps

Whether you're writing a sci-fi thriller or historical fiction, research is a crucial step in the early writing process. It's a springboard for new ideas and can add substance and authenticity to your story. As author Robert McKee says "when you do enough research, the story almost writes itself. Lines of development spring loose and you'll have choices galore."

But collecting research can be messy. It's often scattered between emails, notes, documents, and even photos on your phone making it hard to see the full picture. When you bring your research into one place and see things side-by-side, new ideas and perspectives start to emerge.

In this guide, you'll learn the modern approach to collecting and organizing research for your novel using Milanote. Remember, the creative process is non-linear, so you may find yourself moving back and forth between the steps as you go.

1. First, add any existing notes

You probably know a lot about your chosen topic or location already. Start by getting the known facts and knowledge out of your head. Even if these topics seem obvious to you, they can serve as a bridge to the rest of your research. You might include facts about the location, period, fashion or events that take place in your story.

Create a new board to collect your research.

Create a new board

Drag a board out from the toolbar. Give it a name, then double click to open it.

Add a note to capture your existing knowledge on the topic.

Drag a note card onto your board

Start typing then use the formatting tools in the left hand toolbar.

2. Save links to articles & news

Wikipedia, blogs, and news websites are a goldmine for researchers. It's here you'll find historical events and records, data, and opinions about your topic. We're in the 'collecting' phase so just save links to any relevant information you stumble across. You can return and read the details at a later stage.

Drag a link card onto your board to save a website.

Install the  Milanote Web Clipper

Save websites and articles straight to your board. 

Save content from the web

With the Web Clipper installed, save a website, image or text. Choose the destination in Milanote. Return to your board and find the content in the "Unsorted" column on the right.

3. Save quotes & data

Quotes are a great way to add credibility and bring personality to your topic. They're also a handy source of inspiration for character development, especially if you're trying to match the language used in past periods. Remember to keep the source of the quote in case you need to back it up.

Add a note to capture a quote.

4. Collect video & audio

Video and movie clips can help you understand a mood or feeling in a way that words sometimes can't. Try searching for your topic or era on Vimeo , or Youtube . Podcasts are another great reference. Find conversations about your topic on Spotify or any podcast platform and add them into the mix.

Embed Youtube videos or audio in a board. 

Embed Youtube videos or audio tracks in a board

Copy the share link from Youtube, Vimeo, Soundcloud or many other services. Drag a link card onto your board, paste your link and press enter.

5. Collect important images

Sometimes the quickest way to understand a topic is with an image. They can transport you to another time or place and can help you describe things in much more detail. They're also easier to scan when you return to your research. Try saving images from Google Images , Pinterest , or Milanote's built-in image library.

Use the built-in image library. 

Use the built-in image library

Search over 500,000 beautiful photos powered by Unsplash then drag images straight onto your board.

Save images from other websites straight to your board. 

Roll over an image (or highlight text), click Save, then choose the destination in Milanote. Return to your board and find the content in the "Unsorted" column on the right.

Allow yourself the time to explore every corner of your topic. As author A.S. Byatt says "the more research you do, the more at ease you are in the world you're writing about. It doesn't encumber you, it makes you free".

6. Collect research on the go

You never know where or when you'll find inspiration—it could strike you in the shower, or as you're strolling the aisles of the grocery store. So make sure you have an easy way to capture things on the go. As creative director Grace Coddington said, "Always keep your eyes open. Keep watching. Because whatever you see can inspire you."

Download the  Milanote mobile app

Save photos straight to your Research board. 

Take photos on the go

Shoot or upload photos directly to your board. When you return to a bigger screen you'll find them in the "Unsorted" column of the board.

7. Connect the dots

Now that you have all your research in one place, it's time to start drawing insights and conclusions. Laying out your notes side-by-side is the best way to do this. You might see how a quote from an interviewee adds a personal touch to some data you discovered earlier. This is the part of the process where you turn a collection of disparate information into your unique perspective on the topic.

That's a great start!

Research is an ongoing process and you'll probably continue learning about your topic throughout your writing journey. Reference your research as you go to add a unique perspective to your story. Use the template below to start your research or read our full guide on how to plan a novel .

Start your research

Get started for free with one of Milanote's beautiful templates.

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How To Research Your Novel – A Step-By-Step Guide

Are you ready to start your novel? Do you want to make it believable? Not all stories are scientifically sound, but even ones with magic or set in futuristic worlds have a sense of reality that captures their readers. Research is a major part of making any story feel life-like, but it isn’t always easy to know where to start. This guide will show you how!

How to begin researching

Before you start, you need to decide the overall theme or topic of your novel. Do you want to share a life lesson? Do you want to capture a sense of horror? Maybe you want to tell a story about a relationship or a historical event. 

You might have an idea what you want to write about already. Whether you do or not, take a moment to ask yourself these questions:

What kind of story do I want to tell?

Is it centered around a real-world experience?

Will it be set in a fictional world or reality?

What genre will it fall in?

Who is your target audience?

Who are the main characters?

If you have all of the answers for these already, great job! But if not, don’t worry. You don’t need them all just yet. You will find the answers as you continue through this guide. 

Let’s take the questions one at a time.

This focuses on the theme or topic of your story. It could also mean the atmosphere – is this a comfort story? Something to disturb your readers? Something to provoke thought? 

Maybe you want to talk about the effects of pent up thoughts to the human psyche. Or perhaps you want to share a comedic allegory. Whatever it may be, it is what will make your story a story.

Take some time and look at your favorite films, TV series, and novels. What do you love so much about them? What are they about? What message do they tell? Do you see a common theme between them? 

Use this information to decide where you’d like your own story to go.

This could be anything from a small interaction you had with someone to a historical event. 

While that sounds like it only applies to non-fiction novels, it doesn’t have to. A real-world experience can be translated into an essence or idea – for example, Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game is about military strategy and economic tensions between humans and an alien race, but it is inspired by Cold War tensions between the U.S. and Soviet Union after WWII.

You get to decide. 

Are you the type of person who finds a setting is essential to the story, and loves reading about details of places in books? Do you like the idea of making up your own cultures, norms, or an alternative society? If yes, fictional world-building might just be your thing.

If you prefer to keep it in the real world, keep in mind the time period* and location you are aiming for. Placing a smartphone in 1854 wouldn’t work, unless you were writing alternative historical fiction.

On that note, you can also place your story in the “real world” but make changes yourself. Many stories include cities and towns that don’t actually exist. Others are inspired by real places. Veronica Roth’s Divergent series is placed in a dystopian version of Chicago, Illinois – completely unrecognizable from the real city.

*If you do choose to write historical fiction, spend some time researching the years your story will span. Focus on the customs, beliefs, and lifestyles people had back then. Take lots of notes. Set up a timeline of events to help guide your story. Feel free to reach out to experts for specific questions or even read a diary or two from someone who lived during that time.

This question might not be answered until you’ve completed your novel. It can be tricky. There are so many options to choose from, and many niches and subgenres.

If you run into trouble defining which genre your story actually falls into, take a look at genre descriptions like this one for more information. If your story contains elements of multiple genres, select the one it has the most of as the one to define it, or research if there is a subgenre that combines them. 

Maybe you want to have this answered before you even start. In that case, look at genre charts now and understand what types of themes and characters occur in each one. This will help you get an idea of what kind of conflict your story will have, what the characters will be like, and what your audience will expect.

Your target audience goes hand-in-hand with your chosen genre. Are you trying to attract mystery-lovers? Horror enthusiasts?

But it also includes certain demographics. Are you writing romance for middle-aged, single women? Self-help for college students? Moral lessons for tweens? 

Select an age range that might be interested in your story. Then, break it down into more demographics if necessary – occupation, interests, income level. 

You don’t want to write a novel about your fixer-upper journey and how you became debt-free at the age of 32 for retired millionaires. That would be for young adults (just-graduated high school students entering the workforce, college students, young newlyweds) looking to gain independence, buy their first house, pay off loans, and start a new hobby or source of income.

Write down each character and start defining who they are – their personalities, their motivations, their conflicts. 

It may help you to do a quick Google search for character charts . They are often a good character-building practice and can help guide you when you feel lost.  Many of them include details you won’t need in your novel, but they can help you get to know your characters better.

A good reader will notice when there are unseen details about your characters that they might not know, but you do. Whether you realize it or not, those details will bleed into your story. They make your characters feel much more alive.

Continuing your research

As you dive into the details of your story, you’ll want to make sure the information you collect is accurate, relevant, and from trustworthy sources.

When conducting your research, be sure to use reputable sources and cross-reference your facts. This can be especially important for a work of historical fiction, science fiction, or even fantasy. 

Get in contact with an expert – not only will they give you useful information and confirm details, but they can offer a different perspective. If one of your characters is a geologist, talking to a geologist and getting their opinion on your character wouldn’t hurt. 

When you’re ready, have other people read your novel and ask them for feedback. You do a lot while writing – you won’t catch everything on your own. Readers can help you find any plot holes or inaccuracies.

Writing a novel can be hard work and it’s easy to fall into a rabbit hole while learning about new and interesting things. You can make sure you stay on track while gathering information by setting up a timeline or map of your research. Take lots of notes and write down the source of any information you gather to reference back to later.

Start with your characters. Follow a character chart to learn about their personalities, goals, and motivations. The more you understand your characters, the easier it will be to tailor your research to their stories. Then, move on to your setting. Know the location, the climate, the culture. These details will help you fill in your own story and you gather more information.

Trustworthy

You don’t want to have false facts in your story. To get the most out of your research, consider looking at primary sources like diaries, newspaper articles, or interviews with people who experienced something first-hand or are an expert in their field. You can also find credible secondary sources in books, research papers, videos, and even blog posts.

Researching a believable novel

After following these steps, your novel should be believable. The key is relevancy. 

For example, if you’re writing a crime novel, look into the criminal justice system. Interview a judge or a police officer. Read up on past crimes to study criminal patterns. Read reports from psychologists to learn different mindsets and apply them to a character. 

Focus on your characters and setting, and conduct your research based on what you know about them. Be open to asking questions and always learning more.

And most importantly, have fun with it!

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How to research a novel: the 7 most up-to-date tips

Much of the advice available on researching novels is now dated. So this blog post includes the best modern tips on how to research fiction, with a case study included.

There I’ll show you step-by-step how I used the tools described below to construct a chapter in one of my novels. Once you’ve read through the tips and the Case Study  you can even jump here  to preview an ebook version of the completed product, which will give you a chance to assess how effective these tips are.

But first, for those who like to skim, let’s sum up the 7 basic pieces of advice on novel research.

How to research a novel

• Use Pinterest as you research your novel by building a  visual reference guide
• Use tools like Google Street View to add a  dash of realism  to descriptions
• Wikipedia is good for researching cultures, places and times for  historical novels
• Use  Instagram hashtags  to research specific locations in your novel
• You can use your  dreams  as a research tool!
• Remember to  step through the screen as you research
• Post questions on Quora and Reddit to tap the real  experience of strangers

1. Use Pinterest when researching your novel

Pinterest isn’t just great for collecting ideas for your next bathroom renovation or helping you find a really great bridesmaids dress – it’s also an invaluable tool for fiction writers looking to build a mental picture of what they’ll write about.

The key to Pinterest is that it’s a visual medium. So what you’re doing when using Pinterest to research a novel is  collating images that will enrich your mental picture of the world you’re writing . The visual side of what you write is really important, and collecting images into Pinterest boards will give your imagination a real boost.

Tip:  the best advice here is to go all-in on Pinterest. If you use it half-heartedly you run the risk of being excessively influenced by one or two images. But if you invest the time in collecting lots of diverse images that inform each part of your upcoming novel, then it’s more likely that the visuals that you write into the book will be greater than the sum of the parts that inspired them. So go for it: create some boards and start pinning picture that you find.

How to build a visual reference guide with Pinterest

There are two way you can approach Pinterest for novel research. The simplest is just to create a Pinterest account for yourself (or use your current one) then have it on hand as you browse the net so that you can pin images that inspire you as you stumble across them. The other more proactive way is to spend time researching in order to build a visual reference guide for each part of your book. To do this create boards for each aspect of your book that you feel needs more visual input – then search (both inside Pinterest and out) to build a visual library of images that speak to you. You can then refer back to these when writing to help spark your creativity.

Use Pinterest to create a mood board for each chapter

You can also collate images in Pinterest when researching your novel simply to help put your finger on a particular mood. A mood board for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, for instance, might include a board entirely filled with images of crumbling castles. But it could also include a mood board filled with photos of Romanian peasant village life to inform other scenes, and boards with images of upper-class Victorian life for the scenes that take place in London.

Use Pinterest to create a visual guide for each character

Drawing a blank when you try to picture an important character? Don’t stress. Just jump on Google Images and search all of the phrases that you have for your character. Are they tall, dark and brooding – Google that! Now look through any images that gel with what you had in mind and add them to the relevant board. Then rinse and repeat. By the end you’ll have a great sense of how your character looks.

2. Use Google products to research your novel

As the Google suite of products has expanded, so too have the tools available to authors. Don’t overlook the research techniques that Google now puts at your disposal.

Measure distance and travel times

When  Character A  needs to get to  Location B  it can help – if you’re writing in the real world, rather than a fantasy location – to ask Google for directions, in order to get a realistic sense of travel times. Writing about a road trip that you haven’t actually taken yourself? Avoid alienating readers that know the place by getting your distances and details right. And when it gets really crucial you can even use a point-to-point measuring tool in Google Maps by right clicking with you mouse on the map. That sniper shot across New York’s Central Park in your latest thriller is going to be that much more realistic when you know the space is exactly 845 metres wide.

Use Google Street View for flashes of veracity

Another great tip is dropping the little yellow figure on to the map to see exactly what any given street looks like from street level. You can really lift a scene – especially one set in a real place that you’ve never been to – by having your character note landmarks that are actually there. Maybe have them reflect on a church, or a distinctive building – or even notice some street art on a mural. Google Street View will help you add this layer of authenticity.

Find real shops and restaurants for particular scenes

In a similar vein to the point above, you can also easily set key scenes in real places with a little internet research. This can be a neat way to add veracity to a book, but it’s also a good way to step beyond your own visual limitations. What I mean is that you probably have a fairly straightforward scene in your head if you were to picture a generic cafe or restaurant – so by finding a real place online, you can really freshen a scene with a dose of reality. Top tip: menus are generally available via Google too!

Install Google Keep on your phone for taking notes on the go

Researching books isn’t just about collecting facts, it’s about having enough impressions and ideas to bring your scenes and characters – and their thoughts – to life for a reader. So if you see something unusual or striking in your day-to-day, jot it down and have your character notice it themselves in some scene, for that extra dash of realism. A notebook and pen in your back pocket is ideal for this – but better still is installing  Google Keep on your phone so you can take your notes down there. You can organise them into handy sections, they’ll be automatically backed up to the cloud, and you can even record voice notes for when you’re on the move.

Use baby name databases for character names

There are a lot of internet baby name databases designed to help parents choose a moniker for bubs – and most include the meaning and origin of each name, which is very helpful if you want your character names to resonate with your themes. Have a strong female Middle Eastern character? Find an Arabic woman’s name that means ‘brave’. Or you can easily do a little Googling to find out, for example, what working class men’s names were popular in Victorian England. After all you cockney jewel thief main character won’t ring true when he is called Tarquin or Eustace if real cockneys of the time were called Frankie or Bill.

3. Use Wikipedia to research places and cultures for historical novels

Wikipedia is an invaluable tool for historical novelists. Its accounts of various historic periods, places, people, cultures and religions are a veritable rabbit hole that you can fall down, with convenient hyper-links to each related topic. Just be sure to copy out the parts that are most useful, so you don’t lose them as you venture deeper in…

4. Use Instagram to research places for your novel

Instagram is naturally a useful resource when building a mood board for any given character or scene (see the tips on using Pinterest above) but perhaps its greatest use for novelists planning a book is in helping authors visualise places that they’ve never been. Travel photographers here are a goldmine. Simply search for a certain location or place by hashtag, and follow anyone who regularly posts from that place for a steady stream of genuine visuals. For instance when researching for  my young adult series set near Afghanistan and Iran  I found a series of fantastic young Iranian photographers who regular posted pics that totally expanded my awareness of what those places really look like.

5. Use your dreams as a research tool

Okay here I’m not talking about your deepest wishes and desires – I’m talking about your actual nighttime dreams. These are a tremendous resource of material for any work of fiction and, unlike all of the internet research resources listed above, your dreams are utterly unique to you. If you’re lucky enough to have good dream recall, then get in the habit of jotting down in a notepad beside your bed what you can remember when you wake. If you do that before they fade you’ll find them invaluable material for any creative work – especially novels.

6. Remember to step through the screen

Okay, hopefully you’re finding these tips useful, but before we go on let’s remember one important thing. The internet has no smell and it doesn’t have a sense of touch. So there’s a real risk when you research a novel that the material you uncover is one-dimensional. Remember, your job as a writer is to make people  feel  an experience, not simply visualise or think about it. So be sure to step through the computer screen when you research and try to imagine what the things you are finding out about actually feel like in real life.

7. Use Quora and Reddit to research your novel

Quora and Reddit are online communities where you’ll get great traction by posting questions  – so they’re another great tool for fiction research, especially on hard facts like ‘How far can a soldier march in one night?’ or ‘What’s the maximum operating altitude for a hot air ballon?’. And because those communities are full of random experts in all sorts of curious corners of knowledge, you can tap them for specialist details that you simply can’t source elsewhere: ‘What rights did women have in 17th Century Spain?’ perhaps (for those historical novelists again), or ‘What was considered elderly in Viking culture?’.

Top tip:  identify these questions early on and post them at the start of your research journey to give people time to respond.

Use Quora and Reddit for the feels

Most importantly though, unlike any of the other research tools above, you can use these platforms to find out what an experience is actually  like . Be sure to ask things like ‘What does it feel like being in your first firefight?’ or ‘What’s it like being swept up by an avalanche?’. This is the kind of level of realism that can make your novel shine.

Some Dos and Don’ts when researching a novel

To wrap up this part of what has hopefully been a useful post – and before we get in to a  Case Study  that gives an actual example of how this sort of research can play out, let’s look at some final dos and don’ts of the novel research game:

• Do  use internet research to spark your imagination.
• Don’t  use internet research to just assemble a collection of other people’s ideas.
• Do  let research morph into actual writing. You need to take your inspiration where it comes.
• Don’t  forget to back up your research (and manuscript). A simple upload to a free cloud service like Google Drive will save you heartache when your laptop harddrive fries or you leave it on the train.
• Do  store your research in one place. Even a simple word doc with links at the start to all relevant social media accounts (e.g. Pinterest, Quora) followed by notes broken into sections will do.
• Do  use your local library – but as a last resort. A physical trip there is likely a waste of your time, however pleasant. Find out what books you want to borrow by searching online, then order them through your library’s website.

Case study: Researching a novel in the age of Google

One of the things that only strikes you about writing a book  after  you’ve sat down and started is how crucial it is to write from immediate experience. It can be a real struggle to describe something you haven’t seen, smelled, heard and observed personally – and to stop it being a hollow and phoney reduction of other books and movies you’ve digested. Anyone who reads it is likely to sniff out that it’s phoney right away, and biff the book.

With this in mind, I thought I’d describe the process of writing a fiction chapter entirely via Google products – Google Maps, Streetview, Earth and Images – plus some extra research on Wikipedia.

It’s something that should have sounded a death knell for the chapter in question – but in this case, I think it worked. In fact, it’s probably my favourite out of the whole 87,000 word novel. (For those interested in seeing how using this approach played out, the chapter in question can be found in  Effra, A Novel  here)

It was a funny passage though. I decided to write it at a point where almost everything in the book had been planned. I had the logic of the plot and the themes and the development of the main characters all planned out in a kind of delicate arrangement (it only lacked a finale – that would come later). In my head it looked like a model of DNA – different threads wrapping around each other, all building towards a greater purpose. And I was pretty pleased with that image, because for a LONG time it had looked like a ball of wool that a cat’s played with. But then something funny happened. I’d sorted the logic of what happened and why and to whom – and the excitement died.

It felt like any reader who was familiar with basic story-telling would feel they were being hurried to a foregone conclusion. I was being careful to write a tight story, one without a lot of fat in it, but as a consequence you could see the bones. You could sense the logic. The story felt  inevitable  – and because it felt inevitable, it was no longer exciting. I’m a big believer in the reader providing at least half the story – after all,  you  make the pictures in your head,  you  provide the emotion – but a reader who feels like a story is inevitable, gets bored. Why should you care about a story that doesn’t let you play along, that seems intent on having things march along the way  it  wants, and expects you to just tag along for the ride?

So I decided to write something that would let the story breathe. Something completely pointless, that the reader would enjoy reading and I would enjoy writing (I think those two flow into each other): I sent my main characters on holiday.

Just for a short one – a train trip to the countryside for a day. The sort of thing I had done dozens of times from London. And anyway, I needed my characters to get close, and holidays are one way that happens. Perhaps by the time I finished the chapter, sparks would appear…

But where to go? This is where technology came in. I was writing about a trip out of London from a desk in suburban Auckland, and I wasn’t about to hop on a plane for research reasons, the way ‘real’ writers should. I had to do it over the net.

I needed them to visit a town a few hours, max, from London. It had to be on a train line – the characters had no car. It had to be small. And it had to be pretty.

I loaded Google Maps.

From London I scrolled around in a circle, and found the main train lines. Traced along the lines until I found towns – hunting for a small one somewhere nice. Sussex? Surrey? Kent… Kent would be good. Down the line I went, ’til I found Wye.

Well Wye not? Did it look nice? Up came Google Earth, I found the place and zoomed in – trees, fields, a line of hills – it was perfect. But what the hell was that?

The town had looked the right size, so using the tilt tool I’d raised the horizon up to a person’s perspective. That way I could see the place in the same way my characters would. I moved Google Earth to the train station where they’d disembark – and form their first impressions – and hit the 3D button for extra realism.

Up came the hills (or downs, rather), only to reveal a strange symbol carved in chalk – which would be visible from where they’d be standing.

This was perfect. My book had a theme of old things coming up through the surface of the modern – so this seemed like a gift from the gods. I would research what this strange symbol was via Wikipedia, and have my characters check it out as part of their day trip. Done.

Incidentally, anyone who’s read the book or this chapter will probably realise that the process of researching it matches closely to how the narrative evolves. The two characters start off not knowing where to go – they roll out a (real) map – choose the place, then pile out of the station and spot the carved chalk symbol. Everything they do just rolled out of the process of researching the town of Wye over a few days, and I wrote it as I went.

From the station I had them walk up the hill to the carved symbol, then I realised they would soon need some lunch. Out came Google Earth again – I needed to find them a pub. On Google Earth I spotted the next small town over (Crundale I think), and using the distance measure tool, I worked out that it was realistically walkable. Then I switched to Google Maps to get closer. That looked like a pub… I switched to Google Streetview and confirmed it – went back to Google Search to find the pub’s name, and had them walk over there across the downs. Phew.

Hey but what did those downs look like from ground level? At that point I started searching Google images for “Crundale” and “Wye” and found this idyllic shot of people walking between the two towns.

Perfect. What a relaxing image. It had exactly the feel I’d wanted to create in this chapter in the first place – that drifting holiday looseness. So where was the image from? Oh – the website of walking club for older gay men. Ha! And now that I looked closer at the people making their way down the hill, I realised I had a minor character in the making…

The portly gent in the floppy hat seemed just right. Plus, in all this research, I’d stumbled across the fact that Wye and Crundale are hotspots for rare English meadow butterflies. I imagined the gay walker in the photo as an amateur lepidopterist, and the character at the pub, David, was born.

I could go on and on about this chapter – actually I already have – so I’ll cut it short and just say that the whole experience generated a lot of writers luck. The butterfly thing matched with a mention I’d made in the book already; one of the streets in Wye had the same spooky name as a local Brixton lane; I’ve already mentioned the chalk carving: the whole thing just flowed and I wrote at top speed for two days. By the time I got my characters back home to London they, and I, were exhausted and the chapter’s ending – the sparks I’d hoped might be there – they just fell in to place naturally.

So to sum it up – and I’d like to hear what you think on this too – I reckon writing from internet research is dangerous.

For one thing, the internet doesn’t smell (except maybe if you pick that crud out of your mousewheel; I’m not sniffing that – and you shouldn’t either). It doesn’t have breezes or seasons, or move between dawn and dusk – there’s just one constant, backlit ever-day. In short, it’s not tactile in the ways I think you should draw on when writing. And on top of that, the experiences you do have are through someone else. You experience via someone else’s words, camera, website, Google-van, satellite, whatever – seeing things in a way they’ve been seen before – and I think you risk that derivative quality creeping into your writing.

Yet I like how my chapter came out.

And hell, the internet is incredibly powerful – you can get a street view of almost any place in the world, for crying out loud, without spending your life savings flying round the world researching like a ‘real’ writer. So I think that as a literary research tool, it’s here to stay.

But I think it’s crucial that when you use these tools you blend the things you gather with real experiences you’ve had –things that you’ve smelled, seen and thought – or you risk it coming out flat and flavourless.

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How to research for a book: 9 ways to prepare well

Deciding how to research for a book is a personal process, with much depending on your subject. Read 9 tips on how to research a novel:

• Post author By Jordan
• No Comments on How to research for a book: 9 ways to prepare well

How to research for a book: Scope, process, tools

• Define the scope of research
• List headline research you’ll need
• Do a ‘quick and dirty’ search
• Lean on .edu and library resources
• Speak to pros and specialists
• Shadow an expert if applicable
• Read authors on how to research a book
• Have a system for storing research
• Stop when you have enough to write

1. Define the scope of research

Research for a novel easily gets out of hand. You’re writing about Tudor England, for example. The next thing you know you’ve read every doorstop ever written about Anne Boleyn.

Define the scope of research you need to do, first.

This is particularly crucial if you’re new to researching novels.

‘Scope creep’ (where the task becomes bigger and bigger, and the focus dimmer) is a common challenge in research.

If, for example, you’re writing a novel featuring the Tudors (rulers of England between 1485 and 1603), ask questions such as:

• What duration within this era will my story span? (e.g. ‘the last five years of Henry VIII’s life’)
• What information is vital to know? If, for example, you’re writing about a monarch firing a particular associate, this will narrow down your research
• What broad picture elements do I need? (For example, a timeline of key background social or political events within a historical period)

Narrow down what you need to learn to the essentials necessary to begin writing.

2. List headline research you’ll need

Once you know the scope of your research, list the big, main events and subjects you’ll need to cover.

For a historical figure subject like Henry VIII, you might have a list of research to do like this:

• Timeline of major events in the king’s life
• Personality – accounts of what the king was like
• Appearance – descriptions of what the king looked like
• Controversy – king’s many wives, execution of Anne Boleyn, etc.

Make a document with a section per each of the core areas of the story you’ll need to research.

Populate these sections with article snippets, links to educational resources.

(Google, for example ‘Henry VIII reign .edu’ to find information from credible learning institutions.)

3. Do a ‘quick and dirty’ search

In learning how to research for a book, learn how to work smart, not hard. Research the way a student with an assignment hand-in due the next day would, to start.

Use Wikipedia (a no-no in academia). You can find broad information and an idea of what to look for to verify and fact-check later on .edu and library websites , or in physical book copies.

Search amateur history blogs, too. There are many subject enthusiasts who have devoted hours to digging up interesting historical and other information and share their learnings for free in blog articles.

If you’re writing about a real place, use Google Maps to do a street-view virtual tour. You can explore cities you’ve never been to before. Read more more on researching place when you are unable to get there.

Note details to include in scene-setting and worldbuilding such as specific landmarks and architectural details.

Get a professional edit

A good editor will help pinpoint major factual inaccuracies and other issues.

4. Lean on .edu and library resources

When deciding how to research for a book, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, favour credible resources.

You can even find fantastic primary source scans and recordings. Some examples of excellent, free online research resources:

• British Pathé : Pathé News, a producer of newsreels and documentaries from 1910 to 1970 in the UK has a rich and varied archive. It includes original footage (trigger warning: disturbing footage of aircraft explosion) of the Hindenburg Disaster.
• Tudor History: Historical .org websites such as this website on the Tudors provide a wealth of research information .
• The Smithsonian has regular online webinars, exhibitions and more where you can learn about a diverse range of natural history topics from experts.

If online research feels overwhelming, consider taking a course in online research skills.

The University of Toronto also put together this thorough list of questions to guide doing research online .

5. Speak to pros and specialists

Learning how to research a novel is made much easier by experts who are happy to share their knowledge.

If you are researching a specific place, language, historical figure, biological or medical issue or another detail, make a list of experts to reach out to.

Explain your fiction or non-fiction project and why you’d value their insights. You’ll be surprised how many are only too happy to contribute accurate, informed knowledge.

You can also find specialist knowledge in online forums devoted to specific subjects.

6. Shadow an expert if applicable

There’s no single ‘right way’ in how to research for a book.

You could take a leaf out of the method actor’s book, for example, and actually job shadow an expert [ Ed note: Once COVID no longer sets stringent limits on contact ].

Depending on the subject or industry, you may have variable degrees of success. For example, shadowing a medical professional has other issues involved, such as patient privacy/confidentiality.

In a roundtable discussion on preparing for roles, British actress Vanessa Kirby described job-shadowing on an obstetrics ward to research a role. Because she had never had a child herself, she wanted to give an authentic performance of a woman in labour (around the 18:15 timestamp).

Writing is very much like acting in this respect: You need to be able to fill in the blanks in your own imagination to prepare.

7. Read authors on how to research for books

In deciding how to research for a book, one also needs to decide how/where to use (or alter) source material. It’s helpful to read authors who write historical fiction and other research-heavy genres. What do they say about process?

Hilary Mantel, for example says this about taking creative license with historical facts:

History is a process, not a locked box with a collection of facts inside. The past and present are always in dialogue – there can hardly be history without revisionism. Hilary Mantel: ‘History is a process, not a locked box’, via The Guardian

8. Have a system for storing research

Research for a book easily becomes cluttered.

How do you keep research tidy and manageable, so that you have the information you need when you need it?

Organise your research for a novel with these apps and tools:

• Google Docs: Outline mode creates a clickable outline of your document in a left-hand panel – perfect for jumping between different categories of research.
• Evernote: This handy app makes it easy to snip bits of articles from your browser into collections to sort and store.
• Sytem folders: Create a folder on your operating system for your project, and subfolders for each research topic.
• Novel Novel Dashboard: You can also fill out character profiles and other prompts on Now Novel using historical sources (see an example below).

9. Stop when you have enough to write

In deciding how to research for a book, it’s important to set a stop point.

Ask yourself how much you really need to begin writing. Need to know what would have been served at a royal dinner in the year 1600? Make a note to add this detail later and describe the details of the occasion you can make up to keep going with your draft.

Balancing research and writing will ensure your research is fit to its purpose – finishing your book with relevant and precise detail.

Need help researching your book? Watch our webinar on writing research (and enjoy future live webinars and Q&A sessions too) when you subscribe to a Now Novel plan.

Related Posts:

• 5 easy ways to research your novel
• Historical fiction: 7 elements of research
• Book ideas: 12 fun ways to find them
• Tags how to research your novel

Jordan is a writer, editor, community manager and product developer. He received his BA Honours in English Literature and his undergraduate in English Literature and Music from the University of Cape Town.

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Novel Research: 12 Ways to Ace Your Book

Maybe these self-directed questions will sound familiar:

• What if my novel research isn’t good enough?
• What if I put a street on the wrong side of the city?
• What if I’ve got the dialect all wrong?
• What if I’ve included a glaring anachronism?

The book I’m currently at work on—my historical superhero saga Wayfarer —is set in London during the Regency era (think Jane Austen). In many ways, it has been the most difficult of all the historical novels I’ve written, primarily because it takes place in such a popular period. I had some leeway in writing about the medieval Crusades (for one thing, the language is so different, perfect accuracy isn’t desired much less demanded) and the American west (where legend has taken over fact in so many areas).

But the Regency period? Put a chapeau-bras out of place, and fanatical readers will know it.

Never mind that the book is also set in London, which means correctly portraying a city I’ve never visited.

And don’t get me started on the language. Unlike the Middle Ages, 1820 isn’t so far away that the language of the period isn’t still decipherable to modern ears. What that means, of course, is every word choice must be filtered through not just the demands of British English, but also the question: Did that word even exist back then?

Cue the paranoia.

The Two Sides to Novel Research: Accuracy and Authenticity

There are two good reasons for any author to indulge in this paranoia over “the facts” in a novel (whether it’s historical or not).

Reason #1 to Panic: Your Readers Are Smarter Than You

Scary thought, ain’t it? Now granted, not  all of them are going to be smarter (aka, better read on your subject than are you). But I guarantee there will be a lot of them. No matter how conscientious you are in your research about Roman sewer systems or stamp collecting, there will  always be someone who knows something you don’t . And if that person happens to read your book, they may well call you out on your mistakes.

Reason #2 to Panic: Poor Novel Research Destroys Suspension of Disbelief

This reason is by far the more important of the two, however closely related. The whole point of novel research, after all, is to create a seamless reading experience. We want to immerse readers in the detailed and realistic worlds we create for our characters. If you’ve got your Olympic equestrian character casually mounting her horse on the right side (instead of the left), you’re going to instantly pop that suspension of disbelief bubble for any reader knowledgeable about horses and riding.

Commit to Accuracy in Your Novel Research

In short, blatant inaccuracies can ruin your book. So do your research. End of story. Stop panicking.

Does this sound too simple a solution after all that fear mongering up there?

Maybe a little. But let’s be practical.

There is absolutely  no way you can achieve perfect accuracy in your novel.

Never mind what Yoda says, the best you can do is try. After that, stop worrying about accuracy and start worrying about …  authenticity .

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), 20th Century Fox.

Why Authenticity Is More Important Than Accuracy

A story, by its very nature, is an illusion.

The characters aren’t real. The events aren’t real. The settings and events–even if portraying real life– are Shakespeare’s “but shadows.”

That’s why readers must suspend their disbelief in the first place. And they do. They willingly buy into the magic trick–as long as the magician (that’s you!) makes it  look real.

By far, the most important factor in convincing readers to suspend disbelief is creating a story world that  seems real. Readers aren’t asking for reality ; they only want something that  seems real enough for them to pretend, for a couple hours, that it  is real.

That’s where authenticity comes into play. As long as you have accuracy enough to provide a solid basis for your story, you then have a wide-open canvas upon which to create the illusion of an authentic experience .

To put it indelicately: Hook your readers with the truth and they’ll swallow all the rest of your story’s lies.

How can you find this balance of accuracy and authenticity in your book? Let’s examine twelve steps you can put into action right away.

6 Steps to Achieve Accuracy in Your Novel Research

Novel research is easy. All you have to do is read and remember. But it requires time and discipline upfront. Use these six steps to break your task into manageable bites.

1. Begin With a Basic Understanding of Your Subject

Presumably, if you’re interested in writing about a particular subject, then that very interest has led you to at least a  basic knowledge about it. For example, if you want to write about a homicide detective, then you might have been drawn to the subject because you enjoy TV shows about detectives. You know enough to at least create the framework, in your mind, for a story about a detective of your own.

Castle (2009-16), ABC.

2. Discover the General Questions You Need to Ask

Using that general knowledge, from Step 1, write your outline–or, if you’re a pantser, at least figure out the general beats and events in your story. This will help you get a handle on the general questions you’re going to need to answer about your subject. For example, after writing my outline for my 1920s barnstorming novel  Storming , I ended up with a list of specific research topics I knew I would need to research:

3. Collect a Bibliography

Using those questions/topics, create a research bibliography. Search your local libraries and Amazon to find sources that will answer all your major questions. Depending on the nature of your subject, you may also want to seek out experts with whom you can talk or who can give you access to hands-on experiences.

4. Commit Serious Time to Novel Research

Writers often ask me how much time I devote to novel research. Basically: as long as it takes me to read through my list of research books.  Wayfarer ‘s research took me six months.

And where do I find the time to do all that research?

Easy: writing time. Whatever part of the process I’m working on (whether outlining , researching, writing, or editing), I do it during “writing” time, which for me is two hours every morning. This, of course, means that during the research period, I get to sit around reading all morning and call it work.

5. Organize Novel Research Notes

Don’t trust your memory. Write down everything. Personally, I find it well worth the extra time it requires to  transcribe everything I highlight in my novel research (e-readers make this super easy, since you can find all your highlights online and simply copy/paste them).

This makes my notes searchable on the computer and allows me to collate them under pertinent headings. Your research will do you little good while writing if you can’t access it. (Plus, you can use your discoveries as part of your book marketing campaign to tease readers about your upcoming novels.)

6. Discover the Specific Questions You Need to Ask

Armed with all that general knowledge you gleaned during your novel research, you can then write your book. You should be well equipped to write knowledgeably and confidently about your subject. Even still, you’ll inevitably run into further questions during the blow-by-blow action of the actual story. Some of these questions will be simple enough for you to look up on the Internet during writing. For those that prove more complicated, include them in a running list and do whatever follow-up research is necessary after the first draft.

6 Steps to Achieve Authenticity in Your Novel Research

All that research was your logical left brain’s contribution to your story’s verisimilitude. Now, it’s time to unleash your creative right brain and let it take the scattered pieces of your research and connect the dots between them to creative an  authentic  experience for your readers.

1. Do Your Research

Authenticity must begin with a pursuit of accuracy. You can’t build an authentic experience of life as a concert pianist if you know nothing about music. Emphasizing  authenticity over  accuracy does not provide permission to simply ignore the facts. You must start with a solid foundation of reality if you’re going to have any chance of convincing readers to believe in the  unreal parts of your story.

Amadeus (1984), Orion Pictures.

2. Support Every Lie With Two Truths

In writing any kind of story, you will occasionally find yourself faced with situations in which you either  don’t know the facts or in which the story demands you  tweak the facts to serve the plot.

In either case, here’s a good rule of thumb for protecting the authenticity of your story: Every time you make something up, make sure the “lie” is supported by at least two “truths.”

Historical novels do this all the time by surrounding a fictional character with people who actually existed in the period. We believe in Emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, so why not a general named Maximus while we’re at it?

Gladiator , directed by Ridley Scott, produced by DreamWorks.

3. Show Readers What They Expect to See

The very essence of authenticity is in validating the experience readers  expect to have. Did Al Capone really say, “I want him dead! I want his family dead! I want his house burned to the ground!”?

The Untouchables (1987), Paramount Pictures.

Doesn’t matter, because this is exactly what we  expect Al Capone to say. It creates no cognitive dissonance in our expectations about 1920s gangsters.

The flipside of this is that sometimes you will find you  can’t use certain accurate facts. If a fact doesn’t jive with your readers’ expectations, then you need to question whether its (totally legitimate) inclusion is worth the risk of jostling their suspension of disbelief.

Funny story. In researching my 1901 novel, I was trying to be careful to use slang of the day, syntax–everything. We try, right? Well, I found that even innocent things they WOULD have said sound much too modern. Such as, “You have the coolest yard in town.” Um… sounds all wrong.

4. Don’t Sweat the Details

Remember my paranoia over  Wayfarer ‘s presentation of an accurate 1820 London experience?

On this last edit, I’ve been conscientiously researching the etymology of any word I thought might be suspicious. That’s a lot of suspicion. It’s also, after a certain point, ridiculous.

Can you tell me what’s “wrong” with this excerpt?

He had no notion life wasn’t always a long journey to a distant horizon. Sometimes it ended in a blink, in a blur of fire and pain.

Turns out “blink” and “blur” didn’t mean then what they mean now .

Now, Emma Woodhouse may not have been able to “blink” away the tears that “blurred” her eyes after Mr. Knightley gave her what for. But I gotta tell you: my protagonist totally does. Even though these words aren’t accurate within the historical setting, I would be shocked to discover any reader who noticed, much less took exception, to them.

As an author, you must occasionally make the call to depart from the smaller details of accuracy, for the sake of your overall story. Don’t sweat the details  too much. It is fiction, after all.

5. Maintain Consistency

Here’s the secret to authenticity: it must walk hand in hand with consistency. Indeed, consistency is the whole point . It’s why we avoid every detail that might jar–even if it’s an accurate detail. It’s why we don’t sweat the little, unrecognizable errors. As long you’re presenting your story’s truth with absolute consistency, readers will buy into it with little effort.

6. Show Your Bravado

Finally, be brave. Trust in your skill to create an authentic experience for your readers, and trust in that experience to help readers glide right past the places where you’ve sacrificed absolute accuracy for the sake of the bigger picture.

As any magician knows, you have to sell the performance. If you look like  you believe 100% in the illusion you’ve created, readers will be all the more likely to follow your lead and believe in it themselves.

The Long Trail by Brad Dennison (affiliate link)

But also be wise. Sometimes, no matter how perfect a word is to a scene, it still won’t belong, as in western writer Brad Dennison’s tongue-in-cheek comment to me:

The things you wish you could include in a story. In the western I’m working on now, Johnny McCabe … didn’t even know [his brother] Joe was in the area. … Johnny says to him, “How is it I didn’t see you out there?” Joe says, “Ain’t a man alive can find me if I don’t want to be found.” I would so like to have Johnny say, “What are you, Batman?”

The balance between accuracy and authenticity is ultimately the balance of the entire story. If your mastery of authenticity is strong enough to convince readers to suspend their disbelief, then they’ll forgive–and even embrace–your occasional lapse of accuracy.

Wordplayers, tell me your opinion! What has been the most difficult part of your novel research? Tell me in the comments!

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K.M. Weiland is the award-winning and internationally-published author of the acclaimed writing guides Outlining Your Novel , Structuring Your Novel , and Creating Character Arcs . A native of western Nebraska, she writes historical and fantasy novels and mentors authors on her award-winning website Helping Writers Become Authors.

Egyptian Hieroglyphics.

In my recent manuscript, I had the kids visiting Olympus (easy, it’s like going to the corner store everyone knows it so well) Asgard (just make some stuff up, nobody will know – but again, most of the pantheon are well known), and then the pyramid of Khufu, where I’ve never been, and there will be hieroglyphics that lead them to the secret entry.

Oh man, and the internet can’t agree on the meanings of those!

So I made some reasonable calls based on the majority of what I found, and if I run afoul of a scholar reading my kids’ book, then I might learn something in the dialog that follows.

Good for you! This is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about. When you *can’t* find the truth, don’t be afraid to make educated guesses.

Hey Andrew! Egyptologist here 😉 Ask away! (and it’s “hieroglyphs”, “hieroglyphic” is the adjective….) If you have a lot of text to cover, you can e-mail me at: fam.focke (a) gmx.de. Just please say you’re Andrew from Helping Writers Become Authors in the title so you don’t land in the spam… Actually, I’d need your email address anyway to send the hieroglyphs – though there ARE fonts, they’re a pain. It’s easier to use a hieroglyph program and export as a JPG.

Actually, that’s just the sort of thing that annoys me as an Egyptologist and history buff (sorry, Andrew). If someone gets the little things wrong (hey, you might not realize that the Egyptians didn’t have the “l” sound and name a character with an l in it) – okay. But something like translating a text – there are people out there who can help. Ask University faculties. Museums. I know there are some snobs out there, but there are also tons of people eager and willing to help. I suggest, in fact, if you are writing a historical novel to try and find an expert to read your novel AFTER it’s finished (I guesss around Beta level). The thing about research is that you have to look in the right places, and if you don’t know what the right places are, you can read tons of books and still make some glaring mistakes. That’s okay. It is, as we historians like to say, “not your field”. But it’s also something that can be fixed 😀 My husband and I are always amused by the fact that, apart from the obvious (and purposeful) anachronisms, A Knight’s Tale and the Three Musketeers movie with all the airships have some of the best and most historically accurate costumes and props. More so than “historical” films for any period except Regency. Go figure!

That’s interesting about Knight’s Tale and Musketeers . Supporting the theory of the bigger the lies, the bigger the foundation of truth must also be, perhaps?

No offense, but every time I read something like this I get really paranoid about my long-time unpublished novel. I did research on my NYC love story ( only been to NYC via internet) several years ago and felt good about it, however, I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say Gothic Bridge so I say a dark bridge, Empire State Building I say a tall building or the ferry to Staten Island I say island, Mayflower Tower I say a brownstone apt., etc. Can we be sued because I have a kidnapping in the Mayflower? Also, if I publish on Create Space Amazon instead of a traditional publish who has a reputation to lose, will the hungry perfectionist guru be less critical with mistakes? Thank you.

Names of places and things are not copyrighted. You can even use the names of real people, as long as you’re not libeling them.

Not sure what you mean by “hungry perfectionist guru,” but self-publishers need to be just as vigilant against mistakes as traditional authors–if not more so.

My series of historical novels (you’ve read them) involve a protagonist who’d been raised in England, but joined the German army in 1912 and pursued his military career through two world wars… (and went to the Berlin Olympics in 1936!!) My greatest problem of authentic language was avoiding any taint of Americanism that could not possibly be in his (or the story’s) jargon before 1945. I say ‘taint’, because we in Canada stand between a rock and a hard place in our use of the English language, and Americanisms are second nature. One slip with an “okay” and it would be ‘game over’. (another Americanism, I THINK.) My British beta reader told me of a number of language errors that had slipped through. Thank God for beta readers.

Hi Lyn, I was thinking a while back that I should read one of your historical novels. Having strategic beta readers to help with inaccuracies sounds extremely pivotal in this case.

Benjamin, I would love you not only to read one of my novels, but to give me your reaction, good, bad, or ugly. The truth from readers always helps the next effort.

Sounds good. The book covers look great!

I’ve always been incredibly impressed by how effortless you make your research look in your novels. As for Americanisms, I breathe in terror at the thought right now! I definitely need to nab a pair of British eyes to help me check this current WIP.

*raises hand to volunteer*

Hey, thanks! Are you in London?

I’m not British, but I’ve lived in England for several years now and notice when American words are used in a book that is supposed to be set in England. Drives me nuts 😀 But I try to remember that I hear the words every day while the author does not.

Thanks for this post. I needed it right now…research is hard for me becuase I know I need it for the book I’m working on, but I’m a little nervous I won’t get it right.

Americans get dinged for this a lot (and rightfully so), but it definitely happens the other way around. There was a memorable Doctor Who episode, set in Depression-era NYC that had all the American characters calling the elevator a “lift.” 😉

Thanks to Hulu, I watch British, Australian & Canadian (esp Vancouver) TV shows.

I got the impression that the folks in BC tended to speak an Australian vocabulary with an American accent.

Great topic! I’ve been waiting for something like this to pop up. First I’d like to congratulate you and all those who make an attempt to write historical fiction. Hats off you, seriously. Easier said than done. By the way, I had never even heard of historical fiction before discovering this blog and your writing. I also admire your approach as well your fine tuned writing process. Quality versus quantity. You certainly take your time to produce a quality novel and it definitely shows. That in itself is a testament to your own standard, mindset, and authenticity as you put it. The linguistics and semantics alone would stymie me. And I like languages!

I’ve thought about writing some historical fiction when I grow up. Inspired by you of course. There’s at least 2 or 3 ideas already on the backburner. But that’s definitely down the road as I learn about structure, outlining and the whole realm of writing. I do however, find the research part pretty daunting with my own kind of paranoia. Will they buy into this? Is it believable? They’ll see my mistakes! Sometimes I’ll dismiss doing too much research and rely on my imagination to write fantasy because I don’t have a complete grip on a subject. Know what I mean? Maybe I do have some obsessive tendencies! I’ll get too bogged down in all the “research” that I’m not writing at all and get overwhelmed. I HATE that feeling. On a positive note, it is fun too! I’ve consulted professionals about certain topics on justice and getting great feedback! One of them is a lawyer/SFF writer who happens to have an awesome book. Closest to the Fire: A Writers Guide to Lawyers and the Law.

I have a lot bottled up about this subject. When do you know you’ve done enough research? When do you draw the line before getting to overwhelmed or lost in the details? Or how much should you research? The more I research something, it seems the list just never ends and I end up going down a rabbit hole. Do you set parameters for yourself? Like, I’ll research only for six months or does it vary?

There definitely comes a point where you just have to *stop* researching. For me, that point comes when, as I say, I finish reading the list of books I’ve created for myself–and also, whenever, I’ve answered all the important questions posed by the story. Deadlines can also play a part for me if I feel I’m starting to waste too much time.

That definitely sounds doable.

Benjamin – start writing. The moment you get into the act of telling a story it becomes easier. An adventure. It’s not written in stone. Don’t stop to correct mistakes, just write. When you come to the end of telling the story, you then begin the editing process. This is as much fun as writing the first draft. Here is where you double check the historical facts and break up those information dumps and catch those little phrases inappropriate to the time and place… I could go on, but Katie covers all of this very thoroughly in her writings and on this site. GO for it. At this point the reader is the last thing you worry about.

Your right. I’m kind of a pantser at heart, or a tweener, so I think I need to feel my way through a little. Learning so many things at once.

Perfect timing! I’ve been tossing around a World War II story idea, and the research is intimidating. How to eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Now I’ve a strategy to do just that.

Thanks so much! 🙂

Another trick I’ve picked up over the years is to do a lot of “casual” research long before I ever start the book. For instance, right now, I know I want to eventually write a fantasy trilogy based on Tudor England. Every time, I run across an interesting tidbit in my pleasure reading, I make a note of it and type it up in a research folder for the book. I’ve already “effortlessly” collected over twenty pages of notes for that one story alone.

I like this.

Another great tip–thanks!

@Samantha: I’m writing a WWII story at the moment – let me know if you want any resource recs or anything like that, I’m happy to share the good ones 🙂

Sarah, how sweet of you to offer! Thank you.

If it’s okay to share a few links, and it isn’t too much trouble, I’d appreciate that. 🙂

The series taking the most research is the two thirds of a trilogy I’ve written in the Canadian North. Language, culture, history, mythical history, police procedure in the North. It’s been interesting. Especially as I’ve blended a few town together to create the setting for my stories. (Working on the rule of using a fictional setting if you are going to create mayhem.) I have one more book to write and will need to look at junior miners, prospecting, investments, and some new ways to create mayhem.

Hah, yes, sometimes it’s better to make a few things up rather than risk people in a real-life town getting upset. It’s also an easy way to base a setting on a real-life place without being 100% tied down to its facts.

Great tips – bad research can kill a novel for me, and I find a lot of American authors don’t know what they don’t know when it comes to British and European history (or they can’t be bothered finding out. It’s hard to say).

I like authors who provide an author’s note which separates fact from fiction, although that raises the question of whether they should be at the beginning or the end. At the beginning, and they can spoil the story. At the end, and I’m sometimes too frustrated by the “mistakes” to care that they were deliberate.

I recently read a disclaimer at the beginning of a novel (sorry, but I can’t remember which one), where the author apologised in advance for the facts she had changed. I thought that was clever – it told me she had done her research, but also that she had made deliberate choices to go against the facts to strengthen the story. I can respect that.

This might be the way to go – an introductory acknowledgement that certain facts have been changed, then a fuller disclosure at the end, where it won’t give away any important plot points.

“Don’t know what they don’t know”–that’s what always scares me. :p

I included an Author’s Note of that ilk in my medieval novel Behold the Dawn . I chose to put it at the end, since it was definitely spoilery.

Excellent advice in your latest piece. I’ve always believed that if the facts are right, the reader will believe the fiction, and that you contradict the laws of nature at your peril. Even fantasy (especially fantasy) has to be credible. Even minor characters need to be real and believable, so researching their lifestyles and ‘look’ has to be done. This is why I write stories set in today’s world, or in times I’ve lived through myself.

Settings and locations are best if you know them personally… even if only from a short visit… as the ambience of a place will come through in your writing. If it doesn’t, you’ll notice it yourself. It’ll feel wrong. The finer details can be honed by using ‘Streetview’ (or by visits if the location isn’t too far away) I’ve used ‘Streetview’ to verify sight lines when a character is observing others (I write crime novels) or to check on road layouts or what a character might see from a vehicle.

It’s also worth calling the reception desk at public buildings or companies etc. I needed to know where the gents’ toilets were in Cardiff County Hall, as a murder victim was to be killed on his way to relieve himself after a meeting. (The online building plan didn’t show the detail I needed.) I got all I needed from the security desk by phone. I’ve phoned police stations to check details, and specialist garages to ask about certain details of the classic cars they work on (for hiding things – It’s no good having those diamonds hidden in a magnetic box stuck inside the oil pan, if the oil pan is aluminium.) If you phone a place for information, and tell someone you’re an author, they’ll usually be happy to help. It brightens up another boring day at a desk.

In one book, I very nearly fouled up. I had my villain make an escape by stealing a boat, but my knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of the Bristol Channel’s sand bars and currents was limited to on line searches. I made the escapee a novice too, which almost worked… until I had the chapter read through by someone who’d sailed the area. A few changes to techniques and alterations to the boat’s course ended up with a far more interesting piece with even more sense of jeopardy. It was worth a phone call, followed by e-mailing the piece. I’d underestimated the dangers and the problems. I hadn’t realised the effects of those particularly fast tidal flows on steerage. I do now though.

I’ve made a rule for myself that if my knowledge is limited on a subject, and research doesn’t quite fill in all the details, then it’s better to keep things simple than to risk dropping a howler by stating something completely wrong. I leave that to the movies. I’ve seen too many Hollywood films where a character drives from one location in London to another by passing every known tourist landmark… (check ‘Brannigan’ – it’s a real howler from that point of view). As a former London based motorcycle despatch rider and delivery driver for twenty years, I know the city well enough (but still I’ll check Google Maps etc. because road layouts and new buildings have changed a lot since those days, and I now live in the West of England.)

A very useful piece for everyone. I particularly liked the point about readers perceptions of situations, even if they’re not entirely correct. I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose we’re all influenced by popular beliefs anyway, but having it spelled out made me think about it.

Keep up the good work.

Chris, a motorcycle despatch rider? LOVE it. I also love how you put it. “…it’s better to keep things simple than to risk dropping a howler.” KISS. I’ve always followed that route. One way I do it is to write from the protagonist’s PoV, so that everything in the novel shows only what he knows and sees. Many times I’ve taken refuge in showing his swift impression, allowing me to avoid hard details. Also, the passage of time in a narrative transition can gloss over missing factual research.

“It’s better to keep things simple”–I totally agree. Many times, I’ve gone back and deleted a seemingly great detail just because I could verify it.

I feel your pain- recently I was reading some Amazon reviews of Behold the Dawn (haven’t read it- looking into reading it) and encountered all the “controversy” over your use of the word “bucko.” Give an author a break, people! Seeing how many noticed and commented on an out-of-place word has me terrified about what might happen if I ever slip up.

For the story I am planning, I need to research medieval Japanese and Bedouin culture. I’m a little overwhelmed about where to start on research, especially since my library had zero books on these topics. Making a list of specific areas to research is a great idea.

Japanese and Bedouin, Brenna? Is there any connection?

I will be combining elements of the two cultures in my fantasy world. The novel will take place in a desert, but there will also be samurai-type warriors, an honor system, etc. Of course, the setting will be more cemented once I have done my research.

Sounds great. I love the Japanese ancient culture with its samurai and ninjitsu.

Brenna, Methinks you can do anything in Fantasy, including creating your own world background and history… But you’re right. You need a firm anchorage for the reader.

I completely agree with you, Lyn Alexander. I am creating my own world and history, with many elements from no source but my mind. However, I will be using Japan and the Middle East somewhat in the way Tolkien used England- as a backdrop, and for inspiration from the real world as I create my own.

I wonder if the Gobi Desert had (or still has) any honorable samurai. Wait, are you saying the Bedouins don’t have an honor system?

Ah … you do realize the ninjas were only a few families on the islands of Iga and Koga?

Hah! Thanks, Brenna. 😉 In all truth, that’s not a word choice I’d make for that book if I were writing it now. I’ve changed it in recent editions.

There’s another type of source, if you can’t find historical sources (although I think your library can probably get those via interlibrary loans). Consider anthropologists. I think both fantasy and science fiction writers could both do with lessons in anthropology, as this is the study of culture and societies.

Bedouins are nomads, if I remember correctly. There will be a difference in nomads vs. agricultural people. But nomads and farmers /land owners tend to cooperate with each other, and the farmers might even be offshoots of the nomad’s tribe.

In his book on the fall of Rome, historian Peter Heather mentioned that because anthropologists studied modern nomads (e.g., Bedouins), historians realized that nomads do not aimlessly wander. They travel in fixed patterns between their summer and winter pastures, so if they start showing up suddenly in new places, like the Huns, it’s a clue that something has happened.

So if you can’t find history books, give anthropologists a shot. There might be material to reverse-engineer the culture you’re trying to build.

Thank you for the recommendation! I am overwhelmed by the interest everyone is showing in my story. 🙂 Yes, actually I got the idea to use Bedouin culture because my main character is going to fall in with a group of desert nomads. I will definitely look for both historical and anthropological sources. Thanks again!

This really sounds like a good book. Sounds interesting!

Thank you, Benjamin. Of course, it’s only in the beginning planning stages, so time will tell if it turns out to be good and interesting!

Hi Brenna… Have you read ‘Dune’ (or any of the sequels). Frank Herbert did something very similar with his epic fifty years ago. Now that’s what I call desert culture.

Check it out. It might give you some ideas. (It’s an excellent book… A real classic, but it stands the test of time well.)

Good luck. I admire those who can create new worlds. I write in the real(ish) world of contemporary crime novels.

I saw the movie Dune when it first came out and loved it. Your right, the sand culture is amazing. I just rewatched the trailer for it last week.

Thanks! I’ll look in to reading those. I read a lot of classics. 🙂

Dune is my favorite! And I second the recommendation; Herbert did do his research. During the last Iraq War, a couple of sci fi nerds were convinced that Saddam Hussein had stolen some ideas from “Dune,” specifically the fedayeen, who are also called “fedaykin” in the book.

A few people had to gently explain that the Fremen were modeled on the Bedouins and the other cultures of the Middle East / North Africa.

Which reminds me, that Tuaregs / Berbers would be another nomadic culture. For my fantasy, I read “The Berbers: The Peoples of Africa,” by Elizabeth Fentress and Michael Brett. Sadly it didn’t have enough about their history, but it does talk about their modern culture.

Hah! I didn’t know that about Saddam “stealing.” That’s hilarious. :p

Excellent RECOMMENDATION. That’s a great idea.

One thing I discovered when working on my currently-backburnered historical trilogy was a tendency to get bogged down in the details. I once spent two weeks trying to figure out exactly when, between the Civil War and Wild Bill Hickok’s death in 1876 it became common to have numbers as well as suits on playing cards. Two weeks! It finally dawned on me that *it doesn’t matter* and I rewrote the scene to remove references to the cards. Gah!

As a history teacher, I think you’re spot on in the accuracy vs authenticity issue. Make us *feel it,* or as I say to my students *could* it have happened that way, and we’ll forgive a great many small error, if we even notice.

Sadly, I don’t have any recommendations for Bedouin or medieval Japan, but as a college history teacher, I can recommend some books on the Tudor period. Alison Weir has a ton of excellent books that are both academic-level history and very accessible to the non-academic (not a ton of jargon.). Pretty much any of them. There are enough excerpts from primary sources to give you a feel for the language, and details about life,as well as the lives of the nobility.

Anyway, wonderful post! Thank you

Thanks for thinking about it, anyway!

I did think of one for Japan, but it’s fiction and you’ve probably read it. Shogun is amazing for its accuracy and characterization of its Era…

I want to read these when you’re done!

The best source on ninjas is Stephen Hayes.

There’s another author his last name is Cummings that have weight into the secret life of ninjas and a translation of some of their ancient writings. Cool stuff.

Actually, I haven’t read it. I’ll look for it. Thank you for the recommendation!

Hey, thanks for the Tudor recommendations! I’m doing a lot of “painless” research on this series, since I won’t be writing it for several years yet. I’ll add these to my reading list right now.

My personal favorites are Princes in the Tower, Wars of the Rose’s, and Children of Henry VIII, buy they’re all good.

I’ll look forward to your foray into that time period as I do everything you write!

The Children of Henry VIII immediately caught my eye!

Alison Weir! I was coming here to say this, and I’m glad a bonafide history teacher likes her, too. Weir is very readable, and I don’t think there will be a minute of pain reading her 🙂

Another casual resource is the History Channel, assuming they still do history. I’d sometimes note the names of historians who popped up to give commentary on this or that historical event.

Thanks! Good to have a backup vote for Weir!

I want to put in a word for YouTube. I wanted to visit some of the places that my fantasy is based on, but they became unsafe suddenly (well, one always was). But YouTube came to the rescue, allowing me to see tours of the landmarks I wanted to explore, especially the ones narrated by historians.

Thanks to YouTube, I also learned how an astrolabe worked and exactly what’s happening during the “lost wax process” the ancients used in metalsmithing. For one thing, the name does not mean that people lost knowledge of how the wax process worked, so it’s a good thing I did not attempt to wing it in the story. Rather, it’s referring to what’s happening to the wax, and should be spelled “lost-wax.” I never go into the process in my fantasy, but I needed to be able to picture what the silversmiths were up to in the scene in which they appear.

I love the advice to be general, although some instances would probably happen by accident for me: it never would have occurred to me to mention what side someone was mounting a horse from. Just get on and giddy-up 🙂

I’m afraid of the British vs. American English from the other direction. My dad is from a more recent colony, and I grew up watching British television. Some of the books I read as a kid used ‘sceptical’ vs. ‘skeptical.’ This is where a lexicon dictionary comes in handy, because their etymologies say what language a word comes from and what it meant in that language, and when we started using it. Mine helped me to decide how to spell the name of the mythical creature with the eagle foreparts and the lion hindparts: gryphon is the original spelling, so I went with that to set the tone.

Also, browse the magazine racks for history magazines, including the Smithsonian’s. They taught us in school to always check the copyright date when it comes to history and science. A book on Roman Britain written before the discovery of the Vindolanda tablets will be missing some juicy tidbits. Magazines and news articles have nice updates to what’s in the books. Now we know for sure that Richard III was a hunchback; it wasn’t just Shakespeare’s propaganda.

Another resource: websites like the British Museum and NY’s Metropolitan Museum of Art are fantastic, not just for letting you see what objects were around in the time period — oh, that thingamajig existed back then, so I can let my heroine have one, etc. But also they’ll often list bibliographies in their articles.

For verisimilitude, don’t forget about historical reenactors. Bonus if historians are the reenactors; it turns out some historians have blogs. I wondered if the style of “bra” my Roman era fantasy heroines were wearing would be too hot (wool) or too uncomfortable. A reenactor demystified the whole thing on her website. Which was good, because now the characters had a hiding place for certain objects.

I don’t know how to conlag (making up languages or words in fake languages). So I’ve relied on Lexilogos.com which is one-stop shopping for dictionaries of ancient Greek, Latin, etc. I found another online dictionary for Akkadian. They’re great if you need to have a character say a spell, or you need to name a creature. Remember that “Aslan” just means “lion” in Turkish, so even the greats cheat, too 🙂

All that said — definitely do not sweat the details. At some point, you just gotta write. I like the idea of the author’s note. I plan to have one, just to point people to some of the sources I used for my people and monsters: Pliny, Herodotus, etc. I just took them seriously … it’s amazing how rich a fantasy can be just by going to the source material. Support one lie with two truth indeed!

Great, great stuff here, Jamie! I, for one, appreciate the reminder about YouTube. It should be a no-brainer, but I hardly ever think about it when I’m searching for visual info.

Google Maps has street views for many places

I think Google Maps street views are super helpful. I used it for researching my trips to London, and I truly did get a very accurate idea before I actually visited.

That’s right! I found a slew of info on YouTube alone.

Just a suggestion for those working on historical fiction—-the more esoteric the better—-see if you can find a historic reenactment group that’s focused on your chosen time and place.

Online enthusiast groups are great sources. In my novel (SF, with the early part in a post-apocalyptic setting) a lot of people are back to using horses and carts, buggies, etc., and I knew I could get myself in trouble. I found an online forum-—The Horse Forum—-and joined it just so I could seek help. I simply posted in the general forum, told them I was working in SF, and what I needed to know about.

They LOVED it! A few of them were SF fans as well, but those who responded were all vocal in their gratitude that I wanted to get it right. I’m thinking that if I ever get this thing finished, I’d like to figure out a way to offer those people discounted or free copies, personalized if possible (market strategy, right?).

What’s strange about this is that I hardly used any of what I learned. Importantly, though, I had *confidence* in it. In this, I think it’s like an impressionistic painting: tiny detail may not show up, but the Big Picture is consistent, correct, and easily identifiable; everything fits.

Hope this helps.

I second this. Most people who are passionate about a subject are *ecstatic* to get to talk about, especially if they think it will end up in a book. I’ve met a lot of great people this way.

Great points. It seems like a lot of this is intuitive (at least for me). As I was reading, I found myself sort of saying, “yeah.. THAT makes sense.” Of course it’s always good to have someone else (who’s a writer) solidify some of the same thoughts you have — so you know you’re not crazy! I also think, with all of this said, and even with an imperfect work, that honest negative feedback on the topic of research, is the next biggest step to improving. Like you said, no one should be expected to know every single little thing about a topic, because there is too much nuance and information that feeds realistically into your subject. BUT, if you can figure out (from the negative feedback) what area of research you might have failed in, there’s a good chance you can use that information so that the next time around, you’re thinking in these new ways: whatever they are, ways that help you approach research or maybe even a better way to organize research, etc.

I won’t say that I *like* it when a reviewer calls me out on historical quibbles in my published works. 😉 But I’ve definitely learned and grown from it as both a writer and a researcher.

Truth. It’s all in how we respond as learners. It’ll just help us grow.

The “You Can’t Say That” website you linked to is amazing! I had to force myself to stop reading it. 😉

Isn’t fascinating? Makes me want to go out and buy the full set of the Oxford English Dictionary.

It’s my DREAM to own the full set of the OED!

I have the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. In 2 volumes at 3750 pages, it’s adequate for me.

Ah, I should look into that. I was looking up the full set, and it only costs around $1,500. Um, no. :p

Hmm. I missed that. I’ll have to check that out.

Thanks for writing this. It’s very reassuring!

Yeah, perfection is just too hard a taskmaster. 😉

This post could not have come at a better time! I’m working on an alternate history (steampunk) story. I’ve been doing some research on when certain things happened here versus when said things (abolition of slavery, for example) happened in England (or the UK, depending on precisely when – something else for me to look up [again]). Now if I can only remember to make notes…

Alternate history is a lot of fun–just enough facts without being absolutely chained to their veracity.

Oh, alternate history stirs up my imagination. I’d like to give a whirl someday. Already collecting some info. *he he*

Wowsers. You guys are amazing. A lot of you sound like history buffs, which is certainly my worst subject. But I guess that’s what research is for right? I actually do like history more everyday and currently researching the history of kung-fu, wing-chun kung-fu, shaolin kung-fu as well as judiciary legal systems for my upcoming novel.

Thanks for this post Kate. Especially having the questions prior to diving into research for some sense of pararmeters. Research is FUN. But I need to limit myself to the necessary information critical to the story.

You guys rock!

I think I can safely say that my love of history is a large part of why I became a writer. After all, what is history except a story?

Don’t just restrict it to the facts pertinent to your story, Ben… Soak it all up. If you have a fuller understanding of the background, it’ll seep out into the writing and breathe life and reality into the story.

You never know when those facts will be useful. If they’re in your mind, then they’re there to inform your thoughts as you work out where you’re going next. Even when I’m dreaming in bed at night, I’ll sometimes get ideas for my plot, or how my characters are going to progress. These get informed by some of the ‘useless junk’ floating about in my head. It all helps.

Yes! I’m really liking that. I have a “soak it up” kind of mentality, so this goes along with my gut feeling. I’m a sponge when it comes to stuff like this.

Thanks for this! I can’t stress enough how important research is. Usually writers argue they don’t have time research. Well, in that case, they shouldn’t expect people to take their work seriously! Research should be the primary ingredient in a good story.

Your article is superb! What I found very difficult is for non-native English speakers to write in English. Even if their English is fluent, it’s very difficult to imitate everyday dialogue, unless you have actually lived in an English speaking country.

Actually, this is very much true even for dialects *within* the same language. Getting the British dialects right in my WIP was very important–and very tricky–for me as an American.

Thank you so much for this! I am in the middle of writing the first draft of my second historical novel and was really worrying about how to go about doing research when I am done. I hate squashing the inspiration of the first draft with wondering if I got a technical or minor historical detail right, so I tend to write and then research, writing down questions and things to check on as I go. This was very timely!

That’s actually one of the reasons I like to sandwich my research in between the outline and the first draft. I get to create my story in the outline and figure out exactly what I need to know, then research to find the answers, and then write the first draft with pretty much no concern about whether or not I’m headed in the wrong direction with my representation of facts.

That’s a good way to do it too! I’ll have to give it a try, usually I am just to impatient to get started on the writing and end of researching as I go 🙂

Well, I’m very much of a “ounce of preparation is worth a pound of proofreading” kinda person. 😉

The only thing I disagree with in this article is surrounding a character with real historical figures. For me, nothing pulls me out of a book faster than when a fictional character interacts with too many real people, especially if he/she influences either that character, or has a ridiculous influence over actual historical events (i.e., Moses’ former true love influencing Pharoah to go after the Israelites in The Ten Commandments, when in the Bible it was Pharoah’s own pride and hardness of heart that caused him to do it, no nagging wife needed). I’d rather the historical figures be more on the sideline myself, part of the atmosphere more than a Who’s Who of whatever time period it is that the MC goes around hobnobbing with. //rant over 🙂

Let me clarify: definitely not suggesting all historical stories need to incorporate historical characters.

Dear K. M. Weiland, My name is Haley and I’m thirteen. I am a writer. I know that you published your first book when you were fourteen. How did you write your book and still keep up with school work and other things? I know you must be busy with the book that you are currently writing but if you know of a way to help me I would really like to know. Thank you for giving good advice for writers and myself.

Welcome to the site, Haley! I was actually 20 when my first book came out. However, I’ve been writing steadily since I was 12. The key, as it is for writers of any age, is to set aside a doable amount of time and be consistent at showing up to write every single day. That’s a habit that will generate a huge amount of productivity and serve you very well over the long run.

Thank you for such great advice and for listening. I shall surely try to follow it.

I can’t wait to read Wayfarer! It’s so hard not to obsess about minor errors that slip in, but I don’t think they affect the quality of the work if the story is good. I seem to recall that some of Shakespeare’s plays have really egregious anachronisms — like a clock in Julius Caesar. I have to confess that sometimes I really superenjoy picking up on tiny little errors about something I am familiar with, like law or law schools or Louisiana or the South. This happens on television shows all the time and frankly adds to my enjoyment of the story, if it’s a good story. If it’s not, and I have to watch it for some reason, it gives me something entertaining to think about… (And of course no one would want courtroom scenes to be accurate. There are few things more boring than real-life courtroom scenes. More “can you identify this spreadsheet” than “you can’t handle the truth!”)

Actually, Shakespeare is a great example! We’re not so aware of it these days, but his plays are actually extremely inaccurate in the larger details, as well as the small. Didn’t seem to have hurt his authenticity too much. :p

Exactly! The important part is whether he tells the truth about the human condition — and he does!

“I do it during “writing” time, which for me is two hours every morning. This, of course, means that during the research period, I get to sit around reading all morning and call it work.”

I’m told ENFP personalities have these “energy spikes” that they rely on for creative work. It’s certainly true for me. I can’t set a writing schedule for beans– all I know is that I can’t do it first thing in the morning, when I can’t even tell the difference between my left hand and a refrigerator. XD But I did discover that simply setting a couple of alarms on my phone– one to go off in ten minutes, the second to go off thirty minutes after that– gives me enough motivation to sit down and write pretty quickly. I always go over that thirty minute limit by at least an hour.

I never thought about it before, but I wonder what would happen if I did the same thing for sitting down to read and do research? I get so easily sidetracked during my research phase sometimes. I find interesting links that *look* like they might be important to what I’m researching, but they don’t always turn out that way… and then I’m off “researching” a neverending chain of links, and before I know it, I’ve learned a lot more about recipes containing peanut butter or techniques for defeating the final boss fight in Spyro the Dragon than I have about Second Order Cybernetics. (To this day, I still don’t understand half this stuff I’m reading on it.) @_@

Which brings me to a question: What do you do when your research suddenly turns so agonizing that it’s no better than reading Wikipedia pages and you have to fight to stay focused? (I don’t know if other people are as put off by Wikipedia as I am.) Sometimes I feel like I’m learning about the entire universe, then sometimes I feel like the stupidest little insect, like I’ll never understand what I’m reading about, and therefore will fail at what I’m writing about. How do you get through it?

First of all, I believe it is *so* important to understand your personality in figuring how to “hack” your own process. I’m an INTJ, which means I eat, sleep, and breathe schedules and structure. That’s how I roll. It’s *not* how everyone rolls, and it’s valuable to recognize that and to recognize there isn’t a right or a wrong way to do any of this. There’s just one of many, many different ways that *work* for the individual person. So kudos to you for recognizing that in your life! You’re saving yourself a lot of grief.

As for your question, honestly, there’s no pretty answer. There’s only: keep at it. Sometimes taking breaks can help prevent your attention from wandering. But sometimes you just have to slog through the boring stuff to find that one little kernel you needed.

I have never fully taken control of those P energy spikes (I guess that’s the nature of the beast), but I find that making to-do lists is the best way for me to manage myself. (Yeah, I know — lists — that’s so J, isn’t it?!?)

I absolutely suck at sitting and deciding to do something for a certain amount of time. I really do well when I’m free to jump from task to task (I’m a big believer in the insights that come when you stop focusing directly on the subject). The best way for me to keep the energy rolling is to make a manageable list of things I can do in that sitting or in that workday and race through it as quickly as I can. This often turns out to be several hours, which flies by much more quickly and productively than if I had attempted to schedule the day.

I’m superb at putting out fires. I’m less superb at steadily plowing through non-emergency tasks, but the best solution for me is to make them emergency tasks by putting them on the TO DO RIGHT NOW list.

I have much more experience of how to manage this as a lawyer than as a writer, but as a writer, I find it MUCH better to structure my work around tasks than time-blocks.

I just had to share this since I’ve been struggling with this issue for years as a P-oriented lawyer. Another lawyer once told me that “J is the essence of being a lawyer.” I obviously don’t entirely agree, as I’m quite good at what I do, but it’s certainly true that a P has to fight the tendency to be a wild pony wandering aimlessly across the plain.

And, because Ps often need encouragement, please keep in mind that NOBODY can do precision work more quickly than a P on an energy spike! (And this may be because NOBODY gets more done when they’re not actually “working” than Ps.)

I would bet good money that though you may struggle to fit into a “J” occupation, the “unusual” perspective you bring to as a Perceiver makes you very good at your job indeed!

Thank you, Katie! On a good day, this is true. It helps that I am surrounded by people who know how to manage and/or support me, and that I’ve found the right area (complex regulatory compliance) and work situation (independence without having to be in charge).

“Every time you make something up, make sure the “lie” is supported by at least two “truths.””

You know, I did something similar to that once. My femal protag superhero rides a motorcycle, and she wanted a way to disguise it so people wouldn’t recognize it. At first, she and another character were considering paramagnetic paint (running an electric current through the paint would cause it to change colors), but another character pointed out that the YouTube video that popularized the idea of paramagnetic paint was a hoax: It was just that YouTuber’s demonstration of his use of Adobe After Effects. However, they went with electroluminescent paint. (Do a search on “The Science of LumiLor to see what it is.)

Along with the electroluminescent paint, they modified some of the motorcycle’s parts to open out and change shape, and I threw in a 3D printer for them to make some of the parts. So in the end I included a lie that remained a lie, threw in some truth, a bit more truth, and hopefully by the end of it all, nobody will notice or care that I haven’t got the faintest clue on how to modify a motorcycle. XD

Haha. That made me grin. As someone else who has no idea how to modify a motorcycle, I for one will suspend my disbelief. 😉

I found the internet quite useful in researching for my writing, especially with my last novel. I needed to know how an Uzi worked and the only time I fired one was when I was in the service more than 30 years ago. I was able to look at a clip on line and see one fired so that gave me what I needed to know. I found other things as well.

The Internet is great for gun and machine info. That is one thing I usually remember to use YouTube for.

How did we writers ever live without it? The only place you can look up what “that thing you use to do whatsit” is called.

For a while, I’ve been working on a science fiction/fantasy story that has A LOT of different environments, characters, technology-levels, etc. I think it’s a common misconception among non-writers that if you write speculative fiction — particularly fantasy — you don’t have to do any research, that you can simply make up everything and it will be fine. However, any writer worth their salt knows that this couldn’t be further from the truth. I will make no claim that speculative fiction requires more research than any other genre, but it certainly can have just as much as any historical fiction novel; which is saying something, considering the amount of work historical fiction writers put into their work. I’m definitely not an expert on the art of researching for writing, seeing as I am young and inexperienced in life in general, but I found a researching strategy that works well for me at least. With all the different planets and characters in my story, it gets hard to keep track of all the research and ideas I have for specific ones. So, (this is going to sound weird, I can feel it) I use the Pinterest secret boards to store all my research. I’ve created a board for each of my planets and characters. Then, when I do research online for one aspect of whatever setting or character I’m researching at the moment, I can pin the website to the board and type up a short summary of the information or some tags so I can find it again very quickly using the search engine. I don’t know if this is the best way, but it’s worked so far; plus it sure makes me happy to see all that research work lined up in perfectly straight columns!

Definitely agree with this. I do a lot of research for my fantasy novels, even though I don’t have to be as rigidly factual.

I wrote a short preface in present day, then the rest is a flash back to 1979. I minimized my research by sticking to the area I grew up in, in a time when I was a teenager.

It’s fun to write about a recent time when the technology was different. The house had one TV and maybe two telephones (you had to make sure someone wasn’t eavesdropping on the other extension). No computers and only a wrist watch to tell time while on the move.

Then there was trying to get an authentic dialect without going overboard. I slip in some iconic words, but try to avoid alternate pronunciations. How would I easily let the readers know that ‘wash’ is said as ‘worsh’?

Still, this week I was thinking of given names for new characters and realized even that’s changed. I’ll go through some high school yearbooks from our area at that time and make a list of the names people were giving their children in the late 50’s and early 60’s.

My last book was set in my hometown. It was such a change from the far-flung (and usually imaginary) settings I typically write, and it was a ton of fun!

I’m an INTP, so I just have to look something up and then tell you about it!

My HS, classes of 1977-1979, most common names (7 or more instances, in descending order)

Susan, Debbie, Cindy, Kathy, Mary (Ann, Jane, Jo, Kay), Barbara, Carol, Kim, Lisa, Nancy, Michelle, Patty

Dave, Mark, Jim, Jeff, Mike, Bob, John, Tom, Dan, Rick, Ron, Scott, Steve

Should’ve done it earlier for my own WIP, but for a particular location/time period, I can see making a list like this, and when you need a name for a character, pick one off the list.

We also have a good number of eastern European families that live here, so when I decided to give one of my characters a Serbian surname, I checked carefully to match the given name, that it wasn’t Croatian or whatever (which someone would get offended over)

The Social Security Database is another good place to look for top names of the year.

I am working on my first novel which is realistic fantasy about Ireland and the fairie faith. I need to be accurate about an American teen suddenly moved to live in Ireland with a rural Grandmother who strongly believe in fairies. The realism comes in where I want the Tuatha de Dannan to be a race that could manipulate matter and shape shift using advanced quantum physics. My biggest problem comes from that fact that that period and that of druidism have such limited real facts. It should make it easier to write but there is so much out there that has already been fantasized and I don’t want this to sound like a typical fairy fantasy story. Is there anyone out there who can tell me more about Ireland than I can find on the internet and in books on the fairy faith?

Not so much about fairies, but I just read a good book on early Ireland: Princes of Ireland by Edward Rutherfurd. It talks about the Tuatha de Dannan.

This was extremely helpful! Thank you for always giving concrete steps and examples – I see so many vague posts that just rehash the same things all over the internet. Your posts are always spot-on.

[…] Some writers love it, some hate it. K. M. Weiland considers the two sides to novel research: accuracy and authenticity, and Donald Maass thoroughly explores relevance in […]

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[…] as K.M. Weiland stresses in her great post on writing historical fiction, even more than getting the facts right (which you need to do), what […]

[…] Novel Research: 12 Ways to Ace Your Book […]

[…] than two thousand years. This presented its own special set of challenges (see K.M. Weiland’s great blog post for some tips on writing historical fiction), but it felt right so I scrapped the first draft […]

[…] to Cut the Crap and Research Your Novel Effectively, Researching Your Novel: The Ultimate Guide, Novel Research: 12 Ways to Ace Your Book, and Fact-Checking Your […]

[…] Strive for accuracy but be happy with being authentic. Do the best you can to be accurate in your story. But unless you are writing non-fiction, you have wiggle room to be creative. K.M. Weiland says, Hook your readers with the truth and they’ll swallow all the rest of your story’s lies. […]

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Table of Contents

Tip 1: Start with Your Positioning and Outline

Tip 2: make a research plan, tip 3: ask the internet, tip 4: read books, tip 5: talk to experts, tip 6: collect survey data, tip 7: keep everything organized.

• Tip 8: Set a Deadline & Stop Early

Tip 9: Write the First Draft

How to conduct research for your book: 9 tips that work.

If you’re like many first-time nonfiction writers, you’ve probably wondered, “How do I research for my book?”

I get this question a lot, and there are plenty of tips I can share. But before I dive into it, I’m going to throw you a curveball:

Don’t assume you have to do research for your book.

Because the purpose of nonfiction is to help the reader solve a problem or create change in their life (or both) by sharing what you know. If you can do this without a lot of research, then don’t do research.

We’ve had many Authors who knew their topic so inside and out that they didn’t need research. That is perfectly fine. They still wrote incredible books.

When it boils down to it, there are only 2 reasons to do research for your book:

• You know enough to write the book, but you want to add sources and citations to make the book more persuasive to a specific audience.
• You don’t know enough, and you need to learn more to make the book complete.

We’ve had many Authors who–despite knowing their stuff–wanted to include additional data, expert opinions, or testimonials to ensure that readers would find their arguments credible. This is important to consider if you’re writing for a scientific or technical audience that expects you to cite evidence.

Likewise, we see many Authors who know their industry but have a few knowledge gaps they’d like to fill in order to make their arguments more robust.

In fact, that’s the whole key to understanding how much research you should do. Ask yourself:

What evidence does a reader need to believe your argument is credible and trustworthy?

Research can be complicated, though. Many Authors don’t know where to start, and they get bogged down in the details. Which, of course, derails the book writing process and stalls them–or worse, it stops them from finishing.

The bad news? There’s no “right way” to make a book research plan.

The good news? The basic research tips apply for either person.

In this post, I’ll give you 9 effective research tips that will help you build a stronger, more convincing book.

More importantly, these tips will also show you how to get through the research process without wasting time.

9 Research Tips for Writing Your Book

Don’t jump into research blindly. Treat it like any other goal. Plan, set a schedule, and follow through.

Here are 9 tips that will help you research effectively.

Before you start researching or writing, you need to figure out two main things: your audience and your message.

This is called book positioning , and it’s an essential part of the book writing process.

Your job as an Author is to convince readers that your book will help them solve their problems.

Every piece of research you include in the book–whether it’s a survey, pie chart, or expert testimonial–should help you accomplish that.

Once your positioning is clear, you can put together your book outline.

Your outline is a comprehensive guide to everything in your book, and it is your best defense against procrastination, fear, and all the other problems writers face . It’s crucial if you don’t want to waste time on research you don’t need.

With an outline, you’ll already know what kind of data you need, where your information gaps are, and what kinds of sources might help you support your claims.

We’ve put together a free outline template to make the process even easier.

All this to say: without solid positioning and a comprehensive outline, you’ll wander. You’ll write, throw it away, write some more, get frustrated, and eventually, give up.

You’ll never finish a draft, much less publish your book .

If you don’t know your subject well enough to figure out your positioning and make a good outline, it means you don’t know enough to write that book—at least not right now.

Your plan will vary widely depending on whether you are:

• An expert who knows your field well
• Someone who needs to learn more about your field before writing about it

The majority of you are writing a book because you’re experts. So most of the information you need will already be in your head.

If you’re an expert, your research plan is probably going to be short, to the point, and about refreshing your memory or filling small gaps.

If you’re a non-expert, your research plan is probably going to be much longer. It could entail interviewing experts, reading lots of books and articles, and surveying the whole field you are writing about.

The outline should highlight those places where your book will need more information.

Are there any places where you don’t have the expertise to back up your claims?

What key takeaways require more evidence?

Would the book be stronger if you had another person’s point of view?

These are the kinds of gaps that research can fill.

Go back through your outline and find the places where you know you need more information. Next to each one, brainstorm ways you might fulfill that need.

For example, let’s say you’re writing a book that includes a section on yoga’s health benefits. Even if you’re a certified yoga instructor, you may not know enough physiology to explain the health benefits clearly.

Where could you find that information?

• Ask a medical expert
• A book on yoga and medicine
• A website that’s well respected in your field
• A study published in a medical journal

You don’t have to get too specific here. The point is to highlight where you need extra information and give yourself leads about where you might find it. ​

The kinds of research you need will vary widely, depending on what kind of nonfiction book you’re writing.

For example, if you’re giving medical advice for other experts, you’ll likely want to substantiate it with peer-reviewed, professional sources.

If you’re explaining how to grow a company, you might refer to statistics from your own company or recount specific anecdotes about other successful companies.

If you’re writing a memoir, you won’t need any quantitative data. You might simply talk with people from your past to fill in some gaps or use sources like Wikipedia to gather basic facts.

Different subject matter calls for different sources. If you’re having trouble figuring out what sources your subject needs, ask yourself the same question as above:

Ask yourself what evidence does a reader need to believe your argument is credible and trustworthy?

Generally speaking, an expert can do their research before they start writing, during, or even after (depending on what they need).

If you’re a non-expert, you should do your research before you start writing because what you learn will form the basis of the book.

It may sound obvious, but the internet is a powerful research tool and a great place to start. But proceed with caution: the internet can also be one of the greatest sources of misinformation.

If you’re looking for basic info, like for fact-checking, it’s fantastic.

If you’re looking for academic information, like scientific studies, it can be useful. (You might hit some paywalls, but the information will be there.)

If you’re looking for opinions, they’ll be abundant.

Chances are, though, as you look for all these things, you’re going to come across a lot of misleading sources—or even some that straight-up lie.

Here are some tips for making sure your internet research is efficient and effective:

• Use a variety of search terms to find what you need. For example, if you’re looking for books on childhood development, you might start with basic terms like “childhood development,” “child psychology,” or “social-emotional learning.”
• As you refine your knowledge, refine your searches. A second round of research might be more specific, like “Piaget’s stages of development” or “Erikson’s psychosocial theories.”
• Don’t just stop with the first result on Google. Many people don’t look past the first few results in a Google search. That’s fine if you’re looking for a recipe or a Wikipedia article, but the best research sources don’t always have the best SEO. Look for results that seem thorough or reputable, not just popular.
• Speaking of Wikipedia, don’t automatically trust it. It can be a great place to start if you’re looking for basic facts or references, but remember, it’s crowd-sourced. That means it’s not always accurate. Get your bearings on Wikipedia, then look elsewhere to verify any information you’re going to cite.
• Make sure your data is coming from a reputable source. Google Scholar, Google Books, and major news outlets like NPR, BBC, etc. are safe bets. If you don’t recognize the writer, outlet, or website, you’re going to have to do some digging to find out if you can trust them.
• Verify the credentials of the Author before you trust the site. People often assume that anything with a .edu domain is reputable. It’s not. You might be reading some college freshman’s last-minute essay on economics. If it’s a professor, you’re probably safe.

Using a few random resources from the internet is not equivalent to conducting comprehensive research.

If you want to dive deeper into a topic, books are often your best resources.

They’re reliable because they’re often fact-checked, peer-reviewed, or vetted. You know you can trust them.

Many Authors are directly influenced by other books in their field. If you’re familiar with any competing books, those are a great place to start.

Use the internet to find the best books in each field, and then dive into those.

Your book will have a different spin from the ones already out there, but think of it this way: you’re in the same conversation, which means you’ll probably have many of the same points of reference.

Check out the bibliographies or footnotes in those books. You might find sources that are useful for your own project.

You might want to buy the books central to your research. But if you aren’t sure if something’s going to be useful, hold off on hitting Amazon’s “one-click buy.”

Many Authors underestimate the power of their local libraries. Even if they don’t have the book you’re looking for, many libraries participate in extensive interlibrary loan programs. You can often have the books you need sent to your local branch.

Librarians are also indispensable research resources. Many universities have subject-specific research librarians who are willing to help you find sources, even if you aren’t a student.

Research doesn’t always require the internet or books. Sometimes you need an answer, story, or quotation from a real person.

But make sure you have a decent understanding of your field BEFORE you go to experts with your questions.

I’m an expert at writing nonfiction books, so I speak from personal experience. It’s annoying as hell when people come to you with questions without having done at least a little research on the topic beforehand—especially when you already have a 3,000 word blog post about it.

Experts love it when you’ve done some research and can speak their language. They hate it when you ask them to explain fundamentals.

But once you find a good expert, it condenses your learning curve by at least 10x.

To figure out who you need to talk to, think about the kind of nonfiction book you’re writing.

Is it a book about your own business, products, or methods? You may want to include client stories or testimonials.

In Driven , Doug Brackmann relied on his experience with clients to teach highly driven people how to master their gifts.

Is it a book that requires expert knowledge outside your own area of expertise (for example, a doctor, IT specialist, lawyer, or business coach)? You might want to ask them to contribute brief passages or quotations for your book.

Colin Dombroski did exactly that for his book The Plantar Fasciitis Plan . He consulted with various colleagues, each of whom contributed expert advice for readers to follow.

It’s much easier to contact people who are already in your network. If you don’t personally know someone, ask around. Someone you already know may be able to connect you with the perfect expert.

If that doesn’t work out, you can always try the cold call method. Send a polite email that briefly but clearly explains what your book is about and why you’re contacting them.

If you do this, though, do your research first. Know the person’s name. Don’t use “To whom it may concern.” Know their specialty. Know exactly what type of information you’re seeking. Basically, know why they are the person you want to feature in your book.

Some Authors like to collect surveys for their books. This is very optional, and it’s only applicable in certain books, so don’t assume you need this.

But if you want to include a section in your book that includes how people feel about something (for example, to back up a point you’re making), you might want to have survey data.

You might have access to data you can already cite. The internet is full of data: infographics, Pew data, Nielsen ratings, scholarly research, surveys conducted by private companies.

If you don’t have access to data, you can conduct your own surveys with an online platform like SurveyMonkey. Here’s how:

• Consider your research goals. What are you trying to learn?
• Formulate the survey questions. Most people prefer short, direct survey questions. They’re also more likely to answer multiple-choice questions.
• Invite participants. If you want a reliable survey, it’s best to get as many participants as possible. Surveying three family members won’t tell you much.
• Collect and analyze the data.

That will work for more informal purposes, but surveys are a science unto themselves. If you require a lot of data, want a large sample size, or need high statistical accuracy, it’s better to hire pros. Quantitative data is more effective and trustworthy when it’s properly conducted.

Don’t go overboard with statistics, though. Not all books need quantitative data. There are many other ways to convince readers to listen to your message.

Organize your research as you go. I can’t stress this enough.

If you research for months on end, you might end up with dozens of articles, quotations, or anecdotes. That’s a lot of material.

If you have to dig through every single piece when you want to use something, it’ll take you years to write.

Don’t rely on your memory, either. Three months down the line, you don’t want to ask, “Where did I find this piece of information?” or “Where did that quotation come from?”

I suggest creating a research folder on your computer where you collect everything.

Inside the main folder, create subfolders for each individual chapter (or even each individual subsection of your chapters). This is where your outline will come in handy.

In each folder, collect any pdfs, notes, or images relevant to that section.

Every time you download or save something, give the file a clear name.

Immediately put it into the correct folder. If you wait, you might not remember which part of your book you found it useful for.

Also, be sure to collect the relevant citation information:

• Author’s name
• Title of the book, article, etc.
• The outlet it appeared in (e.g., BBC or Wired) or, if it’s a book, the publisher
• The date it was published
• The page number or hyperlink

If you have photocopies or handwritten notes, treat them the same way. Label them, file them, and add the necessary citation information. This will save you a lot of time when you sit down to write.

Some Authors use programs like Scrivener or Evernote to keep track of their research. I personally use the software program Notion, which is similar to Evernote.

These programs allow you to collect references, notes, images, and even drafts, all in one convenient place.

They save you from having to create your own digital organizational system. They also make it easier to consult documents without opening each file individually.

Once you’ve got a system in place, don’t forget: back up your data. Put it on the cloud, an external hard drive, or both. There’s nothing worse than spending hours on research just to have it disappear when your computer crashes.

All of this takes time, and it may seem tedious. But trust me, it’s a lot more tedious when you’re racing toward your publication deadline, and you’re hunting down random data you quoted in your book.

Tip 8: Set a Deadline & Stop Early

Research is one of the most common ways Authors procrastinate.

When they’re afraid of writing or hit roadblocks, they often say, “Well, I just need to do a little more research…”

Fast-forward two years, and they’re still stuck in the same spiral of self-doubt and research.

Don’t fall into that trap. Learn when to stop.

When I’m writing, I set a research deadline and then stop EARLY. It’s a great way to beat procrastination , and it makes me feel like I’m ahead of the curve.

Here’s the thing: there’s always going to be more information out there. You could keep researching forever.

But then you’d never finish the book—which was the point of the research in the first place.

Plus, excessive research doesn’t make better books . No one wants to read six test cases when one would have worked.

You want to have enough data to convincingly make your case, but not so much that your readers get bogged down by all the facts.

So how will you know when you’ve done enough?

When you have enough data, anecdotes, and examples to address every point on your outline.

Your outline is your guide. Once it’s filled in, STOP .

Remember, the goal of data is to support your claims. You’re trying to make a case for readers, not bludgeon them with facts.

If you feel like you have to go out of your way to prove your points, you have 1 of 2 problems:

• You’re not confident enough in your points, or
• You’re not confident enough in your readers’ ability to understand your claims.

If you’re having the first problem, you may need to go back and adjust your arguments. All the research in the world won’t help support a weak claim.

If you’re having the second problem, ask yourself, If I knew nothing about this subject, what would it take to convince me? Follow through on your answer and trust that it’s enough.

When you think you have enough research, start writing your vomit draft.

If it turns out you’re missing small pieces of information, that’s okay. Just make a note of it. Those parts are easy to go back and fill in later.

Notice: I said “later.” Once you start writing, stop researching.

If you stop writing your first draft to look for more sources, you’ll break the flow of your ideas.

Research and writing are two completely different modes of thinking. Most people can’t switch fluidly between them.

Just get the first draft done.

Remember, the first draft is exactly that—the first draft. There will be many more versions in the future.

It’s okay to leave notes to yourself as you go along. Just be sure to leave yourself a way to find them easily later.

I recommend changing the font color or highlighting your comments to yourself in the draft. You can even use different colors: one for missing data and another for spots you need to fact-check.

You can also use the “insert comment” feature on Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or any other writing software you prefer.

Another useful tip is to simply type “TK.” There’s no word in the English language where those two letters appear together. That means, when you’re ready to go back through your draft, you can use the “Find” option (Control+F). It will take you back to all the spots you marked.

Whatever method you choose, don’t stop writing.

Also, don’t worry about how “good” or “bad” it is at this point. No one ever wrote an amazing first draft. Not even bestselling Authors.

Just keep at it until you have a complete first draft.

That won’t be hard because you won’t be missing any huge pieces. The whole point of the outline was to zero in on exactly what you want to write for the exact audience you want to reach. If you followed that outline when you researched, you’ll be able to stay on track during the writing process.

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How to Do Research for a Novel

By Georgina Roy

Whatever genre of novel you’re writing, it’s highly likely you’ll need to carry out some research. In this post, we explain how to do research for a novel.

1. Know what you need to research

Before you embark on doing research specifically for your novel, you should have decided about:

• The genre (contemporary, historical, romance, science fiction, fantasy);
• The characters (their ages, profession, a summarized biography);
• The plots and the subplots.

Making those decisions prior to doing any research will enable you to know what precisely you need to research. Otherwise, you will end up combing through a lot of information without any direction. In turn, this will probably lead you to spend way too much on the research process and delay the actual writing of the novel.

For example, let’s say that you want to write a historical fiction novel set in the Medieval era. Unless you specifically decide on the century and year(s) the novel is set in, you will be combing through centuries of information needlessly.

In another example, let’s say that you wish to write a fantasy novel inspired by the Mesopotamian era. Instead of choosing a century, here you will have to research the whole era very thoroughly and decide how you are going to build the fantasy world in your novel.

2. Organize all the information

At its core, researching a certain topic/time period for a novel means sifting through a lot of information and determining what information is relevant to you. Because of that, you should prepare how you will organize the information that you will determine is important for your novel.

The easiest way to organize is to create folders (both paper and electronically on your computer), and label them with Plot, Subplots,  Characters , Worldbuilding. In each folder, you will keep the information you need in relation to the name of the folder.

Further divisions and folders would depend on the plans you have for your novel. You can have a subfolder for the protagonist, then major characters, then minor characters. In your Plot folder, if you are writing a murder mystery novel, for example, you might have a subfolder titled Crime, Murder weapon, and so forth.

Keeping all the information you determine as relevant divided and organized will help you to be able to easily find any details during the writing process. In the folders, you can also include anything from pictures, to videos, to text that you determine is important.

3. Research the genre

Each genre has its own tropes, stereotypes, expected storylines, and general markings. For example, a romance novel needs to have a happy ending (either happy for now or a happily ever after). A science fiction novel needs to be based on science that has advanced but in a realistic manner.

For example, in the Golden Age of science fiction in early to mid-twentieth century, when nuclear power was just being discovered, a lot of science fiction authors of the time used nuclear power for just about anything in their stories, from faster-than-light travel, to weapons and personal shields. Such use wouldn’t stand as scientific today when we know the ramifications of nuclear power, the ensuing radiation, and the consequences of using it.

There are sources on the internet, most notably the  TV tropes website  where you can research the tropes, clichés, and stereotypes of just about any genre, and you can also see how these tropes appear in all sorts of media, from novels to movies, TV shows, anime and manga, comic books, and more.

Knowing the tropes (character types, clichés, stereotypes, plot lines, etc.) of the genre you wish to write in will help you to provide a more original take on said tropes (or clichés, etc.) and make your novel more original, by presenting your own interpretation of the same.

4. Carry out psychology research

Psychology research is a basic due diligence type of research that you need to do in order to create believable characters. We are all shaped, one way or another, by our upbringing and our experiences in life, and the same applies to your characters. The way a character has been raised in their formative years will have an effect on who they are when the novel starts, but it will also have an effect on how they develop over the course of the novel.

Beyond this, there is also the possibility that you might wish to tackle a difficult topic in your novel – like the consequences of trauma of any kind, from loss, to grief, to more difficult topics like abuse and rape. Doing research in psychology will enable you to create more realistic characters in terms of how they react to the traumatic event, as well as how they deal with it.

Otherwise, you might end up creating characters that have had certain life experiences that should have shaped them in a certain way, and yet they act completely differently. For example, someone who was orphaned at a young age not showing any signs as an adult of abandonment issues. Or, an even worse case, when for example, a character has been kidnapped, abused, and kept in a room for more than a decade, and as soon as they are out, they suffer no psychological consequences, like PTSD.

Of course, each person is unique, and each person will react differently to different things, but doing the due diligence research into psychology will help you to create your characters in a more realistic manner.

5. Use the library and the internet

A library should be your first step when beginning research for your novel, simply because you will be able to gain access to a lot of written material as well as public records (depending on the library). Additionally, a librarian would be able to help you on the topic at hand and probably recommend some sources (books, newspapers) that would save you time when doing the research.

The internet is also an incredible tool because there is a lot of information available. If some materials are not available at your local library, you could potentially be able to find them online. A lot of libraries these days also have a digital version (where digital versions of the books are available from their online systems), so if some materials are not available physically at your local library, you might be able to get them from an online one.

On the internet, you will be able to find material of any type – from written material (eBooks, newspaper reports, interviews), to documentaries, amateur YouTube videos on a certain topic, to news reports, ads, and other content in video format, both from times before and after the internet was available worldwide.

6. Talk to people and visit online forums

Talking to people is a very important part of the research process. Writers in general tend to have a vast variety of knowledge on a lot of topics, but that knowledge never crosses over into professional knowledge. As the saying goes, “Jack of all trades, master of nothing”, and that is very true for writers.

So, you want to have your protagonist be a doctor? Talk to a doctor who works at a hospital. Ask them about their days, their working hours, the crises they face at work. One of your characters is a lawyer? Try to talk to a lawyer. Talk to a psychologist or a therapist if you wish to have a character dealing with trauma. Talk to a detective or a police chief if you’re writing a police procedural. If you’re writing about a person who goes missing, talk to a professional to understand what the usual police process would be like.

The list goes and on and on. Of course, you might not be able to talk to these people in real life. That is where online forums come in.

Online forums are a specific corner on the internet, on websites like Reddit and others, where people go and comment on a variety of topics. Visiting online forums can help you find information on human experiences – with trauma, with addiction, with psychological disorders like ADHD, OCD, anxiety, and more.

You can also find posts and comments from people describing their jobs, professions, and daily lives too. You will be able to find information on what it’s like to be a waitress, a doctor, an astrophysicist, an astronaut, and anything and everything in between. You can also try to get in touch over the internet with some of the people who have posted or commented, and see if they would be interested to talk with you directly.

However, please note that when it comes to forums, you should treat information gleaned from online posts and comments with a grain of salt. Anyone can go on the internet and comment on forums, pretending to be a doctor or a veterinarian. So, use the information carefully and with some trepidation.

7. Visit or virtually view real life places

Your novel might be set in the town or city where you’ve lived for most of your life, currently live in, or have visited before. But, it might also be set in a city where you have never been. Unless you ensure to research the place properly, chances are you will not describe the place as it is.

Additionally, you might need to set a part of your novel in a museum or a real life place, like the Vatican for example, the Louvre Museum, the Palace of Versailles, or the Grand Canyon.

It is always advisable to visit the place if you can. This can be a luxury and you might not be able to afford the travel expenses. You might not even gain access to some parts of a certain museum even if you pay for the most expensive ticket.

Again, the internet comes to the rescue here. Google Maps has street view – an option to view the area from a ground point of view. Of course, this is not strictly available for every place of the world, but it is available for a lot of places, from big cities, to remote islands and deserts – you can even take a virtual trek of the Grand Canyon.

Additionally, a lot of places also might offer virtual tours (in video format) of the premises, which can help you get a good idea of the layout of a museum, the sections, the displayed pieces, and more.

How to Research a Historical Novel: Escape the Research Rabbit Hole

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It doesn't take any research to know that historical fiction writers love spending time in history books, digital archives, museum exhibits, and library collections—and that's just in our spare time!

But how do we keep that research from overshadowing the actual writing of our books? How do you research a historical novel without getting lost in the research rabbit hole?

This guest post is by Susanne Dunlap, author of twelve works of historical fiction for adults and teens. You can find her newest book The Portraitist here and find all her books and courses on her website susanne-dunlap.com. 

Face it, none of us would write historical novels if we didn’t love the research. If we’re lucky enough to go to historical archives, the very smell of the dust, the idea that the materials and primary sources were handled by people decades or centuries ago, gives us a thrill.

And when we discover something others have overlooked, maybe that little fact that gives us something to hang an entire plot on—pour the champagne! History inspires us, it amazes us, it fascinates us—it torments us.

Research is wonderful and essential. But it can so easily commandeer all our time and energy.

How far do you need to go to track down a person or a date? What if you can’t go to places or get ahold of archival material? Do you have to know everything about the historical period and place and characters in your novel?

Won’t readers be waiting with red pens to circle any little thing you get wrong, or take exception to your interpretation of a historical character’s motives?

And what about the sheer volume of material we now have access to, thanks to the Internet and online archives? One thing leads to another and then another and then another. Before we know it, weeks have passed and we’ve got tons of research but haven’t put a word on a page.

How to Escape the Overwhelm of Research

I had to let go of that tendency to remain mired in research in a hurry when I was forced to research and write a complete manuscript in a year. It had been sold on a one-page proposal.

As I wrote, I remember being certain that someone would take me to task for changing the year a composition by Chopin was published, which I had to do in order to make my story work. But no one cared in the end.

That’s when I first learned that the story comes first, history comes second—a lesson I've had to learn over and over. Story first, history second.

That may sound like sacrilege coming from someone who started writing historical fiction after being in the academic world—a PhD in music history from Yale.

In academic articles, it really mattered that I’d consulted every known source, verified everything and didn’t categorically state something unless I knew it was backed up with historical sources and facts. I learned that the hard way, submitting articles for peer review. Ouch.

When I chose to start writing historical fiction, the research obsession was still deeply ingrained. For the sake of readers and my own sanity, though, I had to learn how to subjugate research to story.

I don’t mean being inaccurate or anachronistic (when a detail is in the wrong time period such as a television in 11th century Europe). I mean becoming comfortable with the necessary limits and with using my own imagination to fill in any gaps.

When My Research Turned Into a Rabbit Hole

My novel The Portraitist is a good example. I started working on it—on and off—seven years ago. Then, I was researching Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, the bitter rival of Adélaïde Labille-Guiard (protagonist of The Portraitist ), thinking she would be the focus of my story.

There was so much material about her, so many paintings, a Metropolitan Museum exhibition of her work, and her own three-volume autobiography—published when she was very old.

Not only that, but because she was the official portraitist to Marie Antoinette, I felt obliged to research everything about the doomed queen and the true events surrounding Louis XVI’s court.

Through that research, I discovered a close friend of Elisabeth’s, another artist: Rosalie Bocquet Filleul. What a story there!

She married the concierge of the Château de la Muette and became concierge herself after his death. She produced several pastel portraits of royals, and—perhaps more interesting—took a number of likenesses of her neighbor in Passy, Benjamin Franklin.

When I discovered that little fact I had to start researching Benjamin Franklin, his life and politics and how he ended up in that diplomatic residence next door to Rosalie Filleul—of whom he became very fond, not least of all because she was stunningly beautiful.

The rest of Rosalie’s story was poignant and tragic. She ended up guillotined because she auctioned off some chairs that belonged to the Château (I argue she was destitute and nearly starving).

So I wrote a manuscript that encompassed the stories of all three of these remarkable women. How could I leave anything out?

Turns out, I should have. That manuscript was a monster. Too long, too complicated, and I couldn’t do justice to any of the women. I had Too. Much. Information.

How to Set Research Limits

Now, of course we love stumbling on all that good stuff, those intriguing tidbits and interconnections. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do that—there’s no “should” about this.

My point is that at some juncture, you have to let go of the idea of “everything,” or the idea that you have to be the expert, and set your limits.

What limits? You might ask. There are several ways you can rein in your research so it really serves your story.

Once you’ve done enough research to figure out the primary story you want to tell, map it out. I mean that both literally and figuratively. I’m not an outliner by nature, but I’ve learned—again, the hard way—that it’s important to know a few basic things:

1. The time period of your story present.

This may seem obvious. Of course you know what time period you’re writing in!

What I’m suggesting here is that you take a good, hard look at how much of that stretch of time you really want to use.

While there may be a case for covering the entire real life of a historical figure, that sort of endeavor is best left to a biographer. You’re looking for the period bounded by the exact moment that triggers the action in your story, and the exact moment when your protagonist’s arc of change is complete.

Put another way, the moment at which the story question is answered.

You’ll no doubt have researched things around this historical time period, and that’s good background information. But you only really need to look in depth at the historical events that directly affect your protagonist.

2. The places where the story is set.

This is possibly a little easier. I’ll give you a simple example: The Portraitist takes place before, during, and after the French Revolution. But it’s set entirely in or near Paris.

To get even more precise, the primary locations are the Louvre, Versailles, the Château de Bellevue, and a suburb of Paris called Pontault en Brie.

No doubt a lot was going on in other parts of France, and of course, there’s that whole American Revolution that had an impact on the French, but it didn’t impinge on my protagonist’s life. Not Adélaïde’s, in any case. (I axed Benjamin Franklin when I focused the story away from Rosalie.)

Once you have that all mapped out, you can get the vital everyday life information about how your characters get from place to place, how long it takes, whether it was comfortable or a huge pain, how much it might have cost, etc.

I did say you still have to do a lot of research, didn’t I?

3. The main characters.

Another obvious one, but if you keep reminding yourself that the focus is on your protagonist and one or two others, you might avoid amassing research that would only bog down your story if you tried to include it.

And maybe you’ll stop yourself from digging into the life of an interesting but peripheral character (did I mention Benjamin Franklin?) when you should be working on getting those words on the page.

4. Finally, give your research the necessity test.

This is simple: Ask yourself as you start diving into that rabbit hole if what you’re looking for is absolutely necessary.

If you don’t have that piece of information you’re looking for, will something important be missing from your book? Think it over. If the answer is no, then you're likely creating the dreaded info dump.

Once you’ve set your limits, organization is your best friend.

How to Organize Your Research

I have one word for you (and I’m not being paid to say this): Scrivener .

Even if you don’t want to use it as a drafting tool, it has so many great features, not the least of which is that you can use it to gather and organize all your research, even import Web pages so you don’t have to go hunting for that bookmark you forgot what you called or where you put it.

If you’re tech savvy, you can also add metadata to make it easy to search.

And if you’re REALLY tech savvy, you can sync it with another great tool, Aeon Timeline . It would take a long time to explain all the benefits of this app for historical novelists, so I’ll leave it to you to go and check it out. The good news is that neither of these apps is very expensive.

Of course, spreadsheets work too, if that’s your comfort zone. But I recommend at least giving these tools a look.

What you’ll probably find when you start organizing all your research is that having to do so gives a good view of what’s essential and what’s not. You can keep it all, but putting it in folders by priority or time span is a sanity preserver.

Do the Research, but Write the Book

My tips above won’t let you off the hook for doing good, solid research. But they may help you give yourself permission to be more focused, to not have to know absolutely everything.

Sure, you’ll write along and discover a gap in your knowledge that you need to fill in order to tie something together or provide a motivation—or just move your characters around from place to place. So be it.

Do that research when the need arises, don’t try to anticipate every eventuality at the start. It’s all about giving yourself permission.

You want to get that draft written. I want you to get that draft written. So embrace the limits and get organized!

Where do you get stuck in the research process? What tips have helped you learn when to stop, so you can get back to your writing? Share in the comments .

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On the Fine Art of Researching For Fiction  

Jake wolff: how to write beyond the borders of your experience.

The first time I considered the relationship between fiction and research was during a writing workshop—my first—while I watched the professor eviscerate some poor kid’s story about World War II. And yeah, the story was bad. I remember the protagonist being told to “take cover” and then performing several combat rolls to do so.

“You’re college students,” the professor said. “Write about college students.”

Later, better professors would clarify for me that research, with a touch of imagination, can be a perfectly valid substitute for experience. But that’s always where the conversation stopped. If we ever uttered the word “research” in a workshop, we did so in a weaponized way to critique a piece of writing: “This desperately needs more research,” we’d all agree, and then nothing more would be said. We’d all just pretend that everyone in the room already knew how to integrate research into fiction and that the failures of the story were merely a lack of effort rather than skill. Secretly, though, I felt lost.

I knew research was important, and I knew how to research. My questions all had to do with craft. How do I incorporate research into fiction? How do I provide authenticity and detail without turning the story into a lecture? How much research is too much? Too little?

How do I allow research to support the story without feeling obligated to remain in the realm of fact—when I am, after all, trying to write fiction?

I heavily researched my debut novel, in which nearly every chapter is science-oriented, historical, or both. I’d like to share a method I used throughout the research and writing process to help deal with some of my questions. This method is not intended to become a constant fixture in your writing practice. But if you’re looking for ways to balance or check the balance of the amount of research in a given chapter, story, or scene, you might consider these steps: identify, lie, apply.

I recently had a conversation with a former student, now a friend, about a short story he was writing. He told me he was worried he’d packed it too full of historical research.

“Well,” I said, “how much research is in there?”

“Uhhh,” he answered. “I’m not sure?”

That’s what we might call a visualization problem. It’s hard to judge the quantity of something you can’t see.

I’ve faced similar problems in my own work. I once received a note from my editor saying that a certain chapter of my novel read too much like a chemistry textbook. At first, I was baffled—I didn’t think of the chapter as being overly research-forward. But upon reading it again, I realized I had missed the problem. After learning so much about chemistry, I could no longer “see” the amount of research I had crammed into twenty pages.

Literature scholars don’t have this problem because they cite their sources; endnotes, footnotes, and the like don’t merely provide a tool for readers to verify claims, but also provide a visual reminder that research exists within the text. Thankfully, creative writers generally don’t have to worry about proper MLA formatting (though you should absolutely keep track of your sources). Still, finding a quick way to visually mark the research in your fiction is the least exciting but also the most important step in recognizing its role in your work.

Personally, I map my research in blue. So when my editor flagged that chapter for me, I went back to the text and began marking the research. By the end of the process, the chapter was filled with paragraphs that looked like this one:

Progesterone is a steroid hormone that plays an especially important role in pregnancy. Only a few months before Sammy arrived in Littlefield, a group of scientists found the first example of progesterone in plants. They’d used equipment I would never be able to access, nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectroscopy, to search for the hormone in the leaves of the English Walnut trees. In humans, aging was associated with a drop in progesterone and an increase in tumor formation—perhaps a result of its neurosteroidal function.

My editor was spot-on: this barely qualified as fiction. But I truly hadn’t seen it. As both a writer and teacher, I’m constantly amazed by how blind we can become to our own manuscripts. Of course, this works the other way, too: if you’re writing a story set in medieval England but haven’t supported that setting with any research, you’ll see it during this step. It’s such an easy, obvious exercise, but I know so few writers who do this.

Before moving on, I’ll pause to recommend also highlighting research in other people’s work. If there’s a story or novel you admire that is fairly research-forward, go through a few sections and mark anything that you would have needed research to write. This will help you see the spacing and balance of research in the fiction you’re hoping to emulate.

(Two Truths and a) Lie

You’ve probably heard of the icebreaker Two Truths and a Lie: you tell two truths and one lie about yourself, and then the other players have to guess which is the lie. I’d rather die than play this game in real life, but it works beautifully when adapted as a solo research exercise.

It’s very simple. When I’m trying to (re)balance the research in my fiction, I list two facts I’ve learned from my research and then invent one “fact” that sounds true but isn’t. The idea is to acquaint yourself with the sound of the truth when it comes to a given subject and then to recreate that sound in a fictive sentence. It’s a way to provide balance and productivity, ensuring that you’re continuing to imagine and invent —to be a fiction writer— even as you’re researching.

I still have my notes from the first time I used this exercise. I was researching the ancient Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang for a work of historical fiction I would later publish in One Story. I was drowning in research, and the story was nearing fifty pages (!) with no end in sight. My story focused on the final years of the emperor’s life, so I made a list of facts related to that period, including these:

1. The emperor was obsessed with finding the elixir of life and executed Confucian scholars who failed to support this obsession.

2. If the emperor coughed, everyone in his presence had to cough in order to mask him as the source.

3. The emperor believed evil spirits were trying to kill him and built secret tunnels to travel in safety from them.

Now, the second of those statements is a lie. My facts were showing me that the emperor was afraid of dying and made other people the victims of that fear—my lie, in turn, creates a usable narrative detail supporting these facts. I ended up using this lie as the opening of the story. I was a graduate student at the time, and when I workshopped the piece, my professor said something about how the opening worked because “It’s the kind of thing you just can’t make up.” I haven’t stopped using this exercise since.

We have some facts; we have some lies. The final step is to integrate these details into the story. We’ll do this by considering their relationship to the beating heart of fiction: conflict. You can use this step with both facts and lies. My problem tends to be an overload of research rather than the opposite, so I’ll show you an example of a lie I used to help provide balance.

In a late chapter in my book, three important characters—Sammy and his current lover Sadiq and his ex- lover Catherine—travel to Rapa Nui (Easter Island). They’ve come to investigate a drug with potential anti-aging properties that originates in the soil there (that’s a fact; the drug is called rapamycin). As I researched travel to Easter Island, my Two Truths and a Lie exercise produced the following lie:

There are only two airports flying into Easter Island; these airports constantly fight with each other.

In reality, while there are two airports serving Easter Island (one in Tahiti; the other in Chile), nearly everyone flies from Chile, and it’s the same airline either way. On its surface, this is the kind of lie I would expect to leave on the cutting room floor—it’s a dry, irrelevant detail.

But when I’m using the ILA method, I try not to pre-judge. Instead, I make a list of the central conflicts in the story or chapter and a list of the facts and lies. Then I look for applications—i.e., for ways in which each detail may feel relevant to the conflicts. To my surprise, I found that the airport lie fit the conflicts of the chapter perfectly:

Ultimately, the airport lie spoke to the characters, all of whom were feeling the painful effects of life’s capriciousness, the way the choices we make can seem under our control but also outside it, arbitrary but also fateful. I used this lie to introduce these opposing forces and to divide the characters: Sammy and Sadiq fly from Tahiti; Catherine flies from Chile.

Two airports in the world offered flights to Rapa Nui—one in Tahiti, to the west, and one in Chile, to the east. Most of the scientists stayed in one of those two countries. There was no real meaning to it. But still, it was hard, in a juvenile way, not to think of the two groups as opposing teams in a faction. There was the Tahiti side, and there was the Chile side, and only one could win.

This sort of schematic—complete with a table and headers—may seem overly rigid to you, to which I’d respond, Gee, you sound like one of my students. What can I say? I’m a rigid guy. But when you’re tackling a research-intensive story, a little rigidity isn’t the worst thing. Narrative structure does not supply itself. It results from the interplay between the conflicts, the characters, and the details used to evoke them. I’m presenting one way, of many, to visualize those relationships whenever you’re feeling lost.

Zora Neal Hurston wrote, “Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.” Maybe that’s why I’m thinking of structure and rigidity—research, for me, is bolstering in this way. It provides form. But it’s also heavy and hard to work with. It doesn’t bend. If you’re struggling with the burden of it, give ILA a shot and see if unsticks whatever is holding you back. If you do try this approach, let me know if it works for you—and if it doesn’t, feel free to lie.

__________________________________

Jake Wolff’s  The History of Living Forever is out now from FSG.

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3 Research Hacks for Your Novel

Guest post by Dave Chesson

Research can make or break your novel.

When readers choose your book, they expect to be transported into a believable and engrossing world.

Research is the key to creating an immersive environment to be enjoyed and savored.

Conversely, a badly researched novel can shatter the suspension of disbelief, causing your reader to lose patience with your book and even leave a negative review.

The importance of research for reader enjoyment and, consequently, author reputation can be seen in the following review of Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye’s novel Kingdom Come .

The reviewer in the above image gave the maximum five-star rating to the novel as a direct result of “remarkable research.”

So how do you carry out the same quality of research for your own work? After all, not all writers are researchers. It can be difficult to know the right way to go about it.

Thankfully, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Read on to discover three research tips you can use on your novel —from hugely successful authors.

• Know Your Reader, Your Questions, and Your Sources

It’s important to understand what your readers expect from your work before you conduct your research.

After all, information about almost any subject on Earth is readily available. If you’ve ever found yourself going off on tangents and opening new tabs while browsing the web, you know exactly how easy it is to get distracted by the sheer amount of information out there.

Reader Expectation

The time you can dedicate to research is probably limited, so spend that time in the most focused and fruitful way possible. Achieve this by gaining a solid understanding of your readers’ expectations.

Readers of the Left Behind series expect accurate use of Biblical prophecy. Readers of historical war fiction expect to find the correct weapons from that time period.

If you’re unsure of how to best meet reader expectations, try the following:

• If you’ve published in the past , use the feedback you received. What did your readers praise? What did they dislike? Can you get a sense of what they ideally expect from your work?
• If you’re a new author, look at reviews for similar work within your genre. After all, you are likely to sell books to people who buy similar books. Established authors are also likely to have a wealth of feedback you can draw upon.
• Feel free to explicitly ask your readers. If you have a mailing list, solicit feedback on what makes or breaks a book in your genre. If you have a social media presence, conduct a poll.
• Refer to the many avenues people use to voice their opinions to understand what readers love. Check out forums for fans of your genre, fan blogs, reader groups on Facebook, relevant hashtags, and so on.

Formulate Specific Research Questions

Once you understand what will best satisfy your readers, develop a list of specific research questions, based on either your novel outline or the general topic.

This is how bestselling author K.M Weiland carries out her research .

Imagine your main character is an English vicar. You could research this generally, but creating specific questions ensures you’ll include everything important. You can add questions as you go, but having a list to start with will help you remain focused.

Form a list of topics your research will cover, and then create specific questions for each.

Imagine writing a crime novel set in 1920s London. You might choose the following categories with particular questions for each:

• Language. Slang in use at the time? Could people generally write well? Different types of dialect based on occupation/social status?
• Everyday life. How did people spend their time? Common food and drink consumed?
• Geography. How did London in the 1920s differ from today? What about the rest of the country/world? How will this impact your story?

The exact categories and questions will depend upon your genre.

Research Sources

Now consider the best places to find the information you need. You should also have a system in place to collect your findings, such as the research capabilities provided by specialist book writing software . While Google is powerful, it’s by no means your only option. Some useful sources include:

• Wolfram Alpha . Like a genius librarian who quickly and accurately answers almost any question. The image below shows Wolfram Alpha in action.

• Google Scholar . High-quality academic information. Excellent if you want a more believable character or story with a depth of info far beyond a normal search engine.
• Internet Archive . To see how a website used to look, use this. As you can see, it’s possible to view Jerry’s website all the way back to 1999!

• Library of Congress . A rich source of American history. View photos as well as other media. You can also “ask a librarian,” as seen below.
• People: Your Richest Source

Turning to your laptop or smartphone by default when researching can lead to overlooking the richest research source of all — the people around us.

For your novel to be truly great, it should focus on more than just facts. It should contain rich human thoughts and feelings.

Margaret Mitchell based a lot of ‘Gone With the Wind’ on the real stories she’d been told in her childhood about the American Civil War . Her book is not only historically accurate, but it also feels authentic.

Draw On the People In Your Life

• Your family . Ask older relatives what life was like growing up. How much did things cost? Did people speak differently to each other? Ask younger relatives what matters to them. How do they spend time with their friends?
• Your friends. Ask those with different occupations or backgrounds, religions, political stances, etc., for their perspectives. This can make your novel more believable than if you merely guess what different lives are like.
• Strangers. Observe people wherever you go. What are they wearing? How do they talk? Good novelists are constantly watching.
• People online. People reveal a lot about themselves on forums, social media, and their blogs . The gives you the opportunity to research people all over the world you might never otherwise come across.

Aren’t novels simply superb when you the characters feel real ? You can give your own story this level of authenticity by drawing upon the rich experiences of the people in your life.

• Travel For Research

Nothing beats actually visiting the place you will write about .

Bestselling thriller and nonfiction author Joanna Penn advocates journeying to your book’s location and getting a firsthand feel for it. This may seem impossible on your budget, but think outside the box:

• Travel during less popular times of the year. Check out a site like Skyscanner and compare airline prices.
• If you can’t afford to go to your specific location, choose somewhere similar but cheaper. Just fact check your research against the actual city to avoid inaccuracies.
• The next best thing to actually being there in person is virtual travel. Google Maps gives you a street view walk around almost anywhere on Earth. You can see the buildings and even what people are wearing.
• Watch documentaries on your location on YouTube or a similar site.

Other Internet Resources

• TripAdvisor . See what real people thought about the attractions, restaurants, and accommodation of cities all over the world.
• Travel Blogs . High-quality posts provide reports to inform and inspire your writing . Many also contain brilliant photos that will help when writing your descriptive passages.
• Travel Forums . Forums allow you to ask about a particular place from a wide range of people who’ve been there. This is a great option if there’s a particular detail you can’t find anywhere else.
• Author Research — What’s Your Personal Process?

Effective author research comes down to:

• Choosing careful questions and sources based on reader expectations
• Making the most of the life experiences of the people around us
• Exploring a book’s location, either firsthand, on the Internet, or by interviewing others

These research tips were suggested by bestselling authors. What’s your favorite research idea? Do you have a personal process you like? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Are You Making This #1 Amateur Writing Mistake?

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What You and I Can Learn From Patricia Raybon

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21 Ways to Research your Novel

Before writing a novel, it’s important to do research on the location, the time period, the people, the food, and the hobbies and jobs of the characters. Many authors dread researching, but it can actually be fun! Here are a few ideas to help you research your novel.

Research your novel with experience

1. Write what you know—use personal experience to write your novel. 2. Visit restaurants that serve the same food your characters would eat in their location. 3. If you have the funds, travel to the location where your characters live. 4. Visit museum exhibits to discover more information about different locations and subjects. 5. Take classes on subjects your characters are interested or have talents in.

Read for research

6. Visit the library and find reference books on the subject. 7. Read novels that are in the same genre as the novel you’re writing (especially bestsellers). 8. Read magazines and journals on the subject.

Use the Internet

9. Look up videos on YouTube . Often a visual image will spark ideas you can include in your book. 10. Do a Google search and see what others have to say (be sure to check their sources, though, to make sure that what they’re saying is reliable). 11. Look up documentaries on the subject. 12. Look around on Pinterest for ideas, inspiration, and information.

Research by interacting with others

13. Call people who live in the location your novel takes place (even if it’s at random from the phone book!). 14. Interview people who have experience with the subjects you touch on in your novel. 15. Email or call experts in the field you need to learn more about, asking them just a few specific questions about the topic that you wouldn’t be able to easily find answers to elsewhere. 16. Watch others who are similar to your characters to see how they think, feel, and talk.

Miscellaneous ideas

17. Write down everything you discover and learn. You don’t need to use all the information you find—in fact, you absolutely won’t used it all—but it’s better to collect more than you’ll use than to have too little. Until you finish the actual writing, you never know what tidbit you might need to pull in. 18. Type up and organize your notes in a way that makes sense to you. 19. Don’t go so overboard when you research your novel that you start procrastinating the writing. If it’s helpful, set a time limit for your research. 20. After you begin your book, if you run into something minor you need to know (like the name or description of an object), you can always type XXXX as a placeholder and do the research for it later so you don’t bog down the writing at a moment when the writing is flowing. 21. Leave some of the things you researched out when you write. It’s extremely jarring to the reader when an author stops the flow of the story to explain how something works or what something means. If it isn’t pertinent to the story and doesn’t introduce confusion by its omission, leave it out! With your research, you can make sure your characters are using the correct terms and reacting appropriately, but you don’t have to include every detail of what you researched. A little authentic flavor goes a long way.

We hope this post has given you some researching ideas. Do you have any tips or tricks on how to research your novel? We’d love to hear in the comments!

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I am a copyeditor and a typesetter of print books, and have been editing and typesetting (using InDesign) for fourteen years. As the executive editor at Book Cave, I enjoy helping authors be successful, and I only get interrupted a little bit (ha!) by my way-too-smart-for-his-own-good three-year-old and my cute 6 month old.

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Leave a Reply

This 21 research guide has been so helpful. I have got a writing tip for you and your readers. Have you tried using the silly tweets on Twitter and The silly articles on Facebook as writing prompts? If not it’s worth a try.

I have written 2 short stories, i would love to send them to you for your feedback

Thanks for the tips. I actually left the whole runaway/cops out of one story, maybe realized it needs the social issue part of life in a romance. But my mystery novel has twist of having no cops.

Catia, helpful article. I write a column for a local Writer’s Organization. On occasion, I will get permission and use a column such as yours instead of writing my own. I always cite the author. I’m wondering if you’d be letting me use this column for that purpose. If so, please give me the wording to use to cite you and your columns. Thanks.

Judythe, you’re welcome to use quotes from the article as long as you include a link back to this page, or write a summary of the post and link back to this page, but please don’t use the entirety of the post, as that would be flagged as duplicate content by Google. Thanks!

Thanks, Catia. Judythe

First and foremost, Thanks for putting your knowledge out there to help others. I am a first time novel writer, and research has always been fun to me even if it has nothing to do with my current book project, all of your tips are spot on a few I have not tried in past but am going to insert them in to my current researching habits. Thanks for being you and doing what you do

Sincerely William Graham

Yes seeing through it but as they are passing through it they grasp a concept and learn it WELL ONE would hope that they grasp it and have personal growth from it. Sincerely, Fernando Augusto Osorio

Book Cave I love it! Its like the allegory of the cave hence me wanting a mentor get it? I love it even more that I remembered that Glaucon was with his mentor Socrates hence me wanting a mentor also, your Book Cave could be a very good site for me. Greatest regards, Fernando Augusto Osorio

I want to write a book in the future and would like a mentor what would you suggest I do to go about getting a mentor? Thanks, Fernando Augusto Osorio

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Books Bound in Human Skin: An Ethical Quandary at the Library

Harvard’s recent decision to remove the binding of a notorious volume in its library has thrown fresh light on a shadowy corner of the rare book world.

By Jennifer Schuessler and Julia Jacobs

The New York International Antiquarian Book Fair is the place to inspect some of the most exquisite rare books on the market. But at this year’s event in early April, some browsers may have been unprepared for a small, grayish item on view: a book bound in human skin.

The book, which measures about 3 by 5 inches, came with a price tag of $45,000 — and a colorful back story. According to a statement by its owner, the binding was commissioned in 1682 by an Italian doctor and anatomist identified as Jacopo X, and has been kept by his descendants ever since.

Family lore held that during a dissection, Jacopo recognized the woman on the slab as an actress he had seen in Corneille’s comedy “Le Baron d’Albikrac.” He knew that unclaimed bodies sold to medical schools for dissection were rarely, if ever, given a proper burial. So he removed a piece of skin, and used it to bind a copy of the play.

“There was a sense that this was a tribute,” Ian Kahn, a dealer, explained to onlookers gathered at the counter of his booth before pulling out the book to offer a closer look.

Books bound in human skin — and the sometimes sensational stories surrounding them — have long occupied an odd place in the annals of the rare book world. Over the years, they have been whispered, bragged and joked about.

But over the past decade, the conversation has shifted. Many institutions whose collections include these books have sharply restricted access, as they have found themselves unexpectedly embroiled in the same debates about displaying — or even owning — human remains that have swept across museums .

The conversation was jolted anew last month when Harvard University announced that it had removed the skin binding from a notorious book in its collections, and that it would be seeking “a final, respectful disposition.” The university also apologized for “past failures in its stewardship,” which it said had “further objectified and compromised the dignity of the human being whose remains were used” for the binding.

The announcement drew headlines around the world. But so far, the reaction from rare book experts has been muted — and mixed.

“It was a bold move to put out a press release not just about the presence of human skin books, but about a potentially controversial way of dealing with the issue,” said Allie Alvis, a curator at the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library in Delaware. Too many institutions, Alvis says, are unwilling to say much about them at all.

But others are troubled by what they see as the destruction of a historical artifact, and the imposition of 21st-century sensibilities onto objects from different times and contexts.

Megan Rosenbloom, a former medical librarian and the author of “Dark Archives,” a study of the history and science of anthropodermic (or skin-bound) books, said that destroying or disposing of these objects would close off future scholarship and fresh understandings.

“We should treat these books as respectfully as possible, but try not to bury literally and figuratively what happened to these people,” she said. “It’s hubris to think we’ve come to the end of our evolution of how we think about human remains.”

And moves like Harvard’s, Rosenbloom added, could backfire.

“If all anthropodermic books are taken out of institutions,” she said, “the rest of these books on the private market will probably go further underground, where they might be treated less respectfully.”

Rumors and Innuendo

Claims of books bound in human skin have circulated for centuries. But the ability to confirm them scientifically — using a technique called peptide mass fingerprinting — is only about a decade old.

In 2015, Rosenbloom and others started the Anthropodermic Book Project , with the goal of uncovering “the historical truths behind the innuendo.” So far, the project has identified 51 purported examples worldwide, 18 of which have been confirmed as bound in human skin. Another 14 have been debunked.

An unknown number of others sit in private libraries. Kahn, whose firm, Lux Mentis , handles a lot of “challenging material,” as he put it, said he knows of several collectors in Paris who have skin-bound books.

The oldest reputed examples are three 13th-century Bibles held at the Bibliothèque Nationale in France. The largest number date from the Victorian era, the heyday of anatomical collecting , when doctors sometimes had medical treatises and other texts bound in skin from patients or cadavers.

Other examples relate to criminals or prisoners. At the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in Scotland, a display about the 19th-century growth of the medical profession includes a small notebook purportedly bound in the skin of William Burke, part of a duo of notorious serial killers who sold their victims’ bodies for dissection. The Boston Athenaeum owns one bound in the skin of a man who, before he died in prison , had asked that two copies of his memoir and deathbed confession be bound in his skin.

While most known skin bindings are from Europe or North America, some involve wild claims, like a book at the Newberry Library in Chicago said to have been “found in the palace of the King of Delhi” during the 1857 mutiny against British rule. (Lab examination, according to the library, concluded it was actually “highly burnished goat.” )

“There’s often a sense of othering of these books,” said Alvis, the curator of Winterthur Museum, who posts about rare books on social media as @book_historia. “They don’t come from the noble white person, but this strange person from foreign climes.”

Current testing cannot identify race or sex of the skin. But at least a half-dozen 19th-century examples involve skin purportedly taken from female patients or cadavers by male doctors, with several used to cover books about female biology or sexuality (like a treatise on virginity held at the Wellcome Collection in London).

And a few examples, both rumored and confirmed, have racial connections that, whatever the intentions behind the bindings, may play uncomfortably today.

Two volumes of poems by Phillis Wheatley , the first person of African descent to publish a book in the United States, have been confirmed as bound in human skin. But a pocket-size notebook at the Wellcome Collection, long claimed to have been bound in the skin of Crispus Attucks, a mixed-race Black and Native man recognized as the first person to die for American independence, is likely bound in camel, horse or goat skin, according to the museum.

A ‘Violated Woman’?

The volume at Harvard, an 1879 philosophical treatise called “Des Destinées de L’Ame,” or “The Destiny of Souls,” was bound by a French doctor named Ludovic Bouland, who inserted a note saying that “a book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering.” It was placed at Harvard’s Houghton Library in 1934 by John Stetson, an heir to the hat fortune, along with another note saying that the skin came from a woman who died in a psychiatric hospital.

According to Harvard, library lore holds that “decades ago” the book was sometimes used to haze unsuspecting student workers. But questions about the library’s recent stewardship emerged in 2014, after the library published a jokey blog post describing the confirmation of the skin binding as “good news for cannibals.”

Paul Needham, a prominent rare book expert who retired from Princeton in 2020, was deeply offended, and began calling on Harvard to remove the skin and give it a “respectful burial.”

“I think that the way the Houghton Library treated this was a disservice to the world of rare book collecting,” he said.

The library imposed some restrictions on access in 2015. Winds shifted further in 2021, when Harvard formed a Steering Committee on Human Remains to examine all of its collections, as an outgrowth of its efforts to reckon with its historic entanglements with slavery.

A single skin-bound book from 19th-century France may seem like a small thing amid the more than 20,000 human remains in Harvard’s collections, including 6,500 from Native Americans, which critics say are not being researched and repatriated quickly enough.

But to Needham, who was involved in starting an affinity group to pressure Harvard into burying the skin of what the group called “the violated woman trapped in the binding,” the moral imperative is clear: The proper disposition of human remains should take ethical precedence, particularly where the person has not given consent.

“What 100 years from now would be the potential new research that would be done?” Needham said. “I just can’t imagine it.”

Harvard’s decision is drawing heightened attention to skin-bound volumes elsewhere, including one at the Cleveland Public Library: an 1867 edition of the Quran, acquired in 1941 from a dealer who had described it as “formerly the property of the East Arab chief Bushiri ibn Salim who revolted against the Germans in 1888.”

For decades, the book typically received a handful of requests a year for access, said John Skrtic, the library’s chief of collections. But earlier this year, the library made it off-limits, pending testing.

“The library has long believed the undocumented claim in the dealer’s catalog, regarding its binding, to be false and finds the claim sensationalistic and deeply offensive,” the Cleveland Public Library said in a statement. The library will “engage leaders in the local Muslim community to chart an ethical path forward.”

Harvard’s approach is also generating strong criticism. Eric Holzenberg, a book scholar who recently retired as director of the Grolier Club in Manhattan, said that the destruction of the binding “accomplishes nothing,” beyond expressing disapproval of “the acts of people long dead.”

“Harvard, it seems to me, has taken the easy way out,” Holzenberg said. “No doubt the proper, cautious, committee-generated, risk-averse approach, but ultimately I fear at the expense of sound scholarship and responsible stewardship.”

Rosenbloom, the author of “Dark Archives,” said she questioned the tendency to pull these objects, which were generally not created or collected in a context of colonialism, into models developed to address those injustices. And she wondered why Harvard had removed the binding before finishing full provenance research.

In response to emailed questions, Thomas Hyry, the director of Houghton Library, and Anne-Marie Eze, its associate librarian, said they did not believe dismantling of the binding would limit future scholarship.

“The decisions we have made to remove the human remains from our volume will not erase what we know about this practice for those studying the history of the book,” they said.

Balancing Research and Respect

Some libraries that have undertaken an ethical review of their anthropodermic books have reached different conclusions.

Brown University’s John Hay Library has four books confirmed as bound in human skin, including an edition of Vesalius’s landmark 1543 anatomical atlas, “On the Structure of the Human Body.” In the past, they were promoted on campus tours and sometimes brought out for Halloween and other events.

But in 2019, the library’s new director, Amanda Strauss, paused any showing of the books, while developing policies that balanced respect for human remains with the library’s research mandate.

“We don’t want to censor access to controversial or disturbing material,” she said. “And we don’t want to shame anyone for their interest.”

Today, images of the books’ pages (but not the bindings) are available online , while access to the physical books is limited to people conducting research on medical ethics or anthropodermic bindings.

Strauss said she would be uncomfortable with any alteration or destruction of the bindings, which she said amounted to “erasure.”

“We can’t pretend this wasn’t a practice and this didn’t happen,” she said. “Because it did, and we have the evidence.”

With any macabre object, the line between morbid curiosity and the pursuit of understanding may be hard to draw.

Kahn, the dealer, said he wanted to “demystify” books bound in skin, which he said can prompt conversations about ethics, knowledge and our own status as animals. At the book fair, many seemed open to those questions and curious, however queasily, to touch the Corneille volume.

One browser, Helen Lukievics, a retired lawyer, said she had read about the Harvard book and shuddered. But she was persuaded, she said, by the idea that this particular binding had been meant as a “tribute” to the actress.

“It’s fabulously appalling,” she said. She paused. “It’s a piece of history.”

Jennifer Schuessler is a culture reporter covering intellectual life and the world of ideas. She is based in New York. More about Jennifer Schuessler

Julia Jacobs is an arts and culture reporter who often covers legal issues for The Times. More about Julia Jacobs

A novel universal light-based technique to control valley polarization in bulk materials

An ICFO team, together with international collaborators, report in Nature a new method that achieves for the first time valley polarization in centrosymmetric bulk materials in a non-material-specific way.

This "universal technique" may have major applications linked to the control and analysis of different properties for 2D and 3D materials, which can in turn enable the advancement of cutting-edge fields such us information processing and quantum computing.

Electrons inside solid materials can only take certain values of energy. The allowed energy ranges are called "bands" and the space between them, the forbidden energies, are known as "band-gaps." Both of them together constitute the "band structure" of the material, which is a unique characteristic of each specific material.

When physicists plot the band structure, they usually see that the resulting curves resemble mountains and valleys. In fact, the technical term for a local energy maximum or minimum in the bands is called a "valley," and the field which studies and exploits how electrons in the material switch from one valley to the other is coined "valleytronics."

In standard semiconductor electronics, the electric charge of the electrons is the most used property exploited to encode and manipulate information. But these particles have other properties that could also be used for the same purpose, such as the valley they are in. In the past decade, the main aim of valleytronics has been to reach the control of valley population (also known as valley polarization) in materials. Such an achievement could be used to create classical and quantum gates and bits, something that could really drive the development of computing and quantum information processing.

Previous attempts presented several drawbacks. For example, the light used to manipulate and change valley polarization had to be resonant, that is, the energy of its photons (the particles that constitute light) had to correspond exactly to the energy of the band-gap of that particular material. Any small deviation reduced the efficiency of the method so, provided that each material has their own band-gaps, generalizing the proposed mechanism seemed something out of reach. Moreover, this process had only been achieved for monolayer structures (2D materials, just one-atom-thick). This requirement hindered its practical implementation, as monolayers are usually limited in size, quality and difficult to engineer.

Now, ICFO researchers Igor Tyulnev, Julita Poborska, Dr. Lenard Vamos, led by Prof. ICREA Jens Biegert, in collaboration with researchers from the Max-Born-Institute, the Max-Planck Institute for the Science of Light, and Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid have found a new universal method to induce valley polarization in centrosymmetric bulk materials. The discovery, published in Nature , unlocks the possibility to control and manipulate valley population without being restricted by the specific chosen material. At the same time, the method can be used to obtain a more detailed characterization of crystals and 2D materials.

Valley polarization in bulk materials is possible

The adventure began with the experimental group led by ICREA Prof. at ICFO Jens Biegert who initially wanted to experimentally produce valley polarization using their particular method in 2D materials, following the lines of what had been theoretically proved in a previous theoretical paper by Álvaro Jiménez, Rui Silva and Misha Ivanov. To set up the experiment, the initial measurement was tried on bulk MoS 2 (a bulk material is made of many monolayers stacked together) with the surprising result that they saw the signature of valley polarization. "When we started working on this project, we were told by our theory collaborators that showing valley polarization in bulk materials was rather impossible," explains Julita Poborska.

The theoretical team remarks as well how, at the very beginning, their model was only suitable for single 2D layers. "At a first glance, it seemed that adding more layers would hinder the selection of specific valleys in the sample. But after the first experimental results, we adjusted the simulation to bulk materials and it validated the observations surprisingly well. We did not even try to fit anything. It is just the way it came out," adds Prof. Misha Ivanov, the theorist leader. In the end, "it turned out that yes, you can actually valley polarize bulk materials that are central symmetric, because of the symmetry conditions," concludes Poborska.

As Igor Tyulnev, first author of the article, explains, "our experiment consisted in creating an intense light pulse with a polarization that fitted this internal structure. The result was the so-called "trefoil field," whose symmetry matched the triangular sub-lattices that constitute hetero-atomic hexagonal materials."

This symmetry-matched strong field breaks the space and time symmetry within the material, and, more importantly, the resulting configuration depends on the orientation of the trefoil field with respect to the material. Therefore, "by simply rotating the incident light field, we were able to modulate the valley polarization," concludes Tyulnev, a major achievement in the field and a confirmation of a novel universal technique that can control and manipulate the electron valleys in bulk materials.

The experimental process

The experiment can be explained in three main steps: First, the synthesis of the trefoil field; then its characterization; and finally, the actual production of valley polarization.

The researchers emphasize the incredibly high precision that the characterization process required, as the trefoil field is made of not just one, but two coherently combined optical fields. One of them had to be circularly polarized in one direction, and the other needed to be the second harmonic of the first beam, polarized with the opposite handedness. They superimposed these fields onto each other, so that the total polarization in time traced the desired trefoil shape.

Three years after the initial experimental attempts, Igor Tyulnev is thrilled by the recent Nature publication.

The new universal method he states, "can be used not only to control the properties of a wide variety of chemical species, but also to characterize crystals and 2D materials."

As Prof. ICREA at ICFO Jens Biegert remarks: "Our method may provide an important ingredient to engineer energy efficient materials for efficient information storage and fast switching. This addresses the pressing need for low-energy consumption devices and increased computational speed. I cannot promise that what we have provided is THE solution, but it is probably one solution on this big challenge."

• Materials Science
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Story Source:

Materials provided by ICFO-The Institute of Photonic Sciences . Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Related Multimedia :

• Schematic of the valley polarization effect

Journal Reference :

• Igor Tyulnev, Álvaro Jiménez-Galán, Julita Poborska, Lenard Vamos, Philip St. J. Russell, Francesco Tani, Olga Smirnova, Misha Ivanov, Rui E. F. Silva, Jens Biegert. Valleytronics in bulk MoS2 with a topologic optical field . Nature , 2024; 628 (8009): 746 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07156-y

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Doctoral student awarded NASA Graduate Research Fellowship

Sponsored by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, the NSTGRO fellowship supports ideas that show significant potential to contribute to NASA’s goal of creating innovative new space technologies for our Nation’s science, exploration, and economic future. NASA Space Technology Graduate Researchers will perform innovative, space technology research at their respective campuses and a NASA center. The visiting technologist experience is an integral part of an NSTGRO award, during which the NASA Space Technology Graduate Researchers perform their research at a NASA center each summer. Awards are made in the form of grants to accredited U.S. universities on behalf of individuals pursuing master’s or doctoral degrees, with the faculty advisor serving as the principal investigator.

Agata, Bigham, and their research group at the Energy-Exploration Laboratory ( Energy-X ) are currently working on the development of next-generation life support systems, to replace the current state-of-the-art technology with 3D-printed sorbent structures. They have developed a complex, multi-physics, computational fluid dynamic model that is capable of exploring the governing mechanisms of carbon dioxide adsorption and regeneration processes. Through this, optimization of topologies can be achieved, improving system performance and reliability while reducing system mass, volume, and power consumption. Under the proposed work, Agata will develop a holistic understanding of their printed structures, directly measuring material properties and constructing a benchtop breakthrough analyzer to further assist and improve the accuracy and capabilities of their modeling.

The goal is to optimize carbon dioxide adsorption and regeneration processes while simultaneously reducing pressure losses experienced by the air mixture. The team believes that an optimized sorption system can be realized by designing 3D sorbent structures with proper topology, material characteristics, and thermal conductivity. If successful, this project will advance the air revitalization system of NASA space vehicles for future Moon and Mars missions.

Maintenance work is planned for Wednesday 1st May 2024 from 9:00am to 11:00am (BST).

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Chemical Society Reviews

The mechanism of water oxidation using transition metal-based heterogeneous electrocatalysts.

* Corresponding authors

a Key Laboratory of Applied Surface and Colloid Chemistry, Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an 710119, P. R. China E-mail: [email protected] , [email protected] , [email protected]

The water oxidation reaction, a crucial process for solar energy conversion, has garnered significant research attention. Achieving efficient energy conversion requires the development of cost-effective and durable water oxidation catalysts. To design effective catalysts, it is essential to have a fundamental understanding of the reaction mechanisms. This review presents a comprehensive overview of recent advancements in the understanding of the mechanisms of water oxidation using transition metal-based heterogeneous electrocatalysts, including Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, and Cu-based catalysts. It highlights the catalytic mechanisms of different transition metals and emphasizes the importance of monitoring of key intermediates to explore the reaction pathway. In addition, advanced techniques for physical characterization of water oxidation intermediates are also introduced, for the purpose of providing information for establishing reliable methodologies in water oxidation research. The study of transition metal-based water oxidation electrocatalysts is instrumental in providing novel insights into understanding both natural and artificial energy conversion processes.

Article information

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S. Yang, X. Liu, S. Li, W. Yuan, L. Yang, T. Wang, H. Zheng, R. Cao and W. Zhang, Chem. Soc. Rev. , 2024, Advance Article , DOI: 10.1039/D3CS01031G

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April 24, 2024

Thomson Reuters unveils Checkpoint Edge with CoCounsel, featuring its generative AI assistant for tax research

First Thomson Reuters generative AI product for tax professionals uses AWS to deliver better, faster answers to complex tax research questions, rooted in the company’s trusted proprietary content

TORONTO, April 24, 2024 – Thomson Reuters (NYSE/TSX: TRI), a global content and technology company, is expanding access to the power of generative AI (GenAI) with the launch of Checkpoint Edge with CoCounsel to help redefine how professionals perform tax research. The enhanced solution is built on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and delivers a GenAI assistant to tax professionals, enabling them to quickly get answers to complex research questions, saving them time and increasing their efficiency. In addition, with the AI-Assisted Research skill on Checkpoint Edge, the solution empowers tax professionals with trusted answers, accessed through Thomson Reuters GenAI assistant, named CoCounsel.

Tax research has historically been a labor-intensive process, often requiring extensive manual effort and expertise, combined with the pressure of ensuring accuracy to enable professionals to take and defend tax positions with confidence. The introduction of Checkpoint Edge with CoCounsel gives tax professionals the ability to leverage the transformative capabilities of AI-Assisted Research. Through dialogue with a GenAI assistant, tax professionals can simply ask a question in everyday language. The solution will provide a relevant answer with links to trusted Checkpoint Edge editorial content and source materials in moments.

“Research is essential for tax professionals and getting it right can take hours; it is hard and time-consuming,” said Nancy Hawkins, vice president of Product Management, Research, Thomson Reuters. “Yet accountants are not lawyers trained in interpreting legislation, and the workforce is shrinking. That is why a GenAI-powered solution has the power to transform the profession. GenAI enables accountants to get it right, fast.”

When it comes to how GenAI can help reduce the burden, 77% of tax professionals think GenAI can be applied to professional work, with increased efficiency and productivity being rated the top reason it should be applied to tax work according to the 2024 Generative AI in Professional Services report by Thomson Reuters.

Trusted technology the tax industry can rely on

Tax firms (83%) and corporate tax professionals (71%) rate technology companies as the primary influencers on the future of GenAI. With influence comes responsibility, and Thomson Reuters works within a rigorous set of AI and data principles to ensure trustworthiness in its design, development, and deployment of AI in its solutions.

To expand access to GenAI by unlocking its potential in tax research for its customers, Thomson Reuters built Checkpoint Edge with CoCounsel securely using Amazon Bedrock. Amazon Bedrock is a fully managed service that offers a choice of high-performing foundation models from leading AI companies via a single API, along with a broad set of capabilities for building GenAI applications that meet the high Thomson Reuters standards for security, privacy, and responsible AI.

The use of Amazon Bedrock enabled the Thomson Reuters engineering team to accelerate AI model deployment time from days to hours. The solution is rooted in Thomson Reuters-verified databases to deliver reliable, accurate results, while keeping customer data private and secure.

Matt Wood, vice president of Artificial Intelligence Products, AWS said: “Generative AI has the potential to revolutionize industries, significantly enhancing operational and cost efficiency. By choosing Amazon Bedrock to build and scale generative AI applications like Checkpoint Edge with CoCounsel, Thomson Reuters can access leading foundation models and customize them using their proprietary data, with the confidence that this data is secure and private by default. We look forward to continuing our work with Thomson Reuters to support generative AI-powered tools that increase productivity and boost innovation.”

Key features of Checkpoint Edge with CoCounsel

Checkpoint Edge with CoCounsel empowers tax professionals with trusted answers in a simple chat interface.

• Trusted answers: The solution enhances customers’ efficiency by delivering synthesized, easily digestible answers along with links to Checkpoint Edge editorial content and source materials, helping professionals spot key risks and resolve questions using powerful summaries from thousands of documents in a matter of seconds.

Since AI-Assisted Research is grounded in Thomson Reuters curated, vetted, and up-to-date Checkpoint Edge content, customers can be assured that they are getting trusted guidance and expert analysis.

• Simple chat interface: The solution leverages large language models (LLMs) to provide a conversational interface to deliver straightforward answers to customers’ questions, as if they were speaking directly to a trusted subject matter expert or advisor. With an easy-to-use, intuitive interface, AI-Assisted Research can be successfully used by tax professionals at all skill levels.

In addition, by synthesizing the most accurate answers from pertinent sources, the solution empowers junior tax professionals to conduct research faster and with confidence, without an over-reliance on the expertise of senior colleagues.

Available for purchase now as part of an early adopter program, Checkpoint Edge with CoCounsel is expected to debut initially in the United States, starting from summer 2024.

Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters (NYSE / TSX: TRI) (“TR”) informs the way forward by bringing together the trusted content and technology that people and organizations need to make the right decisions. The company serves professionals across legal, tax, accounting, compliance, government, and media. Its products combine highly specialized software and insights to empower professionals with the data, intelligence, and solutions needed to make informed decisions, and to help institutions in their pursuit of justice, truth, and transparency. Reuters, part of Thomson Reuters, is a world leading provider of trusted journalism and news. For more information, visit tr.com .

Media contact Kirsty Bennett Director, Customer and Product PR [email protected]

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