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| The handsome man with the guitar is my Grandfather |
- "How to Research your Novel" by Scott Francis
National Novel Writing Month is fast approaching and this months theme for the PracticeMakesProse challenge is "Planning" so this weeks topic is "Researching".
This topic is actually a very important one for me this year. Since my story is set in another time period (The 1940s). I have needed to do a ton of research so that my story will be believable to the readers. So because I have been doing a lot of research I thought I would share the different types of research I've been doing and hopefully this can help you if you are doing research for your writing projects.
Before I even started thinking about researching I did a complete outline of my story. Having the outline in front of me helped me to know exactly what needed to be researched. Also as I was writing the outline I made a list of questions that I didn't know the answer too. For example, "Did restaurants have Juke boxes in the 1940s?" Having these questions also helped me to know what needed to be researched.
I used several different methods for research. The first and most convenient is internet searching. I searched things like: teen clothing in the 40s, restaurant menus in the 40s, grocery stores, church buildings, popular names of that time, etc. Also for those of you who are Nanowrimo participants, the "Reference Desk" forum is a wonderful form of research! If you can't find the answers to some of your research questions then you can post your questions in the forum, chances are you will get an answer that can help.
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| Page out of "Welcome to Molly's World, 1944" |
Another form of research I used was good old fashion books. I went to the library and looked through different books about life at the home front. I ended up finding an excellent book entitled "Welcome to Molly's World, 1944: Growing up in World War Two America" The character of Molly is a bit younger than my main character but the book was still quite helpful.
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| My Grandmother and one of her brothers in front of the house she grew up in |
Since my story is roughly based on my grandparents I did some research by looking through old photographs and letters. I was able to find some great photos of my grandparents when they were teenagers and photographs of the house my grandmother grew up in.
Several years ago when I had originally come up with this story idea I had done a few interviews with my grandmother. Interviewing is another great way to research your topic. Unfortunately I was not able to be around during the 1940s and I do not know what it was really like but my grandmother does and being able to interview her has helped out tremendously. Especially since she grew up in the type of neighborhood I am wanting in my story. She described the layout of her town and how her house and yard looked, she shared the types of things she did for fun as a teenager, and even retold a few hilarious scenes from her childhood (my grandmother and her brothers were always getting in to mischief).
While doing all of your research it is important that you find a form of organizing it so that you don't have to do a lot of searching during the writing process. The way I am organizing all of my information is by using the program "Scrivener". This program has been a life saver for me and has helped me to have all of my information in one easy to reach place.
So to recap, the types of research methods I used are:
- Internet searching
- Use of the Nanowrimo forums
- Books
- Old photographs and letters
- Interviewing
Now if you have decided to be a "pantser" this year I would recommend making sure you write about something you already know a lot about so that you don't have to take time out from your writing to do research. As a former pantser I know how precious that writing time can be when you are wanting to reach 50K by the end of the month. You will need to devote all the time you can to writing. And if you do come across something that needs to be researched, if it is possible, you could write down what needs to be researched and come back to it in December should you choose to edit.
Also I just found out about something exciting. Tomorrow, October 17th, is "Nano Prep Day" over at Nanowrimo! So check out the website's front page for more details on what that entails.
Excited for November to get here,
<3 Andrea
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