Member-only story
Living the Fiction
The unexpected joys of research
Writing fiction is wonderful for mapping the contours of your ignorance.
I like to give my fictional people a solid footing in reality: a place, a profession, a relatable problem they’re trying and/or failing to deal with. After all, I enjoy reading fiction that informs as well as entertains, and I try to write fiction that I would enjoy to read.
Our real world is interesting enough for me: I don’t need to build new ones.
So I need realistic detail in the things that my characters do, both for a living and to find personal fulfilment. By inclination and for practical reasons, I tend to pick activities I have first-hand knowledge of.
Thus sourdough-baking, banjo-playing, bee-keeping, scythe-mowing, German-speaking, sailing sculptors are probably over-represented in my work, compared to the demographic mean.
Even so, I rarely get half a page written without needing to check facts.
We have such wonderful research tools these days, but sometimes Wikipedia plus YouTube videos, Facebook groups, obscure member forums and how-to websites just aren’t enough. Neither are books — and good grief I have some obscure titles on my bookshelves. Archaeology of the Chinese Fishing Industry in Colonial Victoria, anyone?
