tmp73D7 Read online

  As with film and video, material on the Internet is only as good as the source. Make sure to check out the data before assuming it's correct. There are many professional-looking but inaccurate Web sites.

  The Internet can be an excellent way to borrow personal experience. Putting out a question on a bulletin board may bring back precisely the detail you need about a job, hobby, or geographical area. Again, consider whether the source is knowledgeable and reliable.

  A comprehensive list of interesting and useful research links is available on www.leighmichaels.com.

  Specialized Research Strategies

  It's easy to get so caught up in study, trying to learn everything there is to know about a subject, that you never get your story off the ground. That's why it's best to save the more detail-oriented research until after you've done the general research and started the writing process. Specialized research strategies enable you to search for specific facts or bits of information you may not realize you need until you're deep into your story. What might prompt you to dig a little deeper? Check out the following:

  Laws, Legal Issues, and Established Traditions: Many romances deal with legal issues—ownership of property, child custody, lawsuits, inheritance—so familiarizing yourself with legal basics early in your writing career may prevent you from wasting time and effort on impossible plots.

  For instance, if you're writing a story in which your hero and heroine get married on two hours' notice, you'll need to know which states permit that and which don't. If you don't know before you start writing, you're apt to set your story in a state that requires blood tests and a waiting period, and you'll have a big job of revising to make the story fit the facts.

  If you're writing about a divorce attorney, you'd better know right up front that she could lose her license if she starts dating the client she's representing, or you're apt to create a story scenario that simply won't fly.

  If you're writing a Regency and you have the duke leave his estate and title to his younger son because the older one's a brat, then you're violating the laws of the time, as well as turning off readers who know about those laws.

  Those big issues need to be investigated before you develop a story, so some general reading is a good investment of time. Smaller details—like what identification the couple needs to present to actually get married, or what the divorcing couple might argue over, or exactly what a younger son could inherit—are safe to leave until later, when you know more about the precise picture you want to create.

  The larger the legal element is in your story, the more research you'll need to do. If one of your main characters is an attorney, consider reading biographies or autobiographies of attorneys in order to familiarize yourself with the backgrounds and thinking styles of real lawyers.

  There are a number of good law reference books, written for laymen, that provide basic background; many list specific information as well. Though your local bookstore may not have a wide range of titles on hand, a quick search through Internet bookstores such as Barnes & Noble (www.bn.com) or Amazon (www.amazon.com) will bring up many useful books. For instance, keywords like law for the layman and legal rights will bring up books such as the American Bar Association Legal Guide for Small Business, Know Your Legal Rights, and many titles dealing with specific areas like real estate and child custody.

  Your public library will have general legal references, though they may be somewhat dated, and can order specific books from other libraries through interlibrary loan.

  For quick and up-to-date reference, the Internet is hard to beat. A Google search for marriage requirements and states returned thousands of sites listing the details of the current marriage law in each of the fifty states. Among the top three sites was http://usmarriagelaws.com/search/united_states/, which includes (along with a wealth of other information) the requirements in each state for getting a marriage license. Another good site is www.findlaw.com, which has archives of basic information on every legal issue you can think of.

  If possible, cultivate the acquaintance of an attorney or two. Many of them love puzzles and will happily argue both sides of a hypothetical legal question while you take notes (especially if you offer to buy lunch, bake them a pie, or dedicate the book to them).

  Medicine: Researching medical questions so your character's health problems are realistic can be as easy as checking www.WebMD.com or as complex as spending days in the library of a medical school reading case studies. Some good basic reference books include home medical encyclopedias—especially those that index symptoms as well as diseases—and nursing textbooks. Medical-surgical nursing texts are amazingly detailed about common and obscure illnesses and treatments. Nursing schools frequently update their texts, so last year's editions can often be found in charity book sales.

  Professional Codes of Ethics: Most professions have ethical codes, written or understood, and those rules affect how characters in those professions can behave. There are, for instance, many ethical considerations in how doctors interact with their patients and their patients' families. If a relationship starts to develop between a doctor and a patient, the doctor may be required to remove himself from the case. There are ethical considerations governing when a doctor can treat members of his family and when he should step aside.

  The important point is that, even if the doctor you've created doesn't actually follow the rules, he knows about them. If he violates the ethical code and has a relationship with a patient, he might feel guilty, or sly, or proud—depending on the sort of person he is—but he'll feel something. If you don't know about medical ethics, then no matter how your doctor behaves, he isn't going to be believable to the readers who do.

  If in doubt about ethics, ask a member of the profession about what's acceptable and what's forbidden. Can't find someone in the profession? Search the Internet for a professional organization or union and contact the public relations office. Professionals want to be portrayed accurately and realistically, so they'll help wherever they can.

  Researching Historical Romances

  An amazing number of people decide to write historical romances without knowing much about the time period they're interested in, and some write without even having a preference for one period over another. Others, in contrast, have done so much research that they have to fight the temptation to write a history text or a sociology study or a language manual rather than a romance.

  No matter what the historical period you choose, it's important to know enough about it to portray it realistically. Small, everyday matters usually present the greatest difficulty. Research books don't often go into detail about domestic routine, and chasing down the fine points of how a gown would be trimmed or what the heroine would have worn underneath can be time-consuming. However, including such detail is helpful in creating the picture in the readers' minds and keeping them absorbed in the story.

  There are a number of costume museums around the world, and many have illustrated Web sites that can be of help. The Museum of Costume in Bath, England (www.museumofcostume.co.uk) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (www.metmuseum.org) both display fashions from several centuries on their Web sites. Encyclopedias of world costumes may be available at your library.

  There is an increasing number of good reference books that offer specific details on historical periods. Writer's Digest has a series of volumes about everyday life in various historical eras (Regency, Victorian, Elizabethan) that specializes in the down-to-earth details, and books like Daniel Pool's What Jane Austen Ate and Charles "Dickens Knew explain such things as inheritance law, criminal justice, and society's rules in a specific time period.

  Primary sources are particularly important in historical research. Letters and diaries tell more about real people in a particular historical period than history books can, while newspapers relay not only what was going on but also the relative importance the event had at the time. Letters, diaries, and newspapers can

  help you adapt your
ear to the vocabulary of the time. Many historic newspapers are available on microfilm through your local library, and front pages for historic dates are published in collections or available as individual reproductions.

  Historical fact occasionally collides with modern sensibilities, and in some areas the wise historical author bends fact to fit the beliefs of the modern reader. Women's rights, age at marriage, and personal hygiene are all areas where modern values sometimes clash violently with historical fact. Heroes and heroines of historical romances are apt to be more modern in outlook and action, older, and cleaner than real-life brides and grooms of centuries past.

  Many books use real historical figures, with varying success. Georgette Heyer is perhaps the best example of an author who successfully portrayed a his-torical figure. In An Infamous Army, a love story set against the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, she brings the Duke of Wellington to life by using his own words (taken from his letters and dispatches) to create his dialogue.

  Though it seems it should be easier to portray real people than to make up fictional ones, it's actually more difficult. When real people appear in fiction, they tend to come across as stereotyped or cartoonish. A real person is best used as a background or secondary character, rather than as a prominent part of the story. If you use real people, keep them consistent to reality—if the real king was a tyrant, then your fictional portrayal won't be believable if you show him as a gentle, misunderstood soul.

  Real people can be researched through encyclopedias, biographies, letters, and diaries (either the diaries of the subject or of someone who knew him).

  Whenever possible, adapt what your real character says from the records of what he actually said or wrote so his style, words, and attitude ring true. And aim for small amounts of consistent detail rather than adding a large number of facts.

  Another valid approach is to fictionalize a real person—using the basic facts but changing the name and details—so your character doesn't have to match in every respect. Fictionalizing a real person leaves you free to change the person's personality and behavior in order to create the best possible story. This approach is more feasible with moderately well-known individuals than it is with truly famous ones; fictionalizing Henry VIII would be considerably less successful than creating an additional member of the aristocracy in Henry's era.

  Make sure the names you choose for your historical characters are appropriate for the time (many baby-name books list well-known people and help to date the origin and period of popularity of the name).

  Watch out for objects and locations that haven't been invented or established by the time of your story, and beware of modern words, phrases, actions, and attitudes. A Regency hero carrying a briefcase or stopping at a hotel bar for a drink is the brainchild of an author who hasn't done enough research. A historical hero who tells the heroine to get a life is not believable, while a medieval heroine who

  worries about her sell-esteem is an anachronism, since the concept of self-esteem is a twentieh-century one.

  If in doubt about whether an expression is appropriate to the setting of your story, consult an unabridged dictionary that lists the first known use of a word or phrase. Slang dictionaries can also be helpful in creating dialogue that fits the historical period.

  Another useful tool in writing about historical eras is an old encyclopedia. Encyclopedia Britannica's Web site (www.britannica.com) has a Classics section that shares articles from old editions. Britannica also has published replicas of some editions, including a 1771 encyclopedia in three volumes, which went into horrifying detail on subjects like childbirth and the medical treatments of the period.

  Researching Paranormal Romances

  Logic, consistency, and believability are key when dealing with scientific or pseudoscientific concepts such as other worlds, alien or futuristic societies, time travel, and superhuman characters. Imagination alone isn't enough. Without a solid foundation in reality, the author's alternate universe will not be convincing. There is no substitute for spending time in the classroom (or in equivalent study) to develop a comfort level with basic science.

  The author of good science fiction has to be comfortable with the chemistry and physics of this world; then he can use known science as a launching point, following scientific principles and adding his own spin to create a world different from our own but equally logical and believable.

  To create believable futuristic societies, it's wise to study past and current sociology, psychology, and political science, then project where past and current trends might logically lead.

  If you base your characters' mode of travel to the twenty-third century (or the thirteenth century) on scientific principles, you'll have a much more believable scenario than if you just made something up. In addition, any sort of time-travel method has to be both logical and consistent to be convincing to readers. It isn't enough just to say that the elevator can become a time machine; you will need to explain to the readers how the heroine manages to summon the elevator in 1820 to take her home to 2010.

  If you're writing about characters with supernatural powers, it's important to pay attention to legend and common understanding. Read the literature already out there. Your werewolf doesn't have to react exactly like the werewolves of legend, but if he doesn't, you'll need to account for the differences. If you simply ignore the common belief, your readers are likely to think you haven't done your research—and are apt to stop reading.

  The more paranormal the world you're creating, the more necessary it is to have logical explanations for everything that happens. Because your readers will be

  paying closer attention than usual as they try to figure out the rules of your universe, they're more likely to notice if you slip up and violate your own logic or laws.

  Once you set up a rule for your world, that rule becomes like a law of physics and you have to live with it—the rule can't come and go depending on how convenient it is to the plot. Once you've set up the conditions that make your time machine work, you can't have it stop working under those same conditions just because you don't want the heroine to time-travel at that exact moment. If your vampires need to seek out a victim with a matching blood type, then you can't later have them ignore that rule unless you have a convincing explanation for why it's no longer necessary.

  Your Research vs. Reader Perceptions

  Sometimes you'll know your material cold—and you'll be absolutely correct— but your readers' previous experience disagrees. You may know there were cattle drives in sixteenth-century Scotland, but your readers are equally sure you must have been thinking of Texas instead. You may know that in big-city children's hospitals, neonatal doctors work regular shifts and are never more than thirty seconds away from a preemie's incubator. But your readers in West Podunk, where there's a ten-bed hospital and one pediatrician on call in the next county, can't imagine it. It's not much comfort to be right if your readers toss the book aside because they're convinced you're talking through your hat.

  In cases like that, the burden of proof lies with the author. You not only have to show the cattle drive or the neonatal doctor, you have to convince the readers that you know what you're talking about. You can do that by making the picture so plain that it's impossible not to believe you. Or you can do it by bringing up the doubts yourself—maybe have a visitor in the neonatal unit ask how long it will take to get a doctor—which gives you a reason to explain.

  Your readers may still think you're making it up, but at least they'll know you didn't create the scene out of ignorance.

  1. Look back at the romance novels you've been reading. What aspects of the stories do you think the authors needed to research?

  2. Where might they have found the information they drew on to write the books?

  3. What research sources will you need to consult before you're ready to begin writing?

  4. What sources might be helpful during the writing process?

  Even if you're a seat-of-the-pants, e
xplore-as-you-go sort of writer, there are a few things you need to know about your story before you start seriously writing chapter one. Unsuccessful romances—especially the many that writers start but never complete—stall out because the writer didn't know enough about the basic framework that holds every romance novel together.

  Though it's nearly impossible to have every detail worked out ahead of time, if you don't have a pretty good idea of your framework, you'll be apt to wander in frustration with a story that goes nowhere. Or you'll write chapter one over and over, trying to make it work, until you're heartily sick of your characters.

  So what are the basics you need to know up front?

  Let's review the definition we established for the romance novel: A romance novel is the story of a man and a woman who, while they're solving a problem that threatens to keep them apart, discover that the love they feel for each other is the sort that comes along only once in a lifetime; this discovery leads to a permanent commitment and a happy ending.

  This definition summarizes the four crucial basics that make up a romance novel:

  1. a hero and a heroine to fall in love

  2. a problem that creates conflict and tension between them and threatens to keep them apart

  3. a developing love that is so special it comes about only once in a lifetime

  4. a resolution in which the problem is solved and the couple is united

  These things are the girders that hold up your entire story. Like the steel skeleton of a skyscraper, each piece depends on the others. If one is weak or flawed, the whole structure is apt to fall down.

  What your hero and heroine have experienced in their pasts will influence how they react to the problem they face in your story. The nature of the conflict between them will influence their relationship and how the sexual tension develops. The traits that make this couple fall in love will influence what the happy ending will be. If the conflict has no satisfactory resolution, it's not going to be a truly happy ending, even if the hero and heroine fling themselves into each other's arms on the last page.