Mary Rosenblum, your web editor, has published three SF novels, four mysteries as Mary Freeman, and more than 60 short stories in multiple genres, as well as nonfiction! Her mysteries were set in the Columbia River Gorge and many fans think she lives there. 

 

Researching Your Real-World Setting

By Mary Rosenblum

 

            You’ve decided on a setting for your story.  It is not in your back yard, so you are going to have to do some research.  Where do you start?  All too often, writers start by…writing!  We want to get started, we want to get the character onto the stage.  So we begin writing those scenes and you know what?  They seem a lot like the scenes we see every day.  Maybe Big Ben shows up to let us know that we’re in London, or we see the Golden Gate Bridge, but otherwise…we never left Kansas, Dorothy!

 

Taking the Virtual Tour

            Where do you start, when money and the day job mean that you can’t book that week long research trip tomorrow?  We have several valuable tools at our disposal when setting our novel in a distant location.  Begin with the Internet if you are on line.  Search the location.  Let’s say  that we decide to set our novel in Anchorage.  A quick search yields a virtual goldmine.  We find maps of Anchorage, a live camera view of downtown and a lovely Chamber of Commerce website complete with a virtual tour, business directory, and calendar of events.  The Internet has certainly made researching a locale much easier. 

            Save the images you want to use for your descriptions later on.  If you position your mouse over the image you wish to save and right-click, you should be asked where you want to save the image.   You can create a folder just for the images and label it Novel Images if you choose.  Read Gary Kearney’s wonderful article on creating files, folders, and shortcuts on your computer if you need help here.   http://www.longridgewritersgroup.com/rx/st01/pcbasics.shtml   Realize that all images on the Internet are copyrighted and cannot be used in published work without permission, but they are great references as your character races along that downtown street in pursuit of the bad guy.  If you have a color printer, you can even print out those images and hang them on your office wall to create atmosphere for yourself.

            Often your search will yield a link to the city’s major newspaper.  This can be a valuable source of not only place names and neighborhood information, but it will give you a sense of the place and the concerns of the residents that will lend verisimilitude to your setting.  

The Old Fashioned Search

            Not everyone has the Internet.  Don’t worry, you don’t need it in order to do a thorough search of your setting.  Start with your trusty local library.  Ask your librarian for help.  That’s what they are there for, and she might find some books for you that you would miss on your own. 

            The travel section is a good place to begin.  Most regions and major cities are featured in some travel book or other.  If your story is set in a small town, you may not find photos of that particular town, but you will find information and pictures of the region.  They will give you good background, and you can either visit your desired town, or make up a fictional town and design it to suit the locale.  Don’t overlook the children’s section.  Many cities such as London or New Orleans have been featured in books for children.  Children’s books tend to be simple and direct in the information they contain, and they usually include lots of pictures.  They can be a great resource for images, and you can make color copies of the ones you want to refer to frequently as you write your novel.

Don’t Forget the Bookstore

            If you can afford it, visit your local bookstore, the larger the better.  Some urban areas even have travel bookstores.  Check your Yellow Pages to find one.  A travel guide to the region of your choice may include details of local businesses, tourist attractions, and even street maps.  Many books have been published for the armchair traveler and these include beautiful color photos of the region.  While the cash outlay is greater if you buy one of these travel books, you have it as a handy reference for the duration of your project, and you may be able to claim the price of the book as a deduction when you pay your taxes. 

Make Your Visit Count

            There is nothing like a real, in-person visit to give you a genuine sense of the place where your story occurs.  While this may not be possible for everyone, even a few days in a local hotel are well worth the price of travel and lodging, if you can do it.  So how do you maximize your research, especially if you are budgeting your time and money?  Plan ahead.  Decide where in this location your story will actually take place.  Familiarize yourself with the city or town or area in general, so that you don’t waste time wandering around in the wrong neighborhoods.  Pack a camera and film or plenty of digital memory.  If you don’t own a camera, purchase several disposables.  Remember, this is a business expense.  The more real your story is, the more likely you are to sell it to that editor with a dozen other similar books on her desk!

            Visit the Chamber of Commerce or any other tourist information office.  Pick up all the brochures they have.  You never know what may be of use in Chapter Twenty-Three.  Drop into local café’s – not a big chain, but the mom and pop type.  Pick a slow time of day, when your waitress isn’t scrambling to fill orders.  Tell her what you are doing.  People are thrilled to meet an author, (you don’t have to tell her that you are not yet published!) and are usually more than happy to tell you how they like the town, what people are like, what some of the local concerns are.  If someone doesn’t want to talk to you, fine.  Move on and ask someone else.  One hour and a cup of coffee can net you more ‘insider’ information than a month of Internet or library searching will do. 

            Take pictures.  Take more pictures than you think you can use.  Visit the area where your story will take place and take pictures of the street, so that you can locate businesses later.  Take pictures of any downtown buildings that will be important in the story.  For Saul’s mystery, we might want to include shots of the police station or the Courthouse, for example.  One or two tiny details will make this building come to life for the reader.  Most importantly, do take notes as you shoot those pictures.  There is nothing more frustrating than looking at those developed prints later and trying to remember what you are seeing.  Buy an inexpensive notebook and jot down the shots in order as you take them.  For example, your list might read:  1. Looking north down Main from Ivy.   2.  The police station – south face.  3. The parking garage where the climax occurs…north side of Ivy between Main and Fourth.   

Verisimilitude Matters

            Why go to all this trouble? Why not just say it’s San Francisco, show the reader the Golden Gate Bridge and then describe the streets as you wish?  We have a contract with our readers.  When they open our book, they agree to suspend their disbelief, to believe in the reality of our universe, our characters, out story.  We agree to create a real world that they can believe in.  When a reader runs across a street that he or she knows isn’t real, that contract is shattered.  You are lying!  This isn’t real!  The reader might go on to finish the book, but that belief has been fractured and it never really heals.          

            When the fan letters arrive asking you when you lived in this city, or if you grew up there, or telling you how they recognized the house in Chapter Four and their cousin lives next door, you will be very happy that you spent this time.  This is the sort of personal connection that has this reader telling all his or her friends, ‘Hey, you have to read this book.  It’s so cool!’   And that word of mouth, more than any publicity your publisher can offer, is what will make your book a best seller.  So do your homework.  Do the research.  It may also sell your book for you if the editor must choose between your book and one that is very similar.  Editors know how much readers enjoy exploring a real setting.  Those hours of research and rolls of film may earn you your first sale.  Go for it!  Take the time.  You’ll be glad you did.

Time Management Tip

 

            Organizing all your research will save you wasted time searching for photos or maps.  Buy an inexpensive plastic file box, one that will accommodate file folders. Label it Novel Research.  Label the folders as needed:  City Streets, Local Landscapes, and so forth.  In City Streets, for example, you might include photos of the streets, a list of businesses, a bus schedule, a café menu…any bit of information that might help you bring that street to life.  

            For your Internet searches, you can create a custom folder of links that will take you instantly to the website you want to look at.   Click on ‘Favorites’, then click on ‘Add’.  You can choose to click on New Folder, label that folder  as “Novel Links” and store these bookmarks there. That way you don’t clutter your screen with a long list of links, but you can open that folder and find your links any time you need them.  

            A good way to deal with photos is to organize them in an album. Purchase an inexpensive photo album, then arrange your photos by location – perhaps Main Street, or the river front, or the flower market where your climax takes place – adding a note about the shot written on  a sticky note or a small label.  

            If you are going to set your story in the real world, a bit of research is well worth the time and effort it takes. While you will need only a couple of local details for that short story, your novel is a universe, and it is worth the time, expense, and effort to create that universe in three dimensions. 

            You will be glad you did.