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How much research is too much research?

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
@Benjamin - I think that is the best approach.

Let's be clear: The best approach is whatever is right for the author and the writing. Some people find research to be more helpful than others. I personally find research to be more inspiring than anything.

I get the impression that people assume the point of research is to include more long boring text blocks of irrelevant detail. I get the impression that people think that research blocks out creativity and limits your ability to imagine new settings. That shouldn't be the case. Research can help to inspire new ideas or reinvent old ones.

I was looking through a wikipedia article about technology in ancient Rome, and I saw that they had invented the Cameo. I had no idea what a Cameo was, so I clicked on it. It's an image carved into a certain kind of gemstone right where it changes color, so that the image is in one color (usually white) and the background another color. Take that into a fantasy world, and imagine a wizard's talisman as an engraved gemstone - take it further, two separate gemstones, engraved and fused together - and you have a compelling image for Master McGuffin's Powerful Artefact of Doom. The random piece of information enhances the writing and the story and the scene rather than merely clearing up a few facts about how long their tunics are.
 

quenchy

Dreamer
As my speciality is to create a set of convinient lies, my research usually involves mining of the knowledge or the opinion of the general public regarding the given topic. Then I know the needed depth of the research I have to make when I invent something new.
The important thing is not how much time and effort you invest into gathering information, but what would you do with it afterwards. It could give you a whole lot of background full of details but it would be quite possible that you don't want to include all of this information in your story. I love to rely on the common sense of the reader (or more often - the player). Also, what's the purpose of the story that you're writing?

Yes, your character could be a psychologist, but what's the plot and the idea of the plot - and do I, as a reader, need to know what psychologists do in real life? An average reader knows that the psychologists consult and analyze people's problems and help them solve them themselves. I don't think that if your main characters is about to be shaken by the emotion of the true love for the first time in his calculated, full of analyzis, life, the reader needs a background on psychology. Nor you have to research the personalities of real-life psychologists. You're working with the chiche of the psychologist - a person everybody would imagine is quite able to hold a grasp on his own emotions.

If I'm writing about a siege in which trebuchets and catapults are used, but I want to indtroduce the new wonder weapon which is actually a gunpowder cannon (like the ones used in the siege of Constantinopol by the Ottomans), then I would just describe it as a giant structure that towers over the rest of the siege machines. It's run by an alchemist, accompanied by a flag-bearer who gives commands to the hundreds of slave laborers who pull the large iron chains used to position the construct. It is obvious that they are all deaf and this is the only way they can be given commands. The alchemist uses no beasts of burden, which would be scared away from the massive thunder that is to follow. The weapon will tear a massive gap in the wall of the fortress and will send many of the soldiers from both sides cowering on the ground or fleeing away in terror. The slaves are sent to the ground by the blast wave of the weapon firing and some will start choking and vomiting because of the foul sulhuric stench given by the firing.
I will not say anything about cannon, but I don't think that the reader needs the word mentioned, neither he needs an access to detailed information on what a cannon is. If she is interested in the superweapons in human history, then she can access this information easily on the internets.
 
As my speciality is to create a set of convinient lies, my research usually involves mining of the knowledge or the opinion of the general public regarding the given topic. Then I know the needed depth of the research I have to make when I invent something new.

I like this: Your research only needs to be slightly deeper than your intended audience :)
 

Xanados

Maester
I do not believe that too much research can damage a story. I would want my story to feel as authentic as possible. I'm currently watching documentaries on the Roman Empire to sort of emulate their culture in my work.
 

Jabrosky

Banned
The problem I have is knowing when it's OK to stop researching and start writing my stories. I'm always eager to start typing away and research, while vital to a convincing story, delays that. I therefore understand why some novice writers are averse to research.

Another problem is knowing exactly what topics and how many of them you must research before writing. I recall a time when I wrote a worldbuilding essay on a fictional Polynesian tribe that lived in Antarctica and was attacked by the Japanese in WWII. I did quite a bit of research on Polynesian customs, societal organizations, and religions as I wrote the essay. However, once I posted it on a message board, people asked how the Japanese were able to get their ships all the way to Antarctica without needing to refuel, and honestly I had no idea modern ships even needed to be fueled with anything in the first place!
 

Telcontar

Staff
Moderator
The problem I have is knowing when it's OK to stop researching and start writing my stories.

Start writing the stories first anyway. The problem you posted above - people asking about refueling - is a reason why you need beta readers. Subject your stories to people who are looking for that kind of thing. It's usually easy enough to edit in an explanation afterwards. It's fantasy, after all.

You had the problem that you were actually writing historical fiction - stories that depend upon the actual workings of our own world. That is quite significantly different from most fantasy, where the author can write whatever-the-hell and the ONLY thing limiting the reader's suspension of disbelief is how well it is written.

In opposition to Xanados, I do think that too much research can damage a story, because it causes people to cling to closely to 'real' reality. Let your story separate itself from the real world. Blackbox the most fantastic details, and just write the thing. Let your beta readers tell you if something seems too far-fetched to buy in too.
 

quenchy

Dreamer
"If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there."
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

This is too much research - putting the pistol if it won't fire.

To me it's pretty much like that - you want to state that the character lives in the tropical climate, in a lush jungle full of dangerous beasts that prey upon the people of the land? You want to tell me that the village is set among the tree canopy with the mighty trunks of the trees preventing the dinosaurs from entering the perimeter? OK, do it, but how this knowledge will be of any use to me as a reader? Will I ever witness the rage of the T-Rex-like beasts quelled by the mighty defenses of the village? Do I need any info on the species of the tree the character has climbed upon to ambush his prey - will he eat the poisonous fruit, or use the leaves to heal his wound 4 chapters later?

Places, objects, rumors, animals and trees are all important scenery. Mention them briefly if you are sure that you can use them to create the right feeling about the setting. Elaborate in details when these details will be used later in the novel. But you will lose me if you begin telling me all the details about the flora and fauna of the world around me.

For good or for bad the modern people have given set of fake pillars of knowledge about the world which are based on the cliches. You may not want to use cliches but most probably the mind of the reader will use them just because 99% of the readers are exposed to the never-ending stream of the cliches 24/7. So, why telling me of the green leaves of the sago palms from which the water drips down to feed the giant ferns - just tell me that this is a steamy, primordial jungle. I'll grasp it. This is what I need to know about it, right? Give me the tools to imagine my own reality behind your words. Don't be control freaks.

The research should be sufficient and must not create inclination for thee to drown the reader into a sea of information.

In the case of the Japanese ships - is the fuel so important that you should mention it? Will the Maori warriors use the fuel cisterns on the ships to set them ablaze? If not, accept this lack of research as the needed little glitch. It won't create a situation where the reader will say "Wait a damn minute, this isn't realistic! I'm out, I didn't immerse enough to continue reading this piece of trash".

What you didn't mention is not an important piece of the novel plot. If I read your work and I you manage to draw my attention I'll probably say "Bah, it should be something very important beneath this Maori settlement that the Japanese will create a logistics network stretching half globe to get there". Most readers won't even think about it.

Do you Japanese sailors go to the WC? Maybe you should elaborate on the fact that they have very few toilets on the ship and have a strict schedule when to dump it - because maybe some guy with obsession about minor details will raise his voice of disappointment" HEY! Japanese soldiers are humans too!!!"

Please, people, don't tantalize yourself and the readers with the minor details. Use your resources effectively. Especially the ones that are native English speakers - I'll never have this edge of yours as my writing in English is a constant juggling between dictionaries, grammar and the work itself. Imagine if I began researching the formation of the pebbles beneath the wheels of the ox cart...
 
IMHO you can never research too much or have enough information. However one has to balance this with their writing time and how much effort they want to put into it. Basically do you want your reader to say well its a elf and all elves are aloof tree huggers with pointy eyes. Or do you want to say this is a snow elf with long pointy swept back ears and white to bluish skin and hair. They where created to be arctic shock troops but where dumped on a alien world because their creators found out their creation was flawed in that they had heat strokes at temperatures as low as 40 Fraks (70 degrees)
 
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Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
"If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there."
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

I believe Chekhov was talking about plays, and I agree that it makes a lot of sense in that context. The novel, as a literary form, allows a lot more leeway for this sort of thing, and if you only ever mention descriptive details that have a substantive impact on the story, you are likely to have a flat, dead book on your hands.
 

quenchy

Dreamer
Well, even if the reader is holding a book, don't automatically assume that their attention span is great enough to go through all the lines you've inserted to be able to split the book in two or more tomes and make your publishers happy. After all, you're writing for the general audience out there, in the wilde worlde, which,for good or bad, is molded into what it is by the general media.

I want to say - I'm a research nazi. When I read a book I constantly encounter the signs of insufficient research and then I nerd-rage. For example, a soft sci-fi book where a race cannot create "thinking machinces" because of ancient agreement with another, but yet they have a vast interstellar warfleet that battles races that have computers. B*tch, please. No monkey-brain can think fast enough to counter a computer that coordinates and directs thousands of operations at the same time. And in the book there wasn't even anything that looks like a mentat. Or in the same book - the ships defend a planet by creating a ring around it. Saaay whaat? Is this a brilliant strategy for you to get wasted by the nuke missile alongside with the planet beneath?

In the former case, it makes the book a bit more interesting than the rest, so I can overlook that. In the latter, I can say that if the author has read the military doctrines of US or Russian armies, he could've extracted a plus for his book. For example - city defence - you don't let the enemy come into the city not by creating awall of defence around the city. You deploy mechanized infantry one click inside the city in improvised defence positions - barricades and buildings, in a way that you create a death-trap for any enemy unit that dares enter the city. You deploy a low-gauge artillery that can re-deploy quickly - it will create obstructive barrage of fire for enemy reinforcements to reach the trapped enemies. Unless the enemy has ordnance and air superiority, he will be forced to withdraw from storming the city unless he can also make extreme sacrifices. Marine landing zone defence - the battleships and the air forces create interlocking firing vectors at the point of entry of enemy forces that want to take point on the LZ. You don't deploy a wall of battleships and destroyers because there's always a 1-kiloton nuke on guard for a cluster of ships.

What I mean is that you can always add a quick briefing for the forces that will defend the orbit. Or you can always describe in few sentences how effectively they destroy the enemy forces because of this and that in their formation. You won't encounter this in many other sci-fi books, and it will give you an edge. It's also not too great deal of research. It would be if you scoop through all the battles fought according to this doctrine.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
"If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there."
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

This is too much research - putting the pistol if it won't fire.

That really isn't a question of research. Research is about understanding more about how things work; it would be a little naive to think it had to translate into long explanations for your reader.

Research is about whether that one sentence says "gears" or "pistons," whether that's a "surcoat" or a "tabbard" or a "jacket," whether it's reasonable to have a four-foot sword in ancient Rome; whether or not those arrows would really cut through that chainmail (err, probably not), and exactly how soon is it reasonable for a person to be up after taking a bullet in the gut?

The question of what to mention, and how, has nothing at all to do with research. The same question could be asked of whether or not you should mention the mole on your character's nose or whether there really needs to be that story explaining why people say that funny little thing they always say. The answer? That's up to how you well you write and the audience you're aiming for and the needs of the story.
 
To put it another way: Characters and story are harder and more important than details and research, which is why people spend so much time on the latter and so not enough on the former.
 
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Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
To put it another way: Characters and story are harder and more important, than details and research, which is why people spend so much time on the latter and so not enough on the former.

Yeah, but we could also talk about wasting time on outlines or character mapping. It's all in how well you make use of the tools at hand.
 
Yeah, but we could also talk about wasting time on outlines or character mapping. It's all in how well you make use of the tools at hand.

Yeah, sorry; I didn't mean to imply that research and outlines and other such tools are a waste of time. I was just trying to say that if you're worrying that you're doing too much research, you're probably not spending enough time on character and story. In my view, if you want to be a good writer, characters and story come first, and the details of your world are a much lower priority.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
Yeah, sorry; I didn't mean to imply that research and outlines and other such tools are a waste of time. I was just trying to say that if you're worrying that you're doing too much research, you're probably not spending enough time on character and story. In my view, if you want to be a good writer, characters and story come first, and the details of your world are a much lower priority.

Fair enough. The only point I've really tried to make, even if it's not coming across very well, is that research can be more useful for some than others, and that a standard which works for one person might not be right for another. I personally find a story or plot idea for every four or five wiki pages I skim through, and much more frequently if I'm doing research for my Viking story. But that's how I think. I try and combine different elements to create something new. But I get very little value from outlines, and almost none from character mapping. I might have a "role" for my characters beforehand, but I really don't know who they are until I meet them on the page. It just depends on what you're writing and how well each particular tool suits you.

I do really think that a basic level of research ought to be required for most fantasy writers, but along those lines, I'd rather see if we as a community can put together a basic research guide for fantasy writers to simplify that basic chore. Because I definitely know that it can be a waste of time for many people. Even I find it a waste of time if all I'm doing is looking up some fact or another.
 
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Aurelian

Scribe
If you want to make a truly great work then i do suggest that you study at the foot of a proverbial master (master being historical records) you can never have enough facts it all comes in handy eventually.
 
How much research into myths or world creation do people do? Sometimes I feel like all I do is research, but then when I go to write, I feel like I'm just writing an essay, not fiction. How do you find a balance?

Perhaps you are not researching too much, but rather you are writing too little? It sounds to me that the problem is that you are lacking in creativity and skill, not that you know too much about the subject. There's nothing wrong with knowing a lot about a particular thing, but knowing stuff doesn't make you a better writer.

Me, I only research things if the story requires it, but then again I'm lazy that way. I'm probably one of the few fantasy writers who finds world-building kinda boring.
 
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