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Authenticity. Too much or too little?

hots_towel

Minstrel
TL;DR: If an author uses too much research to enhance their story, will they come off to their readers as learned or pretentious?

Any fiction writer (especially one who writes in a specific setting) will tell you that "writing fiction is research." Do your research of whatever subjects that your WIP will touch on, and then apply that knowledge to your work to make it feel more alive. Well, I've been doing my research for a while now (still have a lot to do), but it wasn't until recently that I came in contact with a book where the author really did do a lot of research for their book, and wanted to make sure that their readers knew it.

that book was none other than "A Game of Thrones" by ol' GeRRMy. Anyone who's read it knows that the book at times can border an encyclopedia of the middle ages (exaggerating of course). By that I mean, as I read it, and I noticed the little bits of trivia about Medieval Europe were thrown in quite often to make the world feel more "real." Though me personally, I just found myself rolling my eyes.

I know it wasn't Martin's intentions, but I couldn't help but feel like he was just looking for cookie points from historians every time he did something to that effect. However, I can't say my criticism for Martin is all that fair. I read "World War Z" which also required loads of research to make the story feel real, and it didn't have the same effect on me at all. If I had to guess, It's probably because whenever something gets batsh*t insane hype, i tend to set unrealistic standards for whether or not I'll like it.

anyway, thats enough rambling. I hope no one feels like I'm attacking Martin, but that was one of the things that irked me about his book, and got me wondering about my own WIP. On the topic of including your research into your story, do you say "more is better" or "simple yet within reason" is better?
 
It sounds like the problem isn't how much research the author did, it's how much the author went out of his way to show off. Just because you know something doesn't mean you need to describe it to the reader. At the same time, just because you don't directly describe something doesn't mean it can't affect the story, if only by its absence. (Question from the fantasy novelist's exam: "Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?")

The simple answer would be that more research is better, but there's probably a point of diminishing returns, since there's only so much information that will come up naturally over the course of the story. I'll leave it to the folks who actually know history to try to describe where the line is. (Personally, I don't bother to closely mimic a real time period, since I know I don't know enough history to do so accurately.)
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Actually, writing fiction is not research. Research is research. Writing is writing. Therefore, it's impossible for too much research to result in poor writing. They are two separate activities.

I did feel that Martin's books, especially after volume 2, needed some serious editing, but not because of any medievalisms but simply because of too much detail slowing down the story. Too many notes, to quote an emperor. If anyone should have been annoyed by Martin showing off his research, it would be someone like me. I'm a medievalist, with a master's in medieval Europe and a PhD in early modern. I've taught the period for almost thirty years (I say this only to show I'd be a likely one to object to the sort of thing you mention). Yet, it wasn't until someone mentioned it to me that I even noticed the Lancaster/York references.

Different readers notice different things. Some, I have noticed, tend to "meta-read" -- noticing the style, structure, usages, technique, etc. Others, and I count myself among them, are what I call innocents. We just read the story. We're always surprised by the surprise endings. Neither style is better, only different. It may be that you were hyper-aware of Martin's use of details, and so it annoyed you. I merely was ground down by a relentless landslide of "and then". OTOH, my wife, who read all six volumes in one summer, thought the whole thing delightful.

Diff'rent strokes, to quote the sage.
 
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kayd_mon

Sage
I think you answered your own question towards GRRM. It's the hype that's influencing that reaction, not the amount of research that's evident in the writing. In the case of GRRM, of course ASOIAF isn't perfect, but it is entertaining, even when it gets endlessly detailed. And entertainment is all that matters.

The only way you can research too much is when it burns you out, I think. Agatha Christie researched Egypt so much for her book "Death Comes as the End" that it shied her away from the topic and that level of research. If you like research, then having a lot to pull from gives you the ability to make your story more realistic. It's your job as a writer to know when inserting that research is effective in storytelling or not.
 

Jabrosky

Banned
The only way you can research too much is when it burns you out, I think. Agatha Christie researched Egypt so much for her book "Death Comes as the End" that it shied her away from the topic and that level of research.
I think I have experienced something like this before. If I bog myself down in research beyond a certain point, I may grow weary of the topic or distracted.

Other times I discover to my disappointment that the kind of story I want to tell just couldn't happen with the setting or characters I've chosen. This is more of a problem with historical than fantasy fiction, but even in fantasy I want my settings to have at least a vague resemblance to real ones.
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
Lots of research does not equate to more authenticity. Authenticity, to me, is knowing the right detail(s) to put in so that it shares a truth about a subject that enlightens those who don't know and garners a knowing nod from those who do. That is if any of them notice it.

That's the thing to me, the reader shouldn't notice the details too much. Details should have a purpose but shouldn't distract from the story.

And here's where I think us aspiring writers aren't always the best judge of what works and what doesn't. We learn about writing and the mechanics behind it, so we see things from the writer's point of view. But the writer's point of view isn't the same as the reader's point of view.

Writers agonize over every word and every detail in our own work and we sometimes apply that scrutiny to another person's work. But the things we agonize over, most readers won't even notice. One of the best skills a writer can develop IMHO is the ability to turn off being a writer and just become reader again. It will help in determining the needs of your own work and in increasing the enjoyment of another person's work.
 

Malik

Auror
I don't think it's a question of authenticity as much as believabilily. I've touched on this before; magic lets you get away with more in fantasy than you can in fiction. You can always apply Handwavium. The trick is knowing when you need to put the whammy on something.

You have free access to the greatest research tool in the history of mankind. Ignorance is inexcusable.

I'm a realism nazi and on that I make no pretenses. When you start telling me about the young farm boy slinging bales of hay or the hero riding all day at a gallop on his mighty stallion, I lose interest in you as a storyteller because you've just proven to me that you have no idea what you're talking about. You're bull****ting me and I won't stand for it.

I was reading a military thriller recently, and it was pretty good -- really -- until about three-quarters of the way in, the author told me that the protagonist "used his knife to open a tin of MRE." No, he didn't. First off, no one would ever say, "He had MRE for lunch." They'd say "He had an MRE for lunch." It's a small thing, but the sentence construction threw me. Secondly, MRE's come in rubber bags, not tins; the entrees reside in tear-open foil pouches in little cardboard boxes. (To be fair, the French do use tins for their MRE's, but A.) he was American; and B.) French MRE's have pull tabs like big sardine cans.) It blew the whole rest of the book for me; it literally shook me awake and everything I read from that point on that I wasn't familiar with, I had to wonder if the author knew what he was talking about.

This was something that he could have remedied simply by going to a surplus store and buying an MRE for $5 and figuring out how it worked and what was in it. Heck, he could have just looked it up on the Internet.

You don't have to go into such detail that you're knocking out 150,000-word epics a la GRRM. But you do need to know what you're talking about. Write it down, look it up, and rewrite it if necessary.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
That's a great image, Malik: it shook you awake. When I start reading a book, I do enter a state that is oddly dream-like. It is an author-constructed dream, and the most fundamental thing I want as a reader is not to be booted out of the dream by some fumble, either in word choice or touch of detail or character inconsistency. I want to stay in the dream. It doesn't matter how many details the author chooses to include, but they had better not be ones that take me out of the story. Do it too often, and I'm gone.
 

hots_towel

Minstrel
thanks for all the insight guys. Pilot is right, I do scrutinize over every little detail thinking "will someone look at that and throw my book against the wall?" But at the same time, I feel like I do the same thing when I read other books.

its gets even more complicated though, as Kayd pointed out. Its been established that the hype is likely what influenced my opinion of ASOIAF, but Im wondering now if I will criticize other works later down the line in the same way.

I feel that maybe the best thing to do is really search for that balance. If the story doesn't require it, it doesn't matter how many oars the boat has. Likewise, the author should probably have a good reason why their horse was able to gallop full sprint for 5 straight miles (as Ive heard the farthest the average horse can do that is about 1).
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
I feel that maybe the best thing to do is really search for that balance. If the story doesn't require it, it doesn't matter how many oars the boat has. Likewise, the author should probably have a good reason why their horse was able to gallop full sprint for 5 straight miles (as Ive heard the farthest the average horse can do that is about 1).

Also keep in mind the type of story you're telling. If it's supposed to be uber grounded in realism, having a horse gallop all night is going to ring the BS bells loudly. But if it's a more of a fairytale or an adventure tale, then it's not quite as important as long as you're consistent.

Never let facts get in the way of a good story.

One of the best TV shows to come along in the last while was Breaking Bad but the series was filled with factual inaccuracies, enough to spawn a Mythbusters special where pretty much every myth tested got busted. To me, and a lot of viewers, it didn't matter that you really can't dissolve a body into nothing with acid. What mattered in terms of the story they were telling was the truth of the characters. Anything beyond that was niggling details.

Yes those details could kick someone out of the story, but it's a pro vs. con sort of thing. How many people kicked out of story vs what you gain in terms of story telling.
 

Malik

Auror
To me, and a lot of viewers, it didn't matter that you really can't dissolve a body into nothing with acid. What mattered in terms of the story they were telling was the truth of the characters. Anything beyond that was niggling details.

They also had the luxury of writing a story based in an arcane field that the majority of viewers knew nothing about. If the show had been marketed at scientists -- say, shown on Discovery late at night or broadcast way up in the channels beside the university lecture feeds -- it wouldn't have worked. Fantasy is a small market of very savvy consumers. You won't sell books by counting on fantasy fans to not know something.
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
They also had the luxury of writing a story based in an arcane field that the majority of viewers knew nothing about. If the show had been marketed at scientists -- say, shown on Discovery late at night or broadcast way up in the channels beside the university lecture feeds -- it wouldn't have worked. Fantasy is a small market of very savvy consumers. You won't sell books by counting on fantasy fans to not know something.

See that goes to knowing the type of story you're telling which means knowing your target audience. It also speaks to setting up the story so the audience knows what type of story it is. I doubt there's a lot of fantasy readers that complain about the impossibilities in a story like the Princess Bride or hard scifi readers that say Star Wars is a crock. Set up your story right and you can get away with what you need to get away with. That doesn't mean you BS everything, but there's a certain point where it doesn't matter and as I said, knowing that point is knowing what your story is.

And I hate to tread over old roads because I use the following video as an example all the time but it shows how far into realism you can get and how it can just ruin the fun of something.

 
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Addison

Auror
When it comes to research I've found that it should be medium. It shouldn't be rare or well done. Some genres may require more or less depending on how much you use the elements. If you do too much research then those details will clutter the descriptions and clutter the narrative. If you too little then the details won't be there to really establish the setting and the characters and the story. So do enough research to make the story authentic without it feeling like a dressed up text book.
 
To try to speak to what Malik's talking about:

I have never used, touched, or even seen a dazzler outside of the Internet. I forget where I did my research, but I didn't initially realize just how huge they can get, so I wrote about it as if it was the size of a flashlight. However, I didn't directly specify a size for it, apart from one statement that the main character "pulled out" a dazzler (with the implication that it was in a pocket or something.)

When I realized I might have screwed up, my first instinct was to revise--maybe mention it hanging from a belt loop or something. But the way I have the story written now says very little about how the dazzler is stored, and hence has very few opportunities to be wrong. The more detail I try to go into to cover my ass, the less my ass is in fact covered if one of those details is wrong. If I hadn't already shipped the manuscript off to a publisher, I might have asked for info about dazzlers here, but as it is, I just left it the way it was.

Maybe someone will read my story and throw it across the room because I got something about dazzlers wrong. Most likely, most of my audience won't even know what a dazzler is, and will be entirely reliant on my description of how it works. Either way, the worst that can happen is that I might create some new misconceptions, and fantasy's been doing that for a long, LONG time.
 

A. E. Lowan

Forum Mom
Leadership
I agree, it's possible to get too caught up in the details and forget to find the fun in the story, but getting things wrong just kills me, both as a reader and as a writer. The research bit today is the difference between the American and the British pronunciation of the letter "z." We have several British characters, and one whose grasp of English is mostly derived from the British Isles. It might seem like a very minor and pointless detail, but I think whole worlds can be held in the details (and whole devils ;) ), and like Malik pointed out, you never know what inaccuracies will knock a reader out of a story.
 
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Ophiucha

Auror
Research is as valuable as its application.

I have loved books that thrive on their authenticity, and I have loved books that eschewed all facts in favour of good fiction.

Guy Gavriel Kay is known for creating worlds that mimic Earth settings near perfectly, save for the addition of some magical element or tradition that changes it enough to not be historical fantasy. His books are thick, and they have many pages describing fabrics from across trade routes and the beetles that were crushed to make their dyes. He researches heavily, and it brings his stories and characters to life.

But some authors don't do the research, or do it and then ignore it, and that can work, too.

In the Harry Potter books, school always starts on September 2nd. Every year. Even in their 5th year, 1995, when September 2nd was a Saturday. That wouldn't have taken long to research, but was it easier and perhaps better for the story just to have a uniform date? The Hogwarts Express is always in King's Cross Station on the 1st, school starts on the 2nd. It makes it easier to remember in each successive book if the date doesn't change, and it makes it more fun for the fans who want to celebrate each year. So despite being wrong, it doesn't hurt the story.

Really, as long as the author doesn't try to pass off bad research as historical accuracy, I don't care how much research they did or used in their novel. I just want a good story, a good world, and good characters.
 
In the Harry Potter books, school always starts on September 2nd. Every year. Even in their 5th year, 1995, when September 2nd was a Saturday. That wouldn't have taken long to research, but was it easier and perhaps better for the story just to have a uniform date? The Hogwarts Express is always in King's Cross Station on the 1st, school starts on the 2nd. It makes it easier to remember in each successive book if the date doesn't change, and it makes it more fun for the fans who want to celebrate each year. So despite being wrong, it doesn't hurt the story.

The HP fandom calls this kind of thing "Oh dear, maths," after a quote from the author herself. Apparently, she makes errors like this all the time. It's not really something the eleven-year-olds tend to notice, though--it's more something the grown-up fans tend to nitpick.
 

Ophiucha

Auror
Since my birthday is September 2nd, I did notice that when I was 11. But it seems trivial to nitpick beyond a bit of gentle ribbing at Rowling. We all have our faults.
 
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