How much research is enough?

[buyjupiter]

I'm revamping a flash fiction I completed to become more of a short story, or at least pass over the two thousand word mark. I've got a few elements in it that I did just "make up" with no research whatsoever, but I'm now finding that my made up stuff is remarkably true-to-life. (I know absolutely nothing about fishing and I had a nagging feeling that catching large fish before spring might be a bit of a stretch, but I found out that yes, you can find large fish closer to the end of winter. Go me!)

However, given the difficulty of the area to research (Russia), and the era I've set the story in (Soviet era), where can I draw the line and say enough research? Especially since it's a very short piece? Do I just go with my gut (as I have before) and write imaginatively enough that no one would question how accurate the information is (i.e. go fantastical where I can't verify things)? Or do I try and fact check every aspect that I can and hope that the reality matches what I've dreamt up?

 

[Svrtnsse]

If it were me, I would go with the first option and hope that no one who's actually into fishing and who lived in Soviet era Russia reads it.

What would cause me to go for the other option - research everything until it's correct to the last detail - would be if the subject matter was really important to me and if I expected a large amount of people to read it. Same would apply if it were a "touchy" subject that people in the know would be upset about if I portrayed incorrectly.

What I'd recommend though is that if you're winging it, you still treat the subject with respect, then at least no one would be able to say you're making fun of it (in the wrong way).

 

[Penpilot]

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

Have you ever watched the Breaking Bad Mythbusters special? It exposed a bunch of things that just couldn't happen in real life, but did happen in Breaking Bad, exploding chemicals that wouldn't explode, acid that can't dissolve bodies, and blue meth, which is impossible.

To paraphrase the show creator. "Those are just details."

IMHO, don't worry too much about the minutia. Get the characters and story right, as in make it interesting and internally logical, and everything else can be forgiven or ignored.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I agree with PenPilot, with a couple caveats.

1) If you're going to use specifics, know what you're talking about.

For example, if your urban fantasy heroine is wielding a Glock pistol, you should know there are no external safeties.

2) Details count on major story elements.

If you're portraying a particularly important scene, get the details right. People are less likely to forgive errors that impact the story in major ways. They just throw off plausibility too much.

 

[buyjupiter]

If it were me, I would go with the first option and hope that no one who's actually into fishing and who lived in Soviet era Russia reads it.

What would cause me to go for the other option - research everything until it's correct to the last detail - would be if the subject matter was really important to me and if I expected a large amount of people to read it. Same would apply if it were a "touchy" subject that people in the know would be upset about if I portrayed incorrectly.

What I'd recommend though is that if you're winging it, you still treat the subject with respect, then at least no one would be able to say you're making fun of it (in the wrong way).

The story is going out to market, so getting the details right are important. The fishing details are less important than the details of growing up in the stereotypical concrete block cities of the USSR. And they are mainly there to establish a setting/time of year.

I guess my main concern is that it's set in a part of Russia that most Eurocentric Russians view as backwards, thus leaving me with a lot less valid information to pull from than if I set the story in Moscow or Stalingrad during the same era. A lot of the information I do find has issues because of that era of history being so divisive and the ideology tainting the historical record on either side ("bad Russkies"--for the Americans and "Our Glorious Motherland, there are no problems with our country you heretical Westerners"--for the Russians.)

 

[buyjupiter]

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

Have you ever watched the Breaking Bad Mythbusters special? It exposed a bunch of things that just couldn't happen in real life, but did happen in Breaking Bad, exploding chemicals that wouldn't explode, acid that can't dissolve bodies, and blue meth, which is impossible.

To paraphrase the show creator. "Those are just details."

IMHO, don't worry too much about the minutia. Get the characters and story right, as in make it interesting and internally logical, and everything else can be forgiven or ignored.

Thank you Penpilot. I don't normally sweat the details to this extent, but then again, I don't normally set things in the real world...or so near the real world that it comes off the page. The story is strong, the character is even stronger with a strong clear motivation. But it's nowhere near "cool" enough to get away with what Breaking Bad did. It's too quiet, until the end when things go haywire, and then it ends quietly with just enough of a lingering hint that there's further badness on the way.

I hate when I read something and I realize the author didn't even take the time to look it up to see if they were anywhere near the ballpark of being right. I don't want to be that author.

 

[buyjupiter]

I agree with PenPilot, with a couple caveats.

1) If you're going to use specifics, know what you're talking about.

For example, if your urban fantasy heroine is wielding a Glock pistol, you should know there are no external safeties.

2) Details count on major story elements.

If you're portraying a particularly important scene, get the details right. People are less likely to forgive errors that impact the story in major ways. They just throw off plausibility too much.

I always agree with point one, and thought that point two isn't really relevant in this case as my major scene happens with a fantastical creature (can't get much wrong if you're making it all up!)...but then as I was thinking about the revisions I made to the story today I realized that I have a crucial scene--even though it happens in flashback--that has such an emotional importance to the MC's evolution that I need to ensure that the details I have there are perfect.

Crud. And here I was thinking I needed one more major editing pass for consistency, not more rewrites!

Thank you all for your thoughts on the subject, I greatly appreciate it. I think that overall, this question stems out of my own desire for perfection rather than the fear that someone who lived in far eastern Russia, who has ice fished, and also traveled between Lvov and Kiev almost 40 years ago will be reading this particular story. But if they do, I want them to think that I was there and I write from experience, not research.

 

[ThinkerX]

Early spring fishing in the far north...


...well, I dwell in Alaska, not Siberia, but...

...the 'Black Cod' season is in the early spring. The fish plants hereabouts would fire up for a week or so just for that.

...also, during the recent warm spell that hit this part of the world - warm enough to thaw the ice covering the rivers, which shouldn't have happened for another couple of months yet - there were a few souls with fishing poles frequenting those rivers, and catching fish...at least till they froze over again.

Plus, there's always ice fishing in the winter.

Don't know if any of that helps or not.

 

[buyjupiter]

Early spring fishing in the far north...


...well, I dwell in Alaska, not Siberia, but...

...the 'Black Cod' season is in the early spring. The fish plants hereabouts would fire up for a week or so just for that.

...also, during the recent warm spell that hit this part of the world - warm enough to thaw the ice covering the rivers, which shouldn't have happened for another couple of months yet - there were a few souls with fishing poles frequenting those rivers, and catching fish...at least till they froze over again.

Plus, there's always ice fishing in the winter.

Don't know if any of that helps or not.

Where it's set is more along the parallel with Washington state, maybe as far south as Oregon. I'm going with ice fishing, but it's the tail end of the season for it. Before I did any research I thought that I was going to have to do a lot of rewriting, as you don't get very much of a workout hauling minnows around, or preparing them, which is what I thought would be the only fish you could catch in winter. Then I found out I was mostly right about it being smaller fish until I found a large pike that will suit my needs as far as what to catch during that time frame, so I'm not stuck with little teeny tiny fish. Yay for research!

 

[skip.knox]

I wonder why you are worried about it. Why not do more research? What's the problem? Are there specific niggles worrying at you? Or are you satisfied with the story as it stands, but worry that someone else might spot problems?

If the former, I say run down the niggles. Research can pay unexpected, as well as expected, dividends.

If the latter, then stop doing research and start finding beta readers. Especially that elderly Russian fisherman.

The only time I think research is "too much" is if it is keeping you from submitting the story. But then it's probably not a research issue either, it's just researching masking another problem.

 

[Tomatomancer]

Wow. All this for a flash fiction piece? Stop! Stop right now! It looks to me like there's something else going on here: you are letting a psychological block get in the way of you finishing what you started. You've done a ton of research. Now FORGET IT ALL and make sure that you've got the story elements right: character, dialogue, pace and a unique voice. The difference between 98% accurate and 99% accurate is no difference at all, especially in terms of the quality of the finished product. You worry too much.

Interestingly, Jim Crace (one of his generation's best writers, IMHO) said once that when he's writing historical settings he does NO research whatsoever. There's a man that has written some magnificent books, and no-one's complaining.

Adrian

 

[Jabrosky]

I sometimes wonder whether or not writers and artists have an ethical duty to represent the past as accurately as possible. On the one hand misleading or lying to people about how things actually went can seem wrong, but on the other hand I definitely agree that historical reality has a way of getting in the way of the stories we want to tell.

Recently I thought up a pseudo-historical tragedy about the peopling of ancient Greece. In my story, the region was originally inhabited by blond-haired Nordic Europeans whom I based off the Norse and Anglo-Saxons, but these ultimately got wiped or driven out by Hellenic invaders from the Middle East. As far as I know, no archaeological evidence has surfaced attesting to a conflict between Middle Eastern Hellenes and indigenous Nordics, but somehow the concept nonetheless has a special luster that still appeals to me. On the other hand I am not sure whether I want to misrepresent early Greek history in the name of storytelling.

 

[buyjupiter]

I wonder why you are worried about it. Why not do more research? What's the problem? Are there specific niggles worrying at you? Or are you satisfied with the story as it stands, but worry that someone else might spot problems?

If the former, I say run down the niggles. Research can pay unexpected, as well as expected, dividends.

If the latter, then stop doing research and start finding beta readers. Especially that elderly Russian fisherman.

The only time I think research is "too much" is if it is keeping you from submitting the story. But then it's probably not a research issue either, it's just researching masking another problem.

I frequently get critiques back that my story worlds aren't developed enough, that there aren't enough details to get a feeling for setting, so I'm trying to overcome those flaws in my writing...and it gives me a good way to emotionally develop the MC in such a short piece as well.

The research went well and I did find a picture of Brezhnev in the correct train station, and it was even in the year I was looking for...so that was pretty amazing. Unfortunately it's only an exterior shot, but I may have to make that work since finding an interior shot of one particular train station in one particular city in one particular year is going to be a long shot.

 

[buyjupiter]

I sometimes wonder whether or not writers and artists have an ethical duty to represent the past as accurately as possible. On the one hand misleading or lying to people about how things actually went can seem wrong, but on the other hand I definitely agree that historical reality has a way of getting in the way of the stories we want to tell.

Recently I thought up a pseudo-historical tragedy about the peopling of ancient Greece. In my story, the region was originally inhabited by blond-haired Nordic Europeans whom I based off the Norse and Anglo-Saxons, but these ultimately got wiped or driven out by Hellenic invaders from the Middle East. As far as I know, no archaeological evidence has surfaced attesting to a conflict between Middle Eastern Hellenes and indigenous Nordics, but somehow the concept nonetheless has a special luster that still appeals to me. On the other hand I am not sure whether I want to misrepresent early Greek history in the name of storytelling.

Not to get too far off topic, but it is my understanding that the Celtic tribes and the Proto-Germanic ones did come up through Greece...so you aren't too far off of real history.

But yeah, as someone who has watched several incontrovertible facts be told as fiction over the last decade...well, I think it means that I personally have the duty of being as historically accurate as possible.

And to anyone who is wondering, the research hasn't altered the story I've told at all. I've just added in more flavor, more realism to the world. I've actually clarified several things with the research I did last night and I think the story is stronger because of doing the research. (Or I feel better anyways.)

 

[Svrtnsse]

It doesn't necessarily have to be the same train station. You can probably get the same effect by focusing on the feel of the place instead of the look of it. The reader is unlikely to know what the place looks like, so no matter how well you describe it they'll still have their own image in their head.

 

[Svrtnsse]

[...] I think the story is stronger because of doing the research. (Or I feel better anyways.)

I think this is really important.
I'm a very firm believer in that to do something truly well you need to enjoy doing it. If you're feeling good about your story then that will in some way be reflected in the story. Maybe it'll just be in a small, barely noticeable way, but still.

 

[buyjupiter]

It doesn't necessarily have to be the same train station. You can probably get the same effect by focusing on the feel of the place instead of the look of it. The reader is unlikely to know what the place looks like, so no matter how well you describe it they'll still have their own image in their head.

Yes, but I'll know. I realize that I'm being really self-critical with this piece, but it is one of my favorites thus far. And I want it to be just right.

And I think you've hit on the way I can use what I have and make it work. It doesn't matter if the scene is interior or exterior, I've just waited in enough train stations to know that you don't want to stand while you wait for what should be fifteen minutes while it turns into a three hour wait. But, if I make it an exterior scene, I can play off how cold the steel arches look, mirroring some emotional coldness of the MC's partner.

 

[Svrtnsse]

Yes, but I'll know.

It always comes down to that doesn't it? Happens to me too.

 

[Jabrosky]

Not to get too far off topic, but it is my understanding that the Celtic tribes and the Proto-Germanic ones did come up through Greece...so you aren't too far off of real history.

I don't think these accounts portray the Greeks as the aggressors though. I will say though that the Greeks did describe people already living in the Aegean area before their arrival. They call one of these groups the Minyans, and I've chosen them as the subject for a poem I've just posted in the Showcase.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I will say though that the Greeks did describe people already living in the Aegean area before their arrival. They call one of these groups the Minyans....

I think you mean Minoans. I travelled to the palace of Knossos a few years back which was an early Minoan fortification. Supposedly, it's where the legend of the Minotaur was born.