Research or Lie?

"A writer that delves into topics he doesn’t know has three choices, research, be vague, or learn to lie convincingly. The art of writing fiction is not so much being right, it is convincing the reader he is right, or entertaining him at a level where he simply doesn’t care."

I read the above quote in a writing forum recently, and it made me stop and think - especially since it was on a thread about the alternate history genre and the importance of research in stories. I read this and stopped, because ultimately, I think it's right. I DO think research is important, especially for a really convincing alternate history... But I'm also a perfectionist. That has an impact on many areas of my life, but it's particularly obvious in writing, and is the reason I stay away from writing historicals or alternate historicals.

Why? Because I'll never know enough. This is what my mind is convinced of, anyway. No matter how much research I do, no matter how many books I read, I'll still never know enough to present another time period convincingly. Which is rubbish, I know, but the thought is strong enough that, as I said, I shy away from writing in the history genres.

I'm having this problem with Jesscapades, too. Jessc is set in England and I've had suggestions from some readers that the setting needs to be more specific, less vague and handwavey. Pick a real location already, they say.

Except if I do that, I'll need to research the location, investigate climates and weather patterns, learn the history, study the neighbourhoods, find some locals and quiz them on the atmosphere, the habits of the population, figure out which area my MC is most likely to live in and where she would go to work and why... And it's so. much. work.

I've tried the vague route; obviously that didn't work. I've tried the research-the-heck-out-of-it route too, spending hours with google maps, browsing everything from real estate websites to online fast food menus. In the end, all I got was frustrated, and even after those many hours, I'm no closer to knowing where Jess might live or any of it.

So I guess the next option is option 3: learn to lie convincingly. Because ultimately, the final sentence is right - readers read to be entertained, not for the veracity of the setting. So I can quit stressing over the fact that Coventry, UK doesn't have a warehouse exactly like the one I need for Jesscapades; really, it's my story, and I'm allowed to plonk a warehouse down where I need one if I need to. And perhaps the issue the betas had is not so much that I need to pick a real world location, but more that I need to make the sense of setting sharper, clearer and more detailed - make the world of the story come alive.

Do you have a preference for recognisable, real world settings over 'vague' real world settings? I'm curious, because a few of my stories take place in actual places in my head, but I'm not sure whether or not to make that obvious in the text, or whether to leave it ambiguous... What do you think??

Seasons In Writing

I'm not sure if seasons are something you think about when you write, but lately, I have been. In fact, at one point - probably in the car - I went through all my stories and, in my head, categorised them by season. Some of them I'm not sure of still - but for others, the season is an absolutely integral part of the story.

Magician's Thunder, for example, is a story I 'started' about four years ago during one particular summer where it thunderstormed every single evening for two weeks straight. It was amazing. I love storms, especially storms with beautiful electrical shows, and those two weeks were pure magic. There's this one scene where the elder of the two MCs is lying in the bath with her feet propped up at one end, steam misting on the windows, the only light a flickering candle and the flashes of lightning outside that light the bathroom in stark charcoal and white - that scene is straight out of real life, one of those perfect moments where everything is just Right.

I love that scene, and part of me desperately wants to whip that story into shape just so I can write the scene, even though the book is nowhere NEAR the top of my to-write pile at the moment. But the point is, the story couldn't happen any time other than in summer. The season is an integral part of the story.

Jesscapades is a little different. The season doesn't influence the story directly the way it does in Magician's Thunder, but it's still there. Jesscapades is an autumn (fall :P) story, with the sharp chill of winter hanging in the night air but the lazy heat of summer still present in the afternoon. It's a season of slowing down, of heading to rest, of tying up loose ends before the hibernation of winter; winding down, wrapping up, and some things falling apart in decay, like the leaves. And, coincedentally enough, that reflects the themes and ideas and plot of the story. The story closes with ends that have been loose for hundreds of years tied off, with grand structures falling once more into ruin and decay, and with a sense of laying things to rest.

Now that I've thought about this so overtly, I can actually see a lot of places where I can play this association up, letting the story revel in things winding down, gathering in, preparing to hibernate - which is pretty cool. And why not? Settings, done well, can be so much more than just a backdrop for things to happen on. Done right, the setting of the story is alive. It interacts with the characters and plot, changes the way things happen, melds with the life of the story so that the two become one and the story couldn't happen anywhere else. Good stories are like that; their setting is like another indispensible character.

My random thoughts for the day. Have you ever consciously selected a season for your story to take place in, for symbolic or practical or any other reasons? Do you have a setting that you're particularly proud of, that really does function almost like a character to set the mood and tone?

As I'm preparing for teaching creative writing this semester, ideas like this are on my mind, and I'm bouncing on my toes at the thought of participating in all the activities I"ll get the class to do. And somewhere in there will, I suspect, be an activity revolving around seasons :o)