How to Be an Author: RESEARCH IS AN ESSENTIAL INGREDIENT

For many of us, our first writing assignment came in the form of a book report. Teachers used these reports as a way to accomplish several lessons without revealing to their unsuspecting students that they were learning a complex process.

First, the report required a title. In going over the parts of the book, the teacher pointed out that the title of the book was found on the title page. Some of the more inquisitive students noticed the title also appeared on the book jacket and in a few instances on the cover of the book. When the student advanced to paperbacks, the book jacket disappeared and the title magically moved to the cover. In any event, the student neatly copied the title onto his report.

The next lesson was figuring out who was responsible for the words and ideas expressed in the book. Amazingly, the name of that person appeared beneath the title on the title page, book jacket or cover. Again, the student copied this information onto the book report form on the line designated for the author.

The third lesson asked the student to tell what she had read. Depending on how ambitious the child happened to be Goldilocks could be about a little girl with blonde braids or a tale of a mischievous girl who brazenly trespassed into a neighbor’s home and left a mess in the kitchen and living room before falling asleep in their bedroom.

The fourth lesson, where the teacher asks the student what he learned, is dependent on the previous three. Through the first three steps, the child learned to conduct research. In the fourth, the student advances to what educators refer to as high order thinking skills. These include analysis, synthesis and evaluation.

When I decided to become a writer of fiction, I figured my days of doing research were behind me. Why waste time gathering information when I can use my imagination to spin whatever plot, moral or theme I desire? The simple answer is readers demand it. Even if you’re working in an imaginary world, such as the one Goldilocks lived in, readers want to have real world concepts they can use to understand. Thus, the bears live in a house, eat porridge, sit in chairs and sleep in beds.

The two excerpts from the novels I’ve written that appear in the Books section of this website serve as a fine example. In Assimilation, the characters are fictitious, but they live in a real city during a time in history different from modern day. Even though I lived in that city during that time, it was necessary to do research to ensure an accurate description of the setting for the reader. Similarly, in Reputation, a story that takes place in the present, the roles of the characters, such as the governor of a state, needed to be investigated in order to lend credibility and authenticity to the story.

My current project not only occurs in present day, it’s happening in real time. The story follows the impact of coronavirus on a graduating high school student. My choice to place it in my native Wisconsin, rather than California, where I’ve resided for the past twenty-three years, reflected two aspects of my life. First, I graduated from high school in Wisconsin, and recall the excitement and trepidation of the experience common to that region of the country, if not to that particular state. And second, my oldest daughter, her husband and their two sons live there. While graduation is a long way off for my grandsons, the trials and tribulations they face are the same as my characters.

Research on the emotional state of an author’s characters can only provide a general understanding. I find if I don’t understand the inner workings of my characters–if they don’t talk to me–they don’t exist in the world I create. Readers can tell right away if a character is not real. No amount of research will make a character authentic, if the author doesn’t have an intimate understanding of what makes the character tick. But, having family in Wisconsin gave me an added incentive to keep track of the events that impact the lives of its citizens.

Authors today are fortunate to be able to use the Internet to learn what is happening around the world almost instantaneously. Based on my research, I find the way Wisconsin combats the crisis we find ourselves in at this time reflects the way the nation does.

Following the battle on a daily or weekly basis yields a micro-view of the situation. A tool I’ve used to handle the pure exhaustion of living day-to-day with this story as it unfolds is humor. My main character diligently pursues his chosen career of comedy. John Vorhaus wrote in his book, The Comic Tool Box, that comedy is truth and pain. Covid-19 provides plenty of both and finding a release has become a central theme of my current story.

Most of my research is specific to Wisconsin, but there are exceptions. So, earlier week, when Politico wrote an article titled, Which States Had the Best Pandemic Response? I wondered if their research provided a macro-view. It does. The article points to Vermont as the state with the greatest success. “If the country as a whole had the same per capita death rate as Vermont, the nationwide death toll would be 30,000 instead of more than 215,000.” Dr. Anthony Fauci said, “This should be the model for the country, how you did it.”

Vermont’s health commissioner said, “Any state that’s going to succeed against Covid, has got to have the compliance of the population, because every single thing you do is telling people to alter their personal behavior.” To gain compliance the Republican governor and a Democratic-led legislature of Vermont had to come together to build a consensus among their constituents The Democratic governor and Republican-led legislature in Wisconsin fail to agree on anything. Like most of our country, Wisconsin remains divided and not unified in its strategy to defeat the disease.

Research shows this dissonance makes the pain worse. As you learned earlier in this blog, the greater the pain the more intense the comedy–Are you laughing?