Month: July 2023

In The Cast-Iron Owl, the story features a roadtrip in which the mother, Jane, and her daughter, Mary, drive across the country to Colorado. When determining all the stops for their roadtrip, including what states they’ll pass through, it was something that took a considerable amount of time and research to figure out.

Even after I had determined what states they’ll stop at, I had to figure out which cities/counties/towns they’d find a motel in, and what the geographic landscape of those states were like. I would imagine it’s similar to filmmakers scouting locations for a film, figuring out the logistics of getting there, not to mention what the conditions and the environments are like. It’s one of those things that seems easy and straightforward on the surface, but actually takes a lot of planning and research.

In addition to the figuring out the locations, I had to plan out how long the drive would be from one place to the next. Given that the story is set during winter, I knew that snow or rain could be a factor (not to mention the cold), so I had to look into the climate as well.

If the story had taken place during the summer, it’d be a lot easier to plan out, since I needn’t worry about the cold weather or the potential for snow. But given that it does take place in the winter, I had to factor that in, including how often it snowed or rained in those places, when I planned out the roadtrip.

The nice thing about writing roadtrips is that it gives the characters plenty of opportunities to have long conservations as they travel, as well as the chance to visit new places. It’s similar to a story where characters are traversing across different countries or landscapes where they face unseen obstacles. The fun thing about writing roadtrips is that it lends itself to the unexpected and to startling encounters. On a roadtrip, even though it can be perfectly planned, there’s no guarantee that it will go as expected.

When I write a story, it can go off on a tangent where it will go down a path that I hadn’t originally planned. It was as if the characters were steering me in that direction through the dialogue and through the logic of their motivations. Sometimes, the result can be better than I expected. What I had originally planned was just okay, but the tangent it went off in was a lot more exciting and original.

Often times, I welcome tangents while I’m writing. However, it’s possible for a tangent to stray too far from the plot. But when tangents do work, they feel organic and natural, something that I wouldn’t have discovered unless I allowed myself to be in the zone and immersed in the story. Tangents can also happen with dialogue where a character will say and reveal things that are a surprise for both the writer and reader. It was as if the process of writing itself made it come to light instead of in the planning stages.

Tangents can also happen when the plot veers off in a different direction. When I notice this happening, I let it take its course to see where it goes. Sometimes it works, and other times, it seems like it’s sidetracking the plot. But as a writer, I allow them to happen since it can be exciting to discover secrets within the plot that I hadn’t even known.

For my upcoming novel, research was vital to ensure that I included facts and detail that were accurate. Whether a story is set in modern times or in the past, these minor details can liven up the story, immerse the reader into a world where the people, objects and events feel tangible and real. It also is a great way for the reader to learn tidbits as they read, facts that they wouldn’t have otherwise known so that they feel like they are gaining knowledge as they read.

Depending on the subject matter, research can take a very long time. It’s not just learning about the history or the facts of a field, but understanding it and selecting the key information that will work for the story. Hours can be spent learning about specific details and facts, only for you to realize later that you don’t need to include them, or that you only need to include a fraction of what you’ve read.

I find this often happens when I research different locations for a story (especially my newest novel). I learn about that place’s history, its scenery, its housing and economic landscape, etc., and I might realize afterward that it won’t suit the story. Even if I don’t use that specific location, at least I know of it, and I could use it in a different story or know what makes it different from the location I will use.

For stories in the fantasy and science fiction genres, research can entail studying early civilizations, folklores or facts about anthropology or science. All this information can be combined and weaved together in a story seamlessly–utilized in such a way that is unique and original to tell a new tale or to illustrate a vision of an otherworldly universe. When it comes to world building, it’s a matter of creating everything from scratch, of laying out a foundation of its history, of designing the terrain and landscape, and of creating the societies that exist within that world. In this way, it’s somewhat like building a universe with its own history and where events and key figures cross paths and influence each other in a way that is unique but strangely familiar to us.