“History is the history of human behavior, and human behavior is the raw material of fiction. Most people recognize that novelists do research to get the facts right - how a glove factory works, for example, or how courtesans in imperial Japan dressed.” PeopleHumansFactsFictionExampleMaterialsBehaviorResearchNovelistsJapanFactoriesHuman BehaviorGlovesRaw MaterialsCourtesans Author:Amy Waldman
“I had been a reporter for 15 years when I set out to write my first novel. I knew how to research an article or profile a subject - skills that I assumed would be useless when it came to fiction. It was from my imagination that the characters in my story would emerge.” WritingYearsFirstsCharacterStoriesWould BeImaginationFictionNovelSubjectsSkillsResearchUselessArticlesReportersMy ImaginationProfile Author:Amy Waldman
“Historical fiction of course is particularly research-heavy. The details of everyday life are there to trip you up. Things that we take for granted, indeed, hardly think about, can lead to tremendous mistakes.” ThinkingCoursesMistakeFictionResearchHistoricalEverydayDetailsHeavyGrantedHistorical FictionEveryday Life Author:Sara Sheridan
“Nick Yablon ranges widely, from log cabins to skyscrapers and from Tocqueville to pulp fiction. He combines imaginative research with probing interpretation. Untimely Ruins offers fresh and challenging insights about the American built environment on nearly every page.” ChallengesFictionEnvironmentOffersPagesResearchBuiltInsightRuinsRangeInterpretationImaginativeCabinsSkyscraperPulpProbingLog CabinsBuilt Environment Author:T. J. Jackson Lears
“The most difficult part of writing a book is not devising a plot which will captivate the reader. It's not developing characters the reader will have strong feelings for or against. It is not finding a setting which will take the reader to a place he or she as never been. It is not the research, whether in fiction or non-fiction. The most difficult task facing a writer is to find the voice in which to tell the story.” WritingBookCharacterStoriesFeelingsStrongDifficultVoiceFictionReaderFindingsResearchTasksSettingSettingsDevelopingPlotNon FictionWriting A BookStrong FeelingDifficult TasksDevising Author:Randy Pausch
“I cannot say how strongly I object to people using other people's writing as research. Research is non-fiction, especially for horror, fantasy, science fiction. Do not take your research from other people's fiction. Just don't.” PeopleWritingLiteratureFictionFantasyObjectsHorrorResearchScience FictionNon Fiction Author:Laurell K. Hamilton
“If I write nothing but fiction for some time I begin to get stupid, and to feel rather as if it had been a long meal of sweets; then history is a rest, for research or narration brings a different part of the mind into play.” IfsFeelsWritingMindLongDifferentPlayFictionStupidSweetResearchMealsNarration Author:Charlotte Mary Yonge
“If my setting is new to a reader, or the concerns of the novel are new, I hope they will learn something about the world. I would like to say that they can trust that what they do learn in the novel will be accurate, because I pay a lot of attention to facts. I do a lot of research to make sure that I'm not giving them, you know, blue moons of Jupiter. It's not science fiction.” IfsKnowsWorldGivingFactsPayAttentionFictionNovelReaderMoonResearchConcernBlueScience FictionSettingSettingsAccurateJupiterBlue Moon Author:Barbara Kingsolver
“I think I'm too lazy a writer to do something like historical fiction. You have to do so much research. I just write what I know.” ThinkingKnowsWritingFictionResearchHistoricalLazyHistorical Fiction Author:Sarah Dessen
“I didn’t like it [computer] when I first began using it. Where it’s helped me a lot is in nonfiction which is a kind of different process. You’ve got research, you’ve got your notes, You can block out what you want to work on for the next 10 pages and put it in another file, and then you can kind of carve it into shape” WantFirstsKindDifferentNextProcessFictionShapesComputerPagesResearchNotesWhat You WantBlockFilesNon Fiction Author:Joan Didion
“I read nonfiction almost exclusively - both for research and also for pleasure. When I read fiction, it's almost always in the thriller genre, and it needs to rivet me in the opening few chapters.” NeedsPleasureFictionResearchOpeningGenreNonfictionChaptersThrillersFiction And NonfictionThriller Genre Author:Dan Brown
“As strange as this may sound, I very seldom read fiction. Because my novels require so much research, almost everything I read is non - fiction - histories, biographies, translations of ancient texts.” MaySoundFictionNovelStrangeResearchAncientBiographiesTranslationsNon Fiction Author:Dan Brown
“I remember reading an interview with a writer who said that in nonfiction if you have one lie it sort of messes it up. But in fiction the real details give you so much more credibility, because people do so much research just to write fiction. In fiction you're trying to recreate something lifelike.” PeopleIfsGivingWritingTryingSaidRealRememberLyingReadingFictionResearchDetailsMessInterviewsNonfictionCredibility Author:Edwidge Danticat
“I use non-fiction work written by Whites in my research. It's indispensable. That wasn't the problem. I said that "The Wire" was a cliché! It's like my writing a series about Jewish life and casting all of the characters as inside traders.” WritingSaidCharacterUseProblemFictionWrittenResearchSeriesIndispensableCastingWireNon FictionTradersJewish Life Author:Ishmael Reed
“For me, the historical and genealogical library is the one I use. I'm working on, I'll say, it's a time travel novel. I haven't written very much of it. That's the dirty secret of the Cullman center: The writers don't write their fiction there, they just do their research.” WritingUseSecretFictionNovelWrittenHavensResearchHistoricalLibraryDirtyTime TravelDirty Secrets Author:Andrew Sean Greer
“I love research, and in fact it's liberating because you have to create your own world. No one can say "I've just got back from the 1860s, and you got it wrong." Anyway, it's fiction.” WorldFactsFictionResearchLiberating Author:Stef Penney
“With the historical fictions, I was already doing so much research, and so much of the stories was anchored by historical truth that the move to nonfiction didn't feel all that dramatic - just another half-step to the right.” FeelsStoriesMovingHalfFictionStepsResearchHistoricalDramaticHistorical FictionNonfictionHistorical Truth Author:Debra Dean
“I had a visceral connection to the period [of Korean War]. By visceral I suppose I mean emotional. But every fiction requires so much that is not that so I did a lot of other research and a lot of thinking, a lot of struggling there.” ThinkingMeanWarFictionStruggleEmotionalPeriodsResearchConnectionsKoreanVisceralKorean War Author:Chang-Rae Lee
“You're in a very nice position as an actor when you're portraying a piece of history that actually happened and portraying characters that actually existed. There's so much more to draw on and your research as an actor becomes much easier than if it's some fiction that you're trying to create a world around and background and history.” IfsWorldTryingCharacterActorsFictionPiecesNiceHappenedPositionEasierDrawsResearchBackgroundsVery NicePortraying Author:Jamie Dornan
“My motto is: write about anything you bloody well like; just make sure you do it effectively. We've all had all the emotions, the rest is research and that leap which some can do and others cannot - it's not really something you can learn, otherwise all academics of literature would be wonderful fiction writers.” WritingWellsWould BeLiteratureCan DoEmotionFictionWonderfulResearchLeapBloodyMottoFiction WritersMy Motto Author:Suhayl Saadi