Thriller writer Jenny Milchman stops by In Reference to Murder today to take some "Author R&R" (Reference and Research):
Research is Murder: AKA How Not to Do Any For Your Book
I have a confession to make. No, I didn’t bury any dead bodies, but research often feels like it will be the death of me. When I was a child, my research projects would descend all too quickly into flights of fancy. I’m a suspense writer, and I prefer to make things up.
Luckily I don’t write historical novels, or ones with a lot of technical detail. I took part in a Skype chat once when Lee Child explained that he doesn’t do much research himself. Well, I’ve read every single Reacher novel. There’s a reason the man is a #1 New York Times bestseller. If I tried to imagine the interior workings of a gun, I would probably make it shoot backwards.
Now there’s a twist.
I buy myself out of the research problem by writing what reviewer Oline Cogdill calls family thrillers, about ordinary people who happen to find themselves in extraordinary situations. The ones none of us would ever want to be in—but can imagine all too well. You wake up in the morning and know that something is wrong. A bed is empty when it should be filled. The knock on the door doesn’t sound friendly.
This approach to constructing stories didn’t arise as a solution to my research problem, although it may have a pleasant synchronicity with my personal likes and dislikes. But the truth is that I am fascinated by the thin gray line. The horizon of the Before and After. As for heroes, I prefer constructing everyday ones. People who are a lot like you and me.
In my debut novel, Cover of Snow, Nora Hamilton wakes to find her husband missing from their bed. She discovers what happened to him all too quickly…and that is when the real danger starts. In my recently released follow-up, Ruin Falls, Liz Daniels has just set off on a family vacation when her children disappear. Liz finds out who has taken her kids in one terrifying slash of realization. Now the journey will begin to get them back.
Readers have pointed out to me that there are areas that call for research in both these novels. Nora is a restorer of old homes; Liz is an organic gardener. There is an autistic character in my first novel, and one who is dealing with a traumatic brain injury in my second. But you see, these are all subjects I know about from the inside out. I worked as a psychotherapist for ten years and saw patients with both forms of cognitive challenges. My first home was a dilapidated Victorian. No one with children these days can help but feel both the liberation and vise-like grip of the so-called organic movement.
Bought out of research…again.
I see a different kind of line coming, however. One I may very well need to cross. The new story blooming in my head will take on a subject I know nothing about. I sense a fork in the road, and am struggling with it.
Should I write this book and make everything up in the way that would best suit my story? I’ve done that in the past with unpublished manuscripts—and gotten fairly close. I’ve made up details about the law, journalism, and architecture, and when I went back and checked, they turned out to need little in the way of revision. But most of us know at least something about these topics. The one I am considering now is completely outside my wheelhouse.
It’s always a question as a writer how much work you want to put in up front, and how much you are willing to go back and revise in subsequent drafts. Part of me is tempted to let this exciting new story spin out, then go back and retrofit it if necessary. But part of me thinks that I should listen to the wisdom compiled in the pages of this blog, and do what all those other brave suspense and mystery writers do.
Research.
Don’t they say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?
Jenny Milchman's journey to publication took thirteen years, after which she hit the road for seven months with her family on what Shelf Awareness called "the world's longest book tour." Her debut novel, Cover of Snow, was chosen as an Indie Next and Target Pick, reviewed in the New York Times and San Francisco Journal of Books, won the Mary Higgins Clark award, and is nominated for a Barry. Jenny is also the founder of Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day and chair of International Thriller Writers' Debut Authors Program. Jenny's second novel, Ruin Falls, just came out and she and her family are back on the road.
