Elliot's novel Guilty starts off on a warm summer morning, when, after a fight with her parents, thirteen-year old school Constance Lawson is reported missing. A few days later, Constance’s uncle, Karl Lawson, finds himself swept up in a media frenzy created by journalist Amanda Bowe, who is strongly implying that he is the prime suspect.
Six years later… Karl’s life is in ruins. His marriage is over, his family destroyed. But the woman who took everything away from him is thriving. With a successful career, husband, and a gorgeous baby boy, Amanda’s built quite a life for herself. Until the day she receives a phone call and in a heartbeat, she is plunged into every mother’s worst nightmare.
Laura Elliot takes some Author R&R today here on In Reference to Murder to talk about researching and writing her novels:
The Brent geese had arrived on the Broadmeadow Estuary near my home and were combing the shoreline for sustenance when I drove past. My car radio was on and I was listening to an interview that had all the hallmarks of science fiction. Soon, the interviewee promised, my rushed visits to my local library and to the archives of newspapers would be a thing of the past. With the click of a mouse, I’d have access to a virtual global library. This was my introduction to the concept of the World Wide Web. I dismissed it, of course. Libraries, those hallowed, silent institutions were imbued with timeless knowledge and could never be replaced by such a new-fangled notion yet the Brent geese were barely on the wing again before it all came true.
Nowadays, I have ceased to be surprised by the diversity of information at my disposal and have almost forgotten what an index looks like. Undoubtably, research is easier these days but an overload of information can be as burdensome as too little. It stifles the spontaneity of the written word and I usually find it necessary to allow the research I’ve compiled over the internet to distil and almost vaporise before I can use it creatively.
Interviewing face to face is my favourite form of research. People are only too happy to help when I need specific details. Whether it is a mechanic demonstrating how the chassis of a car can be damaged in a certain type of road accident, a police inspector detailing the process involved in searching for a missing person, a homeless boy telling me what it’s like to exist on the rough side of the street, they give their time willingly. Later, when I check my notes or recordings, their information will not need distilling and my writing will dance to the tune of their voices.
I’ve ghost written a number of books. Some stories related to tragic incidents that received massive publicity at the time of their unfolding. Like the rest of the population, I’d watched the news, unaware that one day I’d be called upon to ghost write these experiences from the point of view of one of the participants. In such instances, especially when the authors had been through the courts or involved in a tribunal, the research I needed was at my disposal through newspapers and reports. The most difficult research I had to undertake was to probe into the minds of those who’d been traumatised, their lives turned upside down and changed forever by circumstances beyond their control.
Sometimes, they could not find the words to explain their trauma ―or their emotions were buried too deeply for me to disturb. In such cases, I had to dig deeply into my own psyche and try to imagine myself in their situations. To feel the fear, horror and bewilderment that can follow the brutal death of a loved one and all that must follow when such an event is played out in the glare of a public arena.
When writing fiction, which I now do full time, I use all the methods of research at my disposal. I was not familiar with the term ‘Fake News’ when I began to write my novel, Guilty, but I was interested in exploring the capacity of words to shape a narrative or reshape a truth. My office walls were covered with newspaper clippings that illustrated this power and I enjoyed the challenge of replicating reputable broadsheets and sensationally headlined tabloid reports throughout the narrative.
The power of a note book can never be underestimated. I travelled in a camper van across the South Island of New Zealand some years ago. While my husband drove, I filled my notebook with details I knew would be forgotten as one experience overtook another then another. Later, this notebook formed the background research for my novel, The Prodigal Sister, and I’ve had the pleasure of being congratulated by New Zealanders on my depiction of their country. That would never have happened without my trusty notebook.
With such a surfeit of information at our disposal, it’s easy to forget that, sometimes, the mystical tapping of one’s imagination can be as reliable as the most detailed data. I’ve created imaginary landscapes and, later, when the final words had been written, I’d been startled to discover places that were uncannily familiar to their fictitious settings. In one of my stories, I created a deserted cottage situated on a lake shore and shadowed by an enormous boulder. Months later, when I visited the mountainous region where I’d set my location, I drove over the crest of a hill and discovered an isolated cottage in the valley below me, its image mirrored in the stillness of a lake, its size dwarfed by a boulder that had been in the same position since the ice age.
The introduction of the World Wide Web changed forever our tried and trusted methods of gathering information yet I still love to use my local library. I enjoy soaking up the meditative atmosphere, the feeling that I am sitting in a space where generations before me have concentrated on acquiring knowledge and pursuing their love of books.
You can learn more about Laura and her books via her website and also follow her on Facebook and Twitter. Guilty, published by Grand Central, is available via all major booksellers in digital, print, and audio formats.
