A.J. Maguire

Tag: research

  • Working with Historical Timelines – Persona Version

    WWII is heavily documented. I have volumes and volumes of historical content that have helped me better understand how and why events took place throughout the war.

    No, really. Volumes.

    I also have several Documentaries on DVD which have helped shed some light on the timeline forAJMaguire-PersonaCover-1280h Persona and the general feel of what was rationed and what was needed and how transportation worked and …

    You get it.

    All this history is wonderful. I love history. It makes me all giddy inside to research it.

    The feeling I get when I find something within my research that perfectly fits the story and adds another level of authenticity is … Well, it’s better than a stack full of York Peppermint Patties. (And I do so love York Peppermint Patties.)

    I also hate history.

    Discovering something in my research that contradicts the story-line I’ve created is frustrating to the extreme. I research as I go, so there tends to be a lot of revision precisely because of this.

    Example: 

    The original opening scene for Persona had Megan on a plane. But it was discovered that planes were generally only used for transporting military personnel and often the wounded for relocation, so it was more likely that she would have been on a passenger ship.

    Insert weeks of research hunting for a passenger ship that, for plot purposes, had to be sunk. Eventually I found the SS Ceramic and there was much rejoicing.

    Today I find myself in a similar pickle. The outline that I have ends Megan’s story on a very particular date because (without going into too much detail and spoiling the whole book) things happened on that date, in that place, and it brings her story a certain sense of cohesion.

    However …

    That date is several months away from the current chapter.

    There are a couple of ways I can handle this and, as an author who really, really doesn’t want to miss another deadline with this particular book (seriously, I’ve passed several of them already and I’m not even sure why. I’m normally very strict with deadlines) I need to make my mind up by Sunday.

    1. I can rearrange the timeline of the whole book, extending Megan’s stay and bringing things closer to what I want. (Not a bad plan, though a moderate amount of work.)
    2. I can slow this chapter down, be all artsy-crafty-clever with the passage of time. (I’m not very good at this sort of thing, though. It’s an area I need to improve on.)
    3. I can ignore the historical timeline. (I don’t like this plan. I did all the research for a reason, after all.)
    4. I can stretch out the inevitable scenes at the end (which I can’t explain for fear of spoiling things) and lengthen Megan’s time in a very bad place. (Not sure I like this plan either because it draws out the tension too much at the end.)

    So many choices. 

    As an author these sorts of problems happen all the time. And I imagine when I tackle my Civil War story (likely sometime next year) that I’m going to have a lot of these timeline problems show up.

    The core of the issue is that I want to have that authenticity, the reality of what happened integrated seamlessly into the work, but I also want to tell Megan’s story. Megan is fictional. Her story is about who she is as a person, not what happened during WWII.

    With that in mind, option 3 becomes more visible. Although I’ve done the research, the research is not the book, and I think that’s really what I have to keep in mind here.

    Megan is the story.

    As the author, I have to decide which option tells her story best.

  • Research as a Writer

    Writers are really life-long scholars. Sure, we get to play around in fiction and make up rules in our fantasy worlds sometimes, but when push comes to shove we are constantly having to “Google” one thing or another. Whether we’re researching words (Hello, online Thesaurus) or we need to find out just how far away Pluto is from Earth (NASA has a really cool site for that) the research of a writer never seems to be done.

    With each book comes a new set of questions, new things we need to know to make the novel believable because the last thing we want to do is insult our readers.

    Science Fiction authors find themselves having to explain gravity on a ship. Historical Fiction authors need to know their time period well enough to keep readers rooted in the story. Crime writers need to know police procedure and proper investigative techniques. And the list goes on.

    The bottom line is, if you’re a writer then you’re a researcher too. There’s just no getting around this work.

    Now, I’ve heard horror stories of authors who get lost in the library, researching so much that they never actually start to write the story. When I started my first historical fiction (Persona) I was seriously afraid of this happening.

    I absolutely love history. It would have been easy for me to get sucked into all the facts and true stories about what happened in WWII and I knew it. So I made a list of rules for myself before I started the project and, because I’m about to start my second historical fiction (The Abolitionist) in November, I thought I would share those rules today.

    1) Write the Character First

    Before I did any research I had to have my main character firmly in my sights. With Persona this was Megan Crossweathers, and I wrote the entire first chapter before I began researching. Now, I did have to go back and edit that chapter quite a bit after I’d done my research, but that first chapter helped me ask very specific questions for my research.

    Example: After writing that first chapter I knew I had Megan on a boat that was about to sink. So I researched boats that sank until I found the S.S. Ceramic (No, really, that’s its name) which sank right about where I needed it to and had only one reported survivor. 

    2) Know What You Need

    I’m pointing to the first rule up there “Know your character” again because if you know your character and the story you’re meaning to tell then you won’t get lost in a sea of information as you’re writing. As much fun as it is to learn about history (or science or crime or whatever your passion is) there’s only so much that’s actually going to be useful.

    So, you need to know what you need.

    Example: During my recent editing of Tapped I found my characters walking on Pluto. (The dwarf planet, not the Disney character or the Roman god of the Underworld.) In order to do that I needed to know the climate of the dwarf planet (which is very, very cold by the way) and the terrain and … you get it. 

    Generally speaking, you come up with these questions as you write which brings me to my third and final rule …

    3) Keep Writing 

    Many things constitute as research in my book. Preparing for The Abolitionist, I’ve begun watching movies centered on the Civil War (just watched Gettysburg this weekend) and gathered documentaries which I will slowly begin to consume. These help me two-fold because documentaries let me get my learning on (I totally love The History Channel) while also seeing the styles (hair, clothing, weaponry) right in front of me.

    Here’s the thing …

    All that information is useless unless I have someplace to put it. And I’ll never find a place to put it unless I’m still writing.

    So for every hour I spend watching a documentary, I have to spend an hour writing too. Sometimes I start the day writing and then watch a documentary, other times I watch first and then write. Either way, I’m researching as I go.

    Disclaimer

    I’m one of those bizarre hybrid writers who can never start a novel with an outline. The first dozen chapters are what I like to call “cause and effect” writing, which presents the character and a particular problem and then watching said character try to resolve that particular problem. But I can’t finish a novel without an outline either.

    By the middle of the book I have a firm enough grasp on the character, theme, and plot of the novel that I can write a sketchy outline to help me reach the end. I call this “Muse Central” because I go about a week or so where I don’t write anything on the novel itself, but instead let my Muse take control to write the outline.

    These are just my rules. It’s not a “one size fits all” thing here.

    Authors who like to have an outline from the get-go probably won’t benefit here. Discovery writers (writers who don’t use an outline) might.

    Maybe.

    I don’t know. I’m really just winging it here. These are rules that helped me and on the off chance that they might help someone else, I decided to share them. Writing is a craft, after all, and no one way is going to work for everybody.

  • Fact vs. Fiction – Chapter Four (Persona)

    All right!  Just a quick heads up for anyone who doesn’t know what this is about … My WWII story Persona is being serialized and posted online for free via Wattpad and its story blog.

    Because this is historical fiction I’ve had to do quite a bit of research to help me wade through it.  I know I’ve only touched the surface of what I should know about that time period, but in the meantime this is what I’ve got so far.

    Fact vs. Fiction – Chapter Four

    Fact: Vernacular … you’ll notice VanBuren called Megan Frauline Vonclese in Chapter Three, but here in Chapter Four I’ve dropped it to call her “Miss Vonclese”.  I did that on purpose.  As I’m writing primarily for an English-speaking audience — I speak English, I write in English, I understand things in English — I thought it best to help equate what ‘Frauline’ means roughly in … you guessed it … English.

    Way back in Chapter Two I used the word “Nein” as well, because I wanted to make it clear who was plucking her out of the ocean.  I use German sporadically throughout the book but don’t want to frustrate readers with too much of it. (Remember, I’ve got a primarily English-speaking audience.)

    Fiction:  I don’t go into too much detail with the port authority and everything.  This is for two reasons; one, I’m really not familiar with how the Nazi party would have handled this particular situation; and two, VanBuren is rich enough to circumvent the normal processes anyway.

    However, it’s safe to say that if Megan were a real person and had somehow been rescued by a German vessel in the middle of WWII, she would not have been show this much lenience.  She’d likely be sent to a camp somewhere to wait out the war.  I acknowledge this and then point emphatically at the word “fiction”, asking for … well … some suspension of disbelief.

    Fact:  Frostbite!  This was actually researched for Chapter’s 3 & 4 due to Megan’s lengthy stay in the water.  I learned that, in the event of frostbite, you actually have to keep appendages (such as Megan’s poor feet) in water and slowly acclimate them to warmth over a period of time.

    Also, those parts of the body that have suffered frostbite cannot be used until they are completely healed.  (Which explains why Megan was in bed for all of Chapter Three.)

    Having never suffered frostbite myself, I am only imagining that two to three weeks after the injury Megan would still feel some tenderness on her rescue toes.  Especially given she hasn’t actually been allowed to walk for much of that time while the feet were healing.

    Fiction:  The bakery scene.  Honestly, I’m not sure how good Wilhelmshaven looked after the 1941 bombing of the port town.  I’m not certain they would have kept a bakery open in such a targeted area during the war.

    But I needed a place for Megan to meet up with Schuler.  It’s possible that I could alter this scene in a future revision to show Megan and VanBuren making their way to the train depot instead.

    Author’s Note:  Now that I look at it, the depot does seem like a better place to send her.  I will likely change it.