Research in Fiction.
I’ve discovered a startling fact about myself.
I’m a researcher.
Historians, Non-fiction writers, reporters, and the like all do research to learn more about their topic. When I think of such a worker, I imagine Shelby Foote. I think of Ken Burns. I never thought of myself as someone who had to learn about his topic before he sat down to write it. Amazingly, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing these past months.
My novel project takes place in the far future, hundreds of years from now. It’s not a post-apocalyptic novel in the modern sense, like I Am Legend (The BOOK!). It’s about a world that has arisen from ashes, a world in which we as humans face some of the very issues that plague us today– racism, discrimination, and a terrible tendency to throw aside works of power and beauty to make a buck– and yet we are removed in this far-future from our current hatreds and racial groups. the slate is clean, and we can look these issues naked, square in the face. In it, I hope to capture what drives humanity most, the truth of existence that escapes most of us in this material world.
What does this have to do with research? Well, where does that world come from? My head and my heart. but it has to be worked out. the customs of the world, the way it works, the people, even the way their shoes look must come from my words. First, I have to research how this world exists. I am as much a cultural anthropologist as those in that field. I dare anyone to say truthfully why a course in architecture, or economics, in art, or many others cannot aid me in this task? In order to be able to create such a world one must be versed in many diverse topics so as to have training and examples to make their own imaginary world believable.
Tolkien did this with language. Since I have not been trained thoroughtly in that, I’ll have to make it come to life in other ways, things which I have an affinity for. Sculpture, architecture, art. Technology, warfare, seamanship. Agriculture, politics, society. Spiritualism, religion, faith. These are where my world will come alive. These are my specialties. And so, on with the research.
