Research

Good morning, Self!

How much research do you put into your work? Well, the answer varies with each story. Since the story is a product of my imagination, I put only as much research into it as is needful to make the story as believable as possible. For the fantasies, that doesn't really need to be very much. For the sci-fi, it can be a pretty time-intensive activity. I generally go for 'soft' sci-fi because a fiction novel shouldn't read like a science textbook; it detracts from the story unless the writer has a background in the subject. Oh, some writers immerse themselves in the science and can make the story more interesting, but they are the exception. See my earlier post about info-dumps.

My stories are about regular people who have no reason to know about an esoteric subject in science. How can the reader expect an itinerant drifter or a shopgirl to know anything about lasers, electro-magnetic pulses or nano-technology, much less think about it enough to add several pages of descriptive thought about any of them to a story? The character is thinking about how he or she is going to get out a tight spot, not about what makes a laser work. Such a thing is out of context.

However, if I'm writing about an historical character, I have to know as much about them as I can. I need to know how they might have reacted to a certain situation in order to make them live for the reader. Of course, that reaction will be subjective, according to whatever opinion I form about the character when I research them. For instance, I wrote a novel in which the Empress Theodora was cloned and I had to have some idea what she may have been like in life. In my research, I stuck with the factual accounts in The History, and The Secret History, biased as they were, because the author, Procopius, was on the scene and knew her firsthand. Now, of course, I know that The History was written as a propaganda piece to glorify the reign of Justinian and Theodora, and that The Secret History was written as a derogatory piece, published after Procopius' death. I even know that there is doubt that Procopius wrote The Secret History. Whoever wrote it seemed to be more interested in relating vicious gossip and demonizing Theodora than he was in telling strict truth. If he was telling the truth and the piece wasn't what it appears to be, then she must have been a truly capricious woman. To give balance to my own work, I wrote her as a mix of the two women I found in both of them. The noble woman who rose above her upbringing and early life, and the conniving, consummate palace intriguer. In the end, I came away from the work wishing that I could know the truth about her. That she was devoted to the Christian sect that had literally saved her life, there is no doubt. They revered her long after her death. That she was hated so thoroughly by people on the fringe of her sphere of influence is evident by the story told of the opening of her tomb centuries after her death. In case no one has ever heard it, the story goes that when the tomb was opened, there was nothing inside but an old snake's nest and a quantity of broken snake's eggs. Hence the title of my work; Eggs of Empire.

Well, enough of this. I hope it has given readers the information I intended they have.

Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of Taken Apart, Congruencies and others.
Available on Kindle