Weird Story Research

 

In my nine years of writing fiction, I've Googled countless topics, and some really strange ones. The biggest rabbit hole I ever went down was researching pylon signs, and they weren't even a crucial story detail. I probably remember that one best because it was so tedious. 

Write what you know? Come on; how boring would that tale be?

Like any writer who's ever included a murder in their story, I sometimes wonder what the FBI would make of my search history. "But I'm a writer!" I'd wail as they were dragging me away in handcuffs. In Shadow Song, when Ashley discovers her boss's dead body in the woods, I had to learn how long it takes for rigor mortis to set in. Unlike pylon signs, that actually was important to the story. (Oh, I've also researched arson techniques ~ for a couple of books, in fact. I certainly hope no suspicious fires erupt in my vicinity.) 

If authors were to list their research topics, someone would be right to question their sanity. That twirling pie case in a diner? Beats me what it's called. I had to look it up. The answer was disappointing ~ it's either a "display case" or a "dessert case". I was hoping for something fancier; some sort of diner lingo I could throw in. Why did the term matter? Well, although it was included in a minor scene, I couldn't just call it "the thing", which appears to be my fallback. "The pie thing" doesn't have much of a ring to it.

I searched and searched for info on early ferris wheels ~ How were they powered? What were they constructed from? When did the first one come into being? And guess what ~ I wrote a whole chapter about a farmer in the 1920's building one out of spare and bartered materials, and then I deleted it. Oh, and he and his wife spoke French, a language I don't know, so I had to use Google Translator to translate their conversations from English. The whole thing was a debacle. All ideas are not sparkly, and many waste valuable writing time. 

When Karen Grace set out to renovate a dilapidated motel, I, not being familiar with any tools besides a hammer and a screwdriver, needed to learn how to pull up old carpet and how to refinish hardwood floors, as well as how to remove cracked, rust-stained bathroom tiles. And that was only the beginning.

The more obscure a piece of information is, the longer it takes to find the right answer, which really pulls a writer out of her story. By the time I do find what I'm looking for, or not find it, I no longer feel like writing. I grew so weary trying to find the harvesting period and crops grown in the Upper Midwest in the fifties, I no longer gave a damn.

A couple of my books spanned decades. Thus, I had to learn peripheral facts surrounding World War II ~ things no one in their right mind would even ponder, like what did a woman read in the newspaper that was delivered to her rural mailbox? What songs were playing on the jukebox at the local tavern? A minor character was killed in a battle. Which battle? I needed to find out the major battles of the particular year in which it happened. Even for the book that started out in the late 1960's, I "sort of" knew a lot about the period, but obviously not enough. I even had to learn the slang of different periods. I remember finding a site that grouped slang terms by decade, but I didn't necessarily trust it. Some of its terms seemed to derive from Happy Days. (Side note: Did you know that the term "nerd" was created by the Happy Days writers?)

All in all, though, I don't regret spending that time. It was important that my stories were accurate and not delusional. I'd sometimes picture an expert on a particular topic reading my book and throwing it against the wall in disgust at the implausibility of what I'd written. They still might throw it against the wall, but not because of that. Plus, I learned things; not useful things, but I'd kill in a game of trivia.

And if you'd ever like a discourse on pylon signs, feel free to ask.