How to Write a Novel: Research

Guest blogger D.J. Niko is the pseudonym for Daphne Nikolopoulos, a journalist, author, editor, and self-proclaimed modern nomad who has spent the better part of two decades traveling the world. As a former travel writer and zealous adventurer, she has visited remote spots on six continents, many of which have inspired her novels, including the award-winning The Tenth Saint and its sequel, The Riddle of Solomon. Her next two novels will be released in 2015. Daphne was born and raised in Athens, Greece, and now resides in Florida with her family.  

The Rest is History

By D.J. Niko

Researching historical fiction and thrillers with historical themes is a little like going down the rabbit hole: you have to enter another world and come out, sweating and panting, on the other side before you can actually get it.

When you research and write about the ancient world, that’s especially true. I deal with time periods as far back as the sixteenth century BCE, when information wasn’t exactly plentiful and the recording of facts was sketchy at best. Think about it: historical documentation as we know it wasn’t a thing back then. The ancient Egyptians carved their conquests onto temple walls, the Israelites had an oral history that got passed down over thousands of years, the Greeks (before the days of Herodotus) painted pottery and inscribed ostraca, and on it goes. A few blanks to fill in? You can say that again!

A lot of people ask me, why the ancient world? Why not pick something more accessible, like, say, World War II or 1960s London? What can I say? Doing things the hard way is one of my more charming qualities. Ahem.

So how do I get my material? For starters, I hang out with a lot of archaeologists. Archaeology is one of the most important tools in understanding antiquity, because it provides hard proof of how people lived and died, when cities flourished and were destroyed, worship practices, and so on. The scientists working in the field are a wealth of information and, in most cases, fairly outspoken (and opinionated!) about their research. They are more than happy to give a novelist an earful.

In researching my first book, The Tenth Saint, I traveled to Ethiopia and spent time with historians at Aksum and monks at Lalibela, trying to understand the mindset of the people during the early centuries of the Common Era, when Christianity first infiltrated the Abyssinian Empire. I went down into the tombs of Aksum, walked through the catacombs beneath the rock churches of Lalibela, attended traditional ceremonies whose practices had not changed since ancient times, hiked to cave churches in the hinterlands (and I mean hinterlands), and studied the stele inscriptions of the nation’s early kings. Of course, I also sampled all the Ethiopian food, beer, coffee, and tej (honey wine) I could get my hands on. Hey, it’s the least I could do for my readers.

For the next book in the series, The Riddle of Solomon, I added another layer of inquiry to the standard archaeological research. The story is set largely in Israel and involves an antagonist who believes he is the Jewish messiah for whom the world has waited. This guy is ruthless in amassing the relics that will prove his legitimacy; chief among them are the plans for building the third temple in Jerusalem, meaning the original temple plans by King Solomon.

So, to research messianism, Judaic oral tradition, and the spiritual significance of King Solomon’s story, I consulted a couple of rabbis. They were very gracious to embrace a Greek Orthodox girl and, over several meetings, walk her through the fine points of Judaism. It was illuminating, to say the least, and I think the book is better for it.

For me, there is no substitute for experiencing a place firsthand and interviewing the experts in person. But life does not always allow for this. My other means of research include university library archives, books written by ancient writers (for my current project, I am reading Plutarch, Herodotus, and Pausanias), museums, and, of course, the Internet. And this happens throughout the writing process, not just in the front end.

Because I’m all about recycling and reusing, I use this information in other ways. In recent years, I’ve been repackaging the research and lecturing about it to private groups and continuing education students at academic institutions. It’s just another vehicle to get my name out there, sell books, and share some of this fascinating knowledge in a more direct way.

As I state in my Twitter profile, I have become an antiquities geek thanks to all this research (I’m really fun at cocktail parties), but if the work seems more authentic because of it, I’ll take the ridicule.

I will leave you with this fun quote by Homer: “I did not lie! I just created fiction with my mouth!”

How to Write a Novel : Dialog and Dialects

James O. Born 

We are still talking about the use of dialogue in a novel. As with everything else in the novel that you’re writing, you get to make all the choices. It doesn't matter what other people think. If you want a character to drop the F-bomb every three sentences like a Martin Scorsese film, it's your call. If you want everyone to talk like they're on the set of Mr. Rogers, you can do that too. Your characters should all speak differently. Obviously some would be educated, some illiterate, some Penn State grads. 

This week let's talk about something a little different: Writing in dialects. Whether it is someone trying to sound like they're from the American South or giving a character a foreign accent, these choices can define a character almost more than anything else. But they can also distract the reader from the story.

Let's check in with some of my blog mates to get their take on how they handle dialect or accents:

From Jackie:

Jackie (on left)

I have had a fair bit of experience with dialect and accents with my series, and have approached it in different ways. In the period of time in which my books are set, the accent could change from village to village, so having that sense in the books has been important with regard to establishing a sense of place. In the Maisie Dobbs series one of the characters in particular has a Cockney accent (and that is not necessarily a “London” accent, as there is also rhyming slang to deal with). I used spelling and punctuation to emphasize the accent in the first three books, then afterwards I toned it down a bit - I realized that a little dab was enough to get the point across, plus committed series readers had a sense of the character/s by that time, and new readers who came in at book 4 or 5 or whatever often went back to the beginning and started over with the first book in the series. In my new book THE CARE AND MANAGEMENT OF LIES (a standalone non series, non-mystery) to be published in July, I have employed a couple of different methods, including description - this is an example:

“Look you bloody fool. Look and remember. She’s right beautiful.”  He pronounced the word “boodiful” in his rounded Sussex brogue.

I have also described a way of speaking in the same way that I might paint a picture of a place, using metaphor - for example, I used that method in AN INCOMPLETE REVENGE, for example, when I wanted to convey a sense of the speech pattern of Romany gypsies.

From Patty:

Use dialects sparingly in your writing. I’m saying this mostly as a reader who gets irritated when the story

Patty

comes to a crashing halt while I puzzle out what the characters are saying. It may be authentic. It may be the way people talk in that neck of the woods, but by now you should have learned from James O. Born that the way people talk in reality is not the way dialogue should be written. Real speech is often boring with a lot of pauses and ahs and other time-wasters. Boring writing is not what you want for your dear readers. It will make them grumpy and may cause them to throw your book across the room. After that, they will likely not buy the next one.

Unless your target audience readily understands a specific regional dialect, i.e., a Southern drawl, capture instead the cadence and flow of how a character speaks. If your character’s first language is not English, perhaps leave out words like “the” and mix up verb tenses. Also be careful of using too many foreign phrases unless you can find a tricky way to translate them. Otherwise, your readers will feel left out and possibly angry. So, how do you do this? Listen to people talking at work, on the bus, in a restaurant, at a baseball game, and everywhere else. Bonne chance et amusez-vous! "Good luck and have fun to you, too!"

From me:

In Jim's Mind

Having grown up in Florida when it was still considered part of the South and gone to graduate school in Mississippi, I am particularly sensitive to poor attempts to emulate a southern accent. In truth, there is no one southern accent. Each region has its own nuances that are readily identifiable to other Southerners. I would rarely mistake someone from Tennessee with someone from North Florida. Yet most writers tend to think of a southern accent as being the same everywhere.

From another perspective, I have a difficult time telling the different New York accents apart. One way I avoid offending New Yorkers is I don't try to use a dialect when they speak in my novels.

A valuable aspect of using a dialect or foreign accent is to play on the stereotypes people hold about others. For instance, a cheap and easy way to make a character seem smug is to have them use several French phrases when they are speaking or put on a fake accent. Can you tell me Madonna doesn't sound ridiculous when she tries to sound like a British person. Frankly, the fact that she lives in England now should be a grounds for them to break off diplomatic relations with the US.

Good luck with this one.

Our quote this week is:

I know Patty used it last week, but I had it ready to go for weeks.  My attorney will be contacting her.

Next week:  Who knows?

So, you've printed a draft of your manuscript. What now?

Patty here…

This past weekend I reached an important milestone in my writing. I printed a copy of the manuscript I’ve been working on since forever. It's a departure from the four novels in my Tucker Sinclair series. This book is about a female LAPD homicide detective. Big deal, you say. Well, yes. For me, it is.

I used to print copies willy-nilly because—you know—printing takes time, which means that while the HP is spitting out pages I don't have to deal with writing contrivances and sketchy character motivations. At some point, I began to feel guilty for wasting so much paper so I stopped printing copies and tried with mixed success to edit on the computer screen. Once I wade into the depths of the manuscript it’s difficult to flip back and forth between pages on the screen. I need to hear the scratching of my pen across the paper when I jot down notes, i.e. “Haven’t I written ‘she buttoned her coat against the chill’ fifteen times already?”

Each manuscript is printed on a different color paper so I know which draft it represents. The current copy is green. The next will be beige because it's the closest color to the white paper of a finished book.

Once I printed this current manuscript, I read through it as quickly as possible. That allowed me to spot word echoes and mile-wide plot holes. During this fast read-through, I didn't make many notes because I wanted to keep reading to make sure the story held together. The plot hit a pothole on page 369 when I realized that two scenes were out of order. The way I had written them was not organic or logical. One thing did not lead to another. Luckily, it’s a small change that makes the story stronger and opens several story elements I’d not considered before.

My able writing assistants Riley & Scooter

While reading, I also realized I needed to do a better job early on of foreshadowing an event that happens to one of the ancillary characters. Again, this isn’t hard to do. I have already written the story elements. I just need to lift some of the words out of their nesting places and drop them throughout the book to ratchet up tension and suspense.

During the next read-through I will question everything on the page: is it accurate; is behavior true to the characters I've created; is it organic. Once those changes have been transferred into my computer file, I’ll worry over it a while longer before printing out what I hope will be a polished copy. Then I’ll plead, beg, whimper and ask politely if one or two of my more talented writer friends will read and critique it. Any volunteers?

While I await feedback, I'll reread some of my favorite books on writing just for inspiration, including On Writing by Stephen King.

 
Here’s a great interview with King that includes his Top 20 Rules for Writers:

1. First write for yourself, and then worry about the audience. “When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.” 
2. Don’t use passive voice. “Timid writers like passive verbs for the same reason that timid lovers like passive partners. The passive voice is safe.” 
3. Avoid adverbs. “The adverb is not your friend.” 
4. Avoid adverbs, especially after “he said” and “she said.” 
5. But don’t obsess over perfect grammar. “The object of fiction isn’t grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story.” 
6. The magic is in you. “I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing.” 
7. Read, read, read. ”If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write.” 
8. Don’t worry about making other people happy. “If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered, anyway.” 
9. Turn off the TV. “TV—while working out or anywhere else—really is about the last thing an aspiring writer needs.” 
10. You have three months. “The first draft of a book—even a long one—should take no more than three months, the length of a season.” 
11. There are two secrets to success. “I stayed physical healthy, and I stayed married.” 
12. Write one word at a time. “Whether it’s a vignette of a single page or an epic trilogy like ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ the work is always accomplished one word at a time.” 
13. Eliminate distraction. “There’s should be no telephone in your writing room, certainly no TV or videogames for you to fool around with.” 
14. Stick to your own style. “One cannot imitate a writer’s approach to a particular genre, no matter how simple what that writer is doing may seem.” 
15. Dig. “Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world. The writer’s job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground intact as possible.” 
16. Take a break. “You’ll find reading your book over after a six-week layoff to be a strange, often exhilarating experience.” 
17. Leave out the boring parts and kill your darlings. “(kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.)” 
18. The research shouldn’t overshadow the story. “Remember that word back. That’s where the research belongs: as far in the background and the back story as you can get it.” 
19. You become a writer simply by reading and writing. “You learn best by reading a lot and writing a lot, and the most valuable lessons of all are the ones you teach yourself.” 
20. Writing is about getting happy. “Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid or making friends. Writing is magic, as much as the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink.”

HAPPY MONDAY! HAPPY SAINT PATRICK'S DAY!!

How to Write a Novel part Seven

James O. Born

The language of the novel has everything to do with how it's received and the way in which a reader perceives it.  I know that sounds obvious, but many writers don't seem to get it.  I'm not talking about every novel written with exquisite prose and flowery language.  Some novels are written bluntly and to the point.  Some tell the story of survival and danger and require a different tone.  Some have a lighter touch and certain language would crush the comedic timing.  One way to think of the tone of your writing is the music to a movie.  I am a fan of Shakespeare's Henry V and seen the movie starring Laurence Olivier several times.  In

addition, I've seen the remake by Kenneth Branagh dozens of times.  It's the same story with essentially the same dialogue.  (I would hope that they were both following the same source material).  But the impact of the remake by Branagh is much stronger in my opinion and it took me a number of viewings to figure out why.  Laurence Olivier is arguably one of the greatest actors of all time.  The production with him is from the 1950s and is spectacular.  After careful consideration, I realized it was the music of the remake that set the tone and made it that much more exciting for me.  Others would disagree, but I find the remake to be far superior to the Laurence Olivier version.  And I generally don’t care what others think.  They only get in the way of what I think.

Consider all that when you decide how you want to tell your story.  Our friend and fellow blogger, Paul Levine, once told me about his experience writing the excellent novel Illegal. 

He changed the tone of the novel by simply referring to the protagonist by his last name, Payne, instead of his first name, Jimmy.  That gave the story a harder edge.  I thought it was a brilliant and simple move and an explanation that should be in writing classes.  So now it is.  Thank you, Paul.

The other language quirk that I would look at if I were starting my first novel was avoiding clichés.  Things do stick out like sore thumbs, but they also stick out like George Bush's ears or, for that matter, Barack Obama's ears.  Have I just stumbled onto a hidden code about our presidents?

One of Elmore Leonard's famous rules is never used the phrase, "Then all hell broke loose."  I listened to him so intently that I don't even use that phrase in real life anymore.

Is he a smart as a whip?  Or are smart as Neil Degrasse Tyson?  This one isn't really a cliché because Tyson is a very bright

guy.  Use your own imagination, I'm tired of doing all the work. 

Is he lonelier than an Amish electrician? (Thanks Larry the Cable Guy).

Something faster than a speeding locomotive or is it faster than Adrian Petersen in the open field.  Is it faster than the French army in reverse?  (You can never go wrong poking fun at French military expertise.)

They don't all have to be funny, they just have to avoid being clichés.  Personally, I avoid clichés like the plague. 

Work smarter not harder.  Or whatever.

Our quote this week is more contemporary, but right on the money, I mean, as precise as George Will’s elocution.

“You either have to write or you shouldn’t be writing. That’s all.”― Joss Whedon