When Research Makes You Cry

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: There are always a few different ways to introduce a post. And more about these horses in the photo in a minute.

Here’s one  possible introduction for today:

How much passion do you put into your writing? And how would you feel if the very thing that you were passionate about–had to be deleted?
What would you do then?

Here’s another one for today:

Have you ever cried when you talk about your novels? I mean, like, in public? On camera?

Or how about this one:

Do you know what’s going on with the hearts of wild horses in the United States? It’s a powerful and controversial and heart-breaking situation.

Here’s the good news. Today, you get all three introductions.

On Separating Fiction from Reality: For Real

By Linda L. Richards

I’m a little apprehensive right now. My non-fiction book, Wild Horses: Running Free, is coming out in a few weeks and I’m scared I’m going to have to do interviews. And why does that scare me? Because every time I talk about the subject of this book, I cry.

I cry.

I mean, not ugly cry, but still. (For an example of this, see this interview I did a few months ago for the Sisters in Crime podcast. Note tears. Argh.)

When I started writing the book, I did not realize that the wild horse space in North America is violent and political. The more I knew, the less I knew and the more research I did, the more upset I became.

I went into that book thinking it was going to be as joyful as a similar book I did on Northern Elephant Seals in 2020. A feel-good informational non-fiction book for 9-13 year-olds.

But as I started researching the wild horse book, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) — the agency responsible for managing the millions of public acres owned by the United States — was in the process of culling wild horse herds all across the American west. The round ups go on. They say they are doing it because the land can’t support the numbers. BLM detractors say they’re doing it to service the ranchers who own the livestock that graze there almost for free.

It's estimated that there are currently 1.5 million cattle and sheep entitled to graze the 155 million acres the BLM manages. There might be 85,000 head of wild horses left on BLM-managed land in the US, but the number is being cut down fast and, at present, the BLM estimates there are 60,000 American mustangs in holding pens, waiting for an undetermined future. Some of those horses have been in holding pens for years.

The BLM claims they’re doing it for the good of the horses and to keep the herds to manageable numbers. Meanwhile, from the outside, anyway, I’m not alone in thinking it looks like government-sanctioned extermination. It’s heartbreaking stuff and I would set to work each day wondering if, by the time my book came out, there would be any wild mustangs left for kids to learn about.

While I was researching the wild horse book, I was working on the second book in my Endings series, featuring a nameless hitwoman. That book, Exit Strategy, takes place against the backdrop of a Silicon Valley high tech start up, but suddenly I discovered I was writing a subplot that involved wild horses. And, pretty soon that subplot got to be pretty beefy (sorry) and it started taking over the whole book.


After a while, I saw what I was doing and pulled everything related to the horsey subplot. I dropped it into a file and, the next year, with wild horses off my desk, I took the material that had been the subplot and turned it into book three in the series.

That novel, Dead West, came out September 5. Dead West is not about wild horses, but some of the heartbreak and injustices in that space are in there, and I think (hope!) I did a good job of weeding out what would have made you cross your eyes in boredom. That is, it’s not a book about wild horses. It’s about a hit assignment gone wrong and a do-gooder rancher and I honestly think it’s the best book of the series so far.

But what makes it best? Is it because of the passion that got stuffed in there? Or is it because I had to work hard to keep the elements that touched me most deeply out? That, in not wanting to become one of those authors who falls in love with her research, I worked super extra hard to find the story beyond what can be seen on the page?

I’m still working all of this out for myself. Has any of this ever happened to you? Writing something where you had to work doubly hard to make sure you weren’t just repurposing life, but were using what you had been given purely to inspire a story that maybe didn’t even have a lot to do with the thing you’d researched in the first place? And, if you’re not a writer, have you ever read something that made you feel sure that too much non-essential material ended up in the final book?

Hank: So, Reds and readers--shall we talk about research? Or wild horses? Or both?

Linda L. Richards is the award-winning author of over a dozen books. The founder and publisher of January Magazine, a contributing editor to the crime fiction blog The Rap Sheet, and a member of the National board of Sisters in Crime, she is from Vancouver, Canada and currently makes her home in Phoenix, Arizona. Her latest book, DEAD WEST, was published by Oceanview Publishing September 5, 2023. Linda’s 2021 novel, ENDINGS, was recently optioned by a major studio for series production. Richards is an accomplished horsewoman and an avid tennis player.