Research and Inspiration in the Information Age

RHYS BOWEN:  Since I write historical fiction I have to do a lot of research. It is important to get everything right. I don't know about you, but if I find one glaring error, that's the last I read of that book. Like a train coming into the wrong station in London, or calling the king "Your Highness."  yes, I've read both.

I am always fascinated with the way other writers do their research. I can remember driving to the library and asking for help from the reference desk. So I was interested to see that Vincent O'Neil's experiences mirrored my own.  We're happy to welcome him to Jungle Red Writers today.... take it away Vinnie!

VINCENT O'NEIL:
 

When I first started writing, it was on a manual typewriter. I used the card catalog and the microfiche reader at the library to do research, in a process that was time-consuming and often ineffective. If I needed inspiration for setting the mood in a story, I would usually read the works of other authors who had written about a place or situation similar to the one I hoped to depict.

I can’t say I miss the card catalog and the microfiche reader very much; after all, it took some leg work to go and find the right book or journal, and the search often turned up items that didn’t match their descriptions. As for setting the mood by reading the writing of others, even when that worked it felt more like imitation than inspiration.

That’s why I much prefer the resources we have now. In addition to easy access and multiple media, the inspiration I’ve received from photos, videos, and personal blogs has helped me to mentally experience places I’ve never been and things I’ve never done. While acknowledging the difficulties of sorting through the incredible amount of information available to us now, and recognizing that some of it is inaccurate, I must say that the tools of the information age have really helped my writing and even my development as a writer.

When I’m approaching a topic about which I know nothing, I usually try to find one of the “Idiot’s Guides” because they’re usually such excellent sources of fundamental information. For example, when I started researching my theater-themed murder mystery Death Troupe, I began with a copy of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Amateur Theatricals. I slowly worked my way up to reading the memoirs of some famous directors, but the nuts-and-bolts understanding of the stage that I got from that particular Idiot’s Guide was invaluable.

Death Troupe is set in the Adirondack region during the wintertime and, while I had visited the area years before, my personal knowledge of that part of the world was dated. I wanted to set the story in a small town, but I didn’t know much about the organization of such a place, beginning with what kind of local businesses they might have. Thanks to the Internet, I could view the entire region as either a map or a very detailed satellite photograph. That helped me to find a few towns and villages that resembled the place I wanted to invent, and then by looking up the webpages for those towns and villages I easily got an idea of common businesses and industries.

Photographs on those websites were also very helpful, both for suggesting exciting locations such as an old fire tower on a tall hill and for stirring up ideas regarding the general atmosphere of the town that would be in my book. Later on I ran into difficulty describing a cross-country skiing lesson, even though I had once been pretty good at that sport. It was important to get the sequence of actions right, describing how weight shifts from ski to ski and the way the poles are used for balance. I’d forgotten exactly how that all worked, and yet a YouTube video of basic cross-country skiing techniques brought me back up to speed in no time.

I’ve always believed that research can lead to great inspirations, and just getting back in touch with that part of the world reminded me of impressions I’d had years earlier while also suggesting new ways of looking at the locale. From videos and still photographs to town websites and community newsletters, a wealth of information was literally at my fingertips.

When I was writing my horror novel Interlands, I decided to include a haunted hayride. The already-frightening experience of rolling past scary scenes, complete with gory special effects and live actors in disturbing costumes, was to be made even creepier by supernatural elements intruding on the main character’s perceptions. The problem was that I had never been on one of those hayrides. Once again YouTube videos came to the rescue, not only showing real haunted hayride attractions as they played out, but also describing some of the behind-the-scenes work that helps to make the experience so unsettling. Just by watching those videos, I was able to get a feel for at least part of the mood I wanted to create. I also got some great ideas for spooky stations along the route of the hayride and the ways they could be made even more terrifying by the involvement of supernatural influences.

None of these techniques is meant to take the place of actually visiting or experiencing the locations and activities we seek to describe. However, they certainly helped me in that they augmented what I already knew (or thought I knew) and often provided me with fresh ideas.

In closing, I’d like to repeat that some of the information found on the Internet is not accurate, and so it’s important to check anything we decide to present as being realistic or factual. But for conducting background research, gaining inspiration, and just helping to generate a mood similar to the one we hope to create, I’ll take the technology available to us now over the microfiche reader any day.

Vincent H. O’Neil is the Malice Award-winning author of the Frank Cole mystery series, the theater-themed mystery Death Troupe, and the horror novel Interlands. His military science fiction novel Glory Main (written as Henry V. O’Neil) was published by HarperVoyager in July and the sequel, Orphan Brigade, is set for release in January, 2015. Please visit his website www.vincenthoneil for reviews, sample chapters, and important links. 

RHYS: So Reds--what's the most interesting or unusual piece of research you have done?  I remember riding a train up a Welsh mountain, looking out of the window for the best place to push someone to their death. When I found the perfect place, and shared this info with my husband, I noticed the train car had gone very quiet and people had moved as far away as possible!

And readers--has there been one glaring error that has made you stop reading a book?

"Push yourself. That's something no one can do for you." - Anonymous

ROSEMARY HARRIS: Today Vincent O'Neil is back to tell us how he came to write his latest novel, Interlands. He did it by stretching himself...

 

VINCENT O"NEIL:   A horror novel first inspired me to try my hand at writing. When I read Stephen King’s The Shining as a teenager, I was so impressed that I decided to see if I could pen something that other people might enjoy. My first book came from that inspiration, and yet decades later I had not yet written a horror novel.

 

I deeply enjoy scary stories, so I decided to give it a try. Having read Poe, Shelley, Stoker, Lovecraft, King, and many others, I already had a good base in the macabre. Raised in New England and living there now, I have personal knowledge of a region absolutely loaded with supernatural legendry. Researching the folklore of the northeast led me to another first, in that I decided to base the story in Providence, Rhode Island. This was a departure for me, because the towns in my previous works were all made up.

At that point I recognized how much the new novel was moving into areas I hadn’t explored before. After acknowledging that, I decided to do one more thing I’d been meaning to do, and make my main character a woman.

All of my books have had female characters in them, many of them playing key roles, but until now my protagonists have all been male. Having decided to stretch my writing in both genre and location, it seemed appropriate to add one more challenge and cast a different gender in the starring role. Oddly enough, the toughest part of doing that was the decision to go ahead and try.

I discovered something important while building the story of Angie Morse, a grad student combing the New England woods for a lost stone obelisk. When writing stories of supernatural horror and creating protagonists of a different gender, the same admonition applies: Don’t overdo it.

Here’s what I mean: Describing the scratching sounds in the wall of the silent library is far more frightening than simply having the Thing leap out and attack. And focusing on the presentation of a main character who is relatable and engaging is far more productive than layering the role with thoughts, discussions, and actions that allegedly represent the character’s gender.

Creating a protagonist who is complex and interesting makes it simple to then weave indications of gender into the story, and this in turn lets the character behave naturally.

 

Instead of leaning on stereotypes, this approach allowed me to turn Angie loose on her quest and let her demonstrate what she was all about. Mentally tough but abundantly human, highly driven (some would say obsessed) but shrewdly calculating, she’s willing to take some chances in order to accomplish something beyond the norm. 

Stretching herself in order to possibly achieve something both transcendent and valuable. Now why does that sound so familiar?

ROSEMARY: More good advice from good pal, Vincent O'Neil. If you're lucky enough to be going to the New England Crimebake this fall, check out his workshop on self-publishing and thank him in person. If you're not going, please visit his website at www.vincenthoneil.com 

 

A Few Tips for Formatting Books and E-Books

ROSEMARY HARRIS: I'm about to embark on my first self-published ebook adventure. So many people have done it  - why not me?
Weeeeeelllll - because I'm terrified? Because I'm afraid I'll mess up the formatting and earn a slew of one star reviews because the indentations are too big? Too small? Non-existent? Because I'll click Yes on something that somehow prevents me from doing something else - or worse - mangles the book?

So to give myself a little confidence, I asked one of my more experienced buddies to share his knowledge of self-publishing with me and the JR gang.

VINCENT H. O'NEIL: I’ve prepared numerous books for print-on-demand and e-book production, and there are many ways to go about this. There is also a wide range of publishing sites and services, each with its own advantages and disadvantages, but the most common questions I hear involve formatting. It’s not as challenging as it might sound, and so here is an approach I’ve found useful.

NOTE: Some of the detailed instructions here involve MS Word, but the concepts discussed should translate to other software. My experience with e-readers is largely confined to Kindle and Nook, but hopefully most of this guidance will apply to other versions. The conversion software is steadily improving, and so some of these considerations may soon become outdated.

The basic idea is to create a single book file which will be copied as two separate files that are then adjusted, one for print-on-demand and one for e-book. Here we go:

 Unless the book is going to be very long, use 12 pt font or higher.

1. Single space the entire book.
2. Make sure you include a copyright notice, an Author Biography, your website, and a list of all your other books in a “Books by this Author” segment.
3. Avoid underlining (for example, “Chapter One”) because in an e-reader conversion the blank lines following that underlining sometimes appear with what looks like a dash because the underlining continued past the underlined words. Bold face seems to have no negative consequences.
4. Consider putting a marking symbol (such as a black dot) in the center of the blank line between segments within a chapter; this helps people reading the book on an e-reader to know a segment has ended.
5. In Page Setup / Margins / Pages, select “Mirror Margins”. This will let you see the pages as they will appear in the printed book, as well as create proper margins.
6. In Page Setup / Margins, set the inside and outside margins according to the chart below (Leave the “Gutter” at zero).

Total Pages                                  Inside Margin                                    Outside Margin

 

24-150                                     at least .375”                                       at least .25”

151-400                                   at least .75”                                         at least .5”

400-600                                   at least .875”                                       at least .5”

>600                                        at least 1.0”                                         at least .5”

 

Don’t get overly concerned about this; the “Preview” function in most print-on-demand software is pretty good and you can adjust from there. For a standard-sized book (roughly 220 pages) I use .7” for top, bottom, and outside margins and .8” for inside.

8. I recommend setting the tab / paragraph indents at .3 to save space. Also select “Justify” so that the words on each line stretch from margin to margin.
9. Insert the page numbers, page breaks, and section breaks that you want for the printed book; many of these will be removed by the e-reader conversion, but there are fixes for the ones you want to keep.
10. Once the file is complete, save it as a Print On Demand file and an e-book file because you will be doing different things to each.

For the Print On Demand File:

1. Add a blank page in front so that the book opens on a blank page instead of the title page.
2. Any time you want to leave the page numbers off (for example, the title page and the dedication) add a Page Break, a Section Break (continuous), and another Page Break on the last page before you want the page numbers. Then select “View Header / Footer” and open the footer for the first page that will have a page number. Click inside that footer and then unselect “Link to Previous”. Then move up to the footer above that one (it should show a different number, as in “Footer Section 1” versus “Footer Section 2”) and delete the page number manually. The page numbers should remain going forward.
3. I generally start new chapters on a new page, roughly halfway down.
4. Depending on the service you use, you will be able to preview the final document digitally after it is loaded. The digital review will reveal any glaring errors, but it is still important to get a proof copy and review it thoroughly before putting the finished product on sale.

For the E-Book File:

1. When you load the file onto whatever site you’re using, the conversion software is likely to remove much of the Print On Demand-specific formatting.
2. If you want to keep a page break, enter a Section Break (continuous) where the original Page Break was. I generally only do that at the beginning (title page, dedication, etc.) and let the completed chapter scroll right into the next one.
3. The Page Numbers will be removed automatically; they’re not needed.
4. Different e-reader platforms (Basic Kindle, Kindle Fire, Nook, etc.) emplace indents on their own or fail to recognize the indents in some files. Although it’s a bit of work, here is a fix that has worked for me: I recommend removing all indentation so that every line (including the indented first line of each paragraph) is left-justified. Then highlight each segment in turn, go to Format / Paragraph / Indentation and select Special / First line and set it to .3. All of your paragraphs will indent to .3, which should keep the indentation standard across platforms.
5. The Preview function in most e-reader setup software is usually very good, so once the file is loaded go through the entire book and see if anything looks wrong. Most problems are fixable by adjusting the file, reloading it, and checking it again.

 

ROSEMARY: Vinny will be checking in today to say hello and answer questions. He'll be back tomorrow to tell us all about his latest novel, Interlands AND you can learn more about the writer Marilyn Stasio of the New York Times called "a polished writer with a breezy style." at his website www.vincenthoneil.com 

 

Wow - high praise indeed. To me, he's just fun lovin' Vinny as you can see in one of my favorite pix. That's the two of us at Crimebake's Vampire Ball.