Research can power up a story

Since I'm ankle deep in a new book and participating in National November Writers Month, NaNoWriMo, which I affectionately call, NaNaMoMo, I'll blog about writing.

It's dang hard. Can I just say that? It's true. First drafts are like pulling teeth without Novocain for an entire month. A tooth a day. You have to work up the courage to do it.

Working with the spark of an idea is fun.

Even hammering out the synopsis. Then comes the writing. Invariably, I never do enough research, so I'm back and forth between the story and the internet, searching.

The tediousness of it is wearying.

Take last night. I wanted to know specifically where my 1912 heroine lived in Philadelphia. I knew it was along the Main Line, but where?

I Google Mapped the city. I used the little yellow man to see the streets. I read the history of Philly and the Main Line.

But did those same streets and train stations exist in 1912? How far out on the Main Line would a wealthy family live? In the early 1900s, the community was young.

Question, questions, questions. Without answers. I was getting frustrated, and decided to NaNaMoMo right through the scene without the info I needed. After all that's what this writing month is about, but it wasn't working. I couldn't see the scene in my mind, nor feel it.

Back to Google and I finally hit gold with the West Philadelphia Historical Society. They had maps. From 1911.

Detailed maps. I could tell which houses were stone or brick. Which ones had porches. Where the green houses were located. Hospitals, churches and schools. The park I'd been reading about finally made scene.

It was fantastic. Now I had the image in my mind of what kind of neighborhood my character would live in, and how she would run across her neighbors lawn to get to her own back door.

Research slows you down, but there's nothing like it to power up the story. Once you know how something works, or how a city was designed, the name of a street or neighborhood, pieces begin to fall into place and the story can flow.

When I was writing Dining with Joy, a chef said something to me during our phone interview. "Even the most experience chef can freeze up in a cooking competition."

That off the cuff remarked added a nuance that layered a scene to make a good scene even better. Had I not taken the opportunity to talk to the chef, I'd have never sliced out that very subtle idea.

I have to see a scene. I can't write it if I don't know where she lives and how it impacts her life.

Funny, I don't necessarily care what she's wearing or how she looks. But I need to see her world.

How about you? How do you research. How does it impact your story? How do you manage research while writing?

Never fear, God is here!

In between collaborating on books with Sara Evans, I am working on my own book. It's a funny, yet poignant story... naturally.

Every time I go to work on a book, I meet someone or see something that is right in line with what I'm working on. Here's what I mean.

When I started the first Nashvegas book, Lost In Nashvegas, the angle was redneck chick lit. I mused over what kind of story I could write, pondering if I could even come up with a redneck chick story. One night at our Fire Dweller prayer meeting, I pondered the idea further, praying, asking God for direction and when I looked up, there was a kid standing in front of me wearing a t-shirt with a redneck joke on the back.

During the writing of Diva Nashvegas, I struggled to find details on exactly why an artist and a label would clash. All I could find in my research was artist and label clas on "creative differences." Okay, but what kind of creative differences? I needed details! I couldn't create a believable dialog with: "We have creative differences." Blah.

I also struggled how to structure the interview style of the story.

Out of the blue I came across a book, Conversations with Tom Petty. Not only did it give me the idea of how to format the interview portion, but Tom talked in detail about his riff with his record company! What a relief.

Shortly after, I found an online forum where a man in the know, gave me even more details.

When I worked on The Sweet By and By with Sara, I met a woman at a wedding rehearsal dinner who was raised by hippie parents! Exactly what I needed for our character, Jade.

So, yesterday while musing over this new book, a new friend posted on my Facebook wall. I thought, "Ask him if he wants to brainstorm with you."

Sure enough, he did. Thank you Torry Martin. Little did I know, he attended culinary school! Exactly what I needed for this book! Not to mention he's creative and really funny.

Hubby shook his head when I told him. "This happens every book," he said.

God is so good. If you doubt, don't. Look what He does for me. He'll do the same if not more for you.