The Integrated World: Why I Prefer Slow, Analog Research

My absolute favorite moment of drafting is when it feels like I could close my eyes and watch it all play out before me, as if on stage. Cue the curtain. The lights. Enter stage left.

What disrupts that drafting flow for me more than anything? Pausing to look at research notes about the time period of my story. Or about anything else relating to my story.

This is why I research the way I do. Slowly, over a long period of time. Books are best, but sometimes I will watch documentaries, too.

I need to internalize enough that the world on my page feels lived in. I don’t need to memorize little facts here and there; I have “TK” for that (this indicates to me that I need more information).

But I need to feel like I’m stepping back in time, into the world of my story. And if I were to time travel as in actually move my body through time into the past, I would be wandering around sensing everything, not reading notes about it.

It Takes Me Forever to Research

And that’s okay. Often, the knowledge is built over years with a more concentrated period of intense study before I draft. (This does not apply to short stories; my process for those is very different.)

I’m in that period for my next novel right now, and I anticipate it will last about a year. I’ll draft little vignettes here and there that may or may not make it into the final story, but primarily, I’m testing out what I’ve learned in-scene if I’m drafting. I’m playing with the language to create a sensory experience based on what I’ve already internalized.

At the beginning, this looks a lot like remembering what I can from my art history undergrad degree. Though… that was 20 years ago so the details aren’t as fresh in my mind as they once were when I crammed for exams or referenced information for essays. That was a different type of learning, to see the connections between cultures, between peoples, through art and architecture.

Learning, researching, for a novel is about being able to close my eyes and live that world. Smell its aromas. Taste its flavors. Hear its sounds. See, in my mind’s eye, what all the places where my story takes place look like. Feel how they feel under my fingertips and in my intuitive body. Which places feel safe? Which feel exhilarating?

I must embody this before I sit down to fully draft my story.

It doesn’t mean leaping down every rabbit hole (even though I’d love to, honestly). I’m not trying to achieve PhD-level expertise. I’m trying to paint pictures with words; I’m trying to evoke emotion, to create texture.

My research includes as much factual work as literary and artistic work of the time. It includes ravings of religious zealots. It includes wandering through a fabric store to touch the fabrics my characters would have worn. It will include trying recipes they may have looked forward to on a regular basis. If I can afford it at some point, it may include a trip to Tuscany (though that’s not required). It includes re-learning the Italian I was almost fluent in decades ago.

It’s the kind of research that is more like becoming of that time and place rather than studying it under a microscope or solely through others’ words.

Thanks for reading Chiaroscuro Stories with Margaret McNellis! This post is public so feel free to share it.

What Happens if I Hurry

In the past, I’ve tried to truncate my research time. The problem is that I’ll remember what I need to know while I draft, but then I like to let a manuscript sit for a bit.

When I come back to it, I’ve forgotten much of what I crammed to learn.

But, if I take my time, this does not happen. If I take my time, I’ll start dreaming my story and my setting so that when it comes time to draft, the story pours out of me.

This happened with Daughter of the Seven Hills. I made my research immersive like this (though I didn’t learn Latin, but I was learning Gáidhlig). I lived and breathed that story and those characters. Dreamt of them and as them.

When it came to drafting, the story fell out of my head onto the page in two weeks. Were my hands and wrists and eyes tired? Oh yes. Was the draft a hot stinking mess? Definitely.

I then spent four years shaping it from hot and stinking like the NYC subway mid-August into a novel I’m really happy with.

I don’t think that’d have been possible without slow, immersive research.

When I wrote Outlawed (book two of my Robin Hood retelling) and The Golden Apple, I did not do this immersive research. I hurried through it and filled in as I drafted. The whole process felt disjointed to me and those books are the two I’d change if I felt like issuing subsequent editions (maybe someday).

The Red Fletch… that was another immersive bit of research. I spent years living and breathing that story and that character before I ever brought her to the page.

This is one of the many reasons why I’m not the type of indie author who can release books every few months. It literally takes me years to write them to my standards.

But I don’t mind. After publishing a handful of novels, I don’t feel the urgent need to see my name on a book cover. I just want to enjoy the process and then share the story with readers.

And here, I want to share along the way.