I'm really glad to host Saruuh Kelsey for a quest post at the dawn of her new book's, The Powers of Callaire, release. It'll be available tomorrow.
You can find Saruuh on twitter or on her website.
Three
Types of Research
by Saruuh Kelsey
by Saruuh Kelsey
I have three types of
research whenever I’m planning or writing a book. There’s the mass bulk of
research I do before I write a book, which consists of internet research,
checking a whole lot of relevant books out of the library, and any first hand
research I can do where it’s possible. This takes around two to three months of
heavy research.
While I’d have loved
to walk around Romania for The Powers of Callare research, it wasn’t exactly
feasible. Instead I turned to one of my favourite methods of location research.
Google Maps
Google Maps,
especially Google Earth, is a fallible mess at the best of times. I’ve had a
hundred messy experiences with it—being dumped in bypasses, somehow being stuck
in a shop in Mumbai I can’t get back out of, being placed in another city
entirely—but I could never have made the places in my books as detailed as they
are without seeing it through Google. I use travel journals and blog posts from
people who live and have visited the area to get authentic details and
information—local culture, events and, a super important one for me, sounds and
smells—but without the map and Google Earth, I’d never be able to build the
setting properly.
Another type of
research I do is while writing the book. It’s a more urgent type of research
than the initial bulk, where I just gather information and sort through the
relevant stuff. At the writing stage, I’m looking for a quick answer to a
question my manuscript has thrown at me, or a way to fill in a gap I’ve
suddenly found. When this happens, I turn to internet research. When I’m trying
to fill in a gap (for example in my next book, The Revelation, I needed to know
how the poor lit their homes in the late 1800s) I turn to a specialist website
or a handy archive.
Archive. Org
This place is
brilliant … for some stuff. It’s not so hot on others, but for a lot of
subjects it’s amazing. You just type what you want to know about in the search
bar and it pulls up a myriad of helpful things. Books, websites, and my person
favourite—sounds. I didn’t find what I was looking for in regards to poor
lighting their homes, but I found an AMAZING sound clip of Victorian life. Having
that playing in the background while researching and planning the book has
given it life and detail previous books lacked.
The last kind of
research I do is rushed and hectic and takes place while editing the
already-written book. If I’m editing and I come across a place in my book that
lacks detail or a fact to flesh out the story, I’ll usually reach for whatever
book I have to hand on the subject. If that fails, it’s back to the good ol’
internet research, and rinse and repeat until I’ve fixed the problem.
Summary:
Yasmin’s
girlfriend is dead, but she will stop at nothing to bring Fray back. Even if
that means going to the Otherland and making a bargain with the Ruler of All
Souls. If Yasmin finds Pluto’s lost power, they’ll return Fray’s soul to her
body.
Yasmin’s search takes her, and two of her friends, from Bucharest to France to Wales, and exposes a horrifying secret with Venus, Yasmin’s mother, at the heart of it. With a murderous, fiery god and the incarnation of death in her way, Yasmin will have to compromise her morals and harness the Legendary power in her veins. If she fails, Fray’s soul will be lost forever.
Yasmin’s search takes her, and two of her friends, from Bucharest to France to Wales, and exposes a horrifying secret with Venus, Yasmin’s mother, at the heart of it. With a murderous, fiery god and the incarnation of death in her way, Yasmin will have to compromise her morals and harness the Legendary power in her veins. If she fails, Fray’s soul will be lost forever.
The Powers of
Callaire is available for pre-order on Amazon.
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