She gave a prescription for sleeplessness and another for stomach troubles. Several people stopped to buy her father's remedy for headache. It was a simple compound, though closely guarded, as all physicians' private mixtures were: cloves, myrrh and aloes. Jehane's mother was kept busy preparing that one all week long in the treatment rooms at the front of their home.
The morning passed. Velaz quietly and steadily filled clay pots and vials at the back of the booth as Jehane issued her directions. A flask of urine clear at the bottom but thin and pale at the top told its tale of chest congestion. Jehane prescribed fennel and told the woman to return the next week with another sample.
This is a bad example, because I wouldn’t be surprised if Guy Gavriel Kay did years of research or even got a medical degree before writing this masterpiece of a character. I use this example because it was the first time I realized how little is necessary to convince the reader that you know what you’re talking about. Kay needed to establish Jehane as a doctor so he could get on with her story. After this brilliant early scene, you believe it and you don’t need to think about it again.
The goal of storytelling is to guide your audience through the narrative. You want to hypnotize them, and in order to do that, you must establish trust. It’s more difficult than ever to do this. Your audience is more sophisticated and less trusting than they’ve ever been.
The trick is in the details. If Kay had written: “It was a simple compound of herbs,” your brain would have scooted around trying to find the character. My grandmother sold “herbs” for a pyramid scheme, so I might have distrusted Jehane. Or I might have thought of the simple compound of herbs I use in my marinara recipe, and wondered why a chef was treating people’s headaches. The right details will lock your audience into the small space of the world occupied only by your character.
In a perfect world, you would become a master at everything you research so that an expert would read your work and feel comfortable. In my perfect world, I’d research like Chuck Palahniuk:
Chuck does a majority of the research for his novels in the local town library. He'll spend days pouring over books that deal with topics he wants to explore in his books. While writing Lullaby Chuck asked co-founder of The Cult, Amy Dalton, how much The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers cost in her store. (Chuck felt he had been ripped off on the price he spent), figuring that this book would play a major part in Lullaby. Amy responded, "I didn't inquire why he needed it. Later, when I finally got to read Lullaby I came across a page and a half of dialogue from the narrator, Carl Streator, where all the different serial killers over time are analyzed. It was then that I realized that Chuck researched an entire encyclopedia of information for less than two pages of narration. Talk about patience and research."
But I am a game writer. For a few years, I was writing four or five stories and articles a month, plus a script, while directing voiceovers, planning future skins and heroes, corresponding with linguists, and attending meetings. It would have been impossible for me to research the physics of armored spear warfare in the snow, how black holes work, tortoises, and Hades to the extent that the stories deserved. So here’s what you can do if you’re on a tight deadline.
SHOW DON’T TELL
Slide details into the setting and dialogue. Don’t make them overt. Experts don’t have to say they’re experts. The guy who knows how to fight doesn’t need to tell an opponent that he can, and he probably doesn’t want to. Kay doesn’t say, “Jehane was a good doctor.” He shows it. “The Office” was filmed in Los Angeles, but the characters dress for Pennsylvania weather and decorate their file cabinets with stickers from local radio stations. In Aliens, no one has to tell you that Vasquez holds her own with the male Marines.
RESEARCH SMART
If your character is a modern boxer, but you’ve never watched a boxing match, you’ll need to spend some time researching. But be smart about it. If you delve into the long and storied history of boxing, you’re wasting your time. If your boxer is going to fight in your story, you’ll need to watch lots of matches and read commentary to get it right. However, if your boxer is just at a party, you may only need a few perfect details. Give that character a cauliflower ear and a strict cutting diet that keeps him away from the Jell-O shots and the pro boxers in your audience won’t wake up from their hypnosis.
DRAW FROM LIFE
The sacking of Gythia was modeled after the sack of Rome. Celeste’s “No More Fear” speech to the people of Mont Lille was modeled after Queen Elizabeth’s Tilbury speech. SAW’s story was based on my brother, a Marine who felt out of place returning to civilization after being at war. Even if the audience is unfamiliar with Roman and Elizabethan history, or Marines, those things ring true because they are.
If you employ this tactic, draw from life first, then from myth, and sparingly from contemporary reference. Clever callouts are fun, but every time someone notices the connection between Alpha and Robocop, their heads aren’t in my story.
FIND AN EXPERT
My friend with the history degree is tired of me badgering him for inspiration and information, but I’m not going to stop! When I was writing a story called “Killer” about an MMA fighter, I took a pro out to brunch, plied her with mimosas, asked hundreds of questions, and took notes. “Killer” was written in the second person, so it had to be full of the right details.
“Worst two words in your dictionary,” said Ackerman, “are head and trauma. This ain’t pattycake out there, you understand, Lissa? She can beat on you for an hour on the forehead here -” he knocked on his forehead with his knuckles, “-no brain damage. She puts her knee in your hinge, she breaks your jaw. But she sinks it behind your ear, just once in the right place, head trauma. You’re down.”
I got more out of that brunch that I would have from weeks of watching fights and interviews or reading wikipedia.
If you have an expert on hand, ask them for feedback on your completed work. Ask about what distracts them.
USE AN UNRELIABLE NARRATOR
I was terrified to write about time travel for Grumpjaw’s story. I did a lot of reading and panicking. In a perfect world, a physicist would read the story without being distracted by the science, but I knew that was impossible. So instead of focusing on how time travel works, I researched why it doesn’t work, and Frankie’s dialogue was born.
“Alright. Anyway, it’s about speed, and trapping light inside gravity. It should be called time dilation. And I made it. I call it: The Cube.”
In this story, Frankie explains time travel to Grumpjaw, a monosyllabic and well-meaning monster. Frankie’s explanation, and the actual time travel itself, is secondary to Grumpjaw’s preoccupation with food, and is muted by Grumpjaw’s comedic dialogue. A physicist might forgive inconsistencies with Frankie’s science because he’s obnoxiously sure of himself and mid-experiment; plus, Grumpjaw might just be hearing him wrong in his much more important search for cake.
PERFECTION IS THE ENEMY
When I was an amateur writer, I abandoned stories when I got stuck on the research. As a professional, I didn’t have that luxury. I discovered that one perfect detail in the perfect place was often enough. The more you research, the better you’ll be at finding that detail. The most important thing is your story. The rest is hypnotist tricks.