Research Tidbits/Conclusion – May 21st

The Research Week has come to its end. First off, I just want to thank all of you who have participated! Your participation has helped me (and others, I’m sure) do some research for their novels. More than that, when you submit your research to the RRW, other writers will be able to see your research and use it for their own novels as well! So, thank you so much.

Despite the Research Week being officially over, I think I’ll still keep researching for a little while, since I procrastinated I didn’t research all the topics I wanted to, and I encourage you all to keep researching as well. It is so helpful in making your writing realistic and believable, and you’ll just learn more!

Oh, and one more thing before I share my research-y quote and a little about it: in about a week, I’m going to make a post with links to all the research that was done this week. So during this coming week make sure to get all the research you did together and submit it to the RRW, and once it’s been added to the site, comment with the link(s) here. Then we shall all be able to look at each other’s research!

Now, for the quote:

I really love this quote, because I think it describes what we do with writing in a beautiful way. Writing is realistic and unrealistic at the same time. Relatable, believable even, and yet fantastical.

Because when you write, what you’ve researched doesn’t have to be the truth. That’s what imagination is, that’s what writing is. You find the truth and twist it. You go back to a decision that was made and change it. You warp everything just a little, and immerse your readers in the magic that you’ve created.

Research, knowledge, experience, that’s the baseline. You need it so that you can have somewhere to push off from, a reference to look back at, but the beautiful thing about writing is that you can see it from a new perspective.

Research makes the story believable, and imagination is what makes it beautiful and interesting.

So when you look back at your research, try to “think what nobody else has thought”. Isn’t that why we write, anyway? To show a new perspective, to show how things could be or might have been.

It’s a beautiful thing, to imagine, to write, to share, and when that is supplemented with research and realism…you might even be able to change the world.

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How has the Research Week gone for you? How much did you get done? What have you been most excited about learning? (I’m researching castles right now!) Tell me, why do you write? And don’t forget to share the links to your research once you get them!