For The Sake Of The Story

How does a writer write about something he or she hasn't done, or lived through? Research. That word alone has a million meanings. Want to write about cowboying for a living? Research doesn't happen at a rodeo, or a horse show. Or on a "trail ride." It happens talking to and watching people who cowboy for a living, unless one has lived the life themselves. Writing about race horses? Research doesn't happen reading Facebook  posts about the outcome of races, nor does it happen meeting someone who has a horse that "used to be a racehorse." It happens spending time with the real deal, and making sure the details are correct. Details, terminology and the writer's confidence in the subject are everything.

Research matters. When I was doing editing research for my novel GIRLS FROM CENTRO, I went into the Sonoran Desert in the area where my characters would have been running from the bad guy, the trafficking coyote, and I RAN through dry washes, looking for Acacia trees big enough to hide behind. I dodged Cholla and Ocotillo cactus. I ran, holding my cell phone, videoing how that looked to look around, in a hurry. I knew the windmills, towers, and unpaved roads where I put my characters in those parts of the story.  How did that work? Well, reviewers said "I was THERE with them, it was so real." Good. Writing "real" accomplished.

About a six weeks ago, I finished the first draft of a new novel. I had been to the city where much of it takes place, New Orleans, and had walked the streets where some of the story is happening. I'd been to the race track in New Orleans (with my former race trainer husband, who is a wealth of terms real people in the business use, and the order of the country's race meets)  I needed to know where the trainers leaving New Orleans would be going next. The story is not about racing, but there was a casual element that needed to be right. I looked at photos of the track clubhouse in that era. Those details are not in the manuscript specifically, but I could see them as I wrote those race track scenes. I studied photos of teenagers from the era, and zoomed in to study photos of circus costumes from the era.

There was one thing left. There's a tattooist and a tattoo parlor in the story, and there's a young woman who gets her first tattoo, then a lot more. I'm a pretty conservative (okay, save for an occasional purple streak in my hair) person. But a treasured friend who I can always count on to call me to the mat for my writing said "Your tattoo scenes could be good, but they are not accurate." See, she has tattoos. She knew how that felt, and sounded, and how the artist might work. I was only going by what I found by Googling. I cringed when she said "You need some ink, so you do this right." Heck, I put off thinking about it for more than a year, while I finished the manuscript.

Then, about 10 days ago, I knew I needed to go see for myself. I'd passed outside tattoo parlors, and looked at their websites for long enough. Time to go. So I did. I met a man named Chris, whose profile and work I'd seen on the shop's website. I showed him the cover art for GIRLS FROM CENTRO and he took a photo. The next day, I put on my big writer panties and he did a tattoo on my forearm. Oh holy hell. I asked him questions before we started, and I got REALLY quiet once he turned the machine on, because I needed to feel the cutting, the vibration, the intense sensation of it. As I tried to breathe normally, and reminded myself not to tell the tattooist unkind things about his mother (it does get better as adrenaline kicks in) I knew my friend who'd challenged me to get that part of the story right, was RIGHT.

So, will I become a tattoo covered person? No. But I have a little art to commemorate getting my first novel published, AND I got in the research I so needed to make those parts my new novel believable. I'll be pitching that new novel to agents in the coming weeks. I'm researched and ready.        www.junifisher.com