A few days ago, I went to the dentist. I was sitting in the lobby, waiting my turn, with two other men and a woman probably in her 40s. She started talking about her brother being in prison. He was in year seven of a ten-year sentence for shooting a girlfriend in the eye with a 22 pistol. The girl didn’t die, but she lost the eye.
As I listened to her tell of her experience and that of her brother, I realized that I had no understanding of what her life was like. One of the concerns they had was that, in this summertime 100-degree Texas heat, his prison had no air conditioning. It wasn’t something that I would even consider, but after hearing that, I struggled to imagine living like that.
At the same time, we are hearing what is going on in Dallas with the Republican Midterm Convention. My wife and I have often said that politicians–especially the wealthy ones–have no understanding what the real issues of the common man are. Most have grown up privileged and are currently millionaires. It is unfathomable for them to put themselves in our shoes.
Why do I write this? Because if you write long enough, at some point you are going to have to put yourself in the shoes of someone different than yourself. You’ll be writing about a millionaire politician, or someone in a trailer park, or perhaps someone in a prison with no air conditioning. We have a tendency to think we know what those lives are like, but do we, really? How much can we depend of movies, TV or even books to let us know what their lives are like?
That’s where research comes in. But it’s not just reading books at the library. It’s observation. It’s talking to people–as much as possible–who live that way. And watching documentaries, rather than fiction, to get our information.
It’s not easy, but the more I write, I find the research part of the writing process the part that appeals to me.
Do it write.
The Great Adventure 