Blog：A Bucket Full of Research

Many years ago, I read that James A. Michener, who did not publish until he was forty years of age, advised young writers to do extensive research before trying to write a novel. He visited the countries and areas he was interested in writing about, interviewing countless people as well as reading more than two hundred books for back-ground material for each of his books — Hawaii, Iberia, The Source, Texas, Poland, Alaska, Caribbean — and for some forty other book projects, spanning a fifty-year writing career.

This careful research resulted in Michener winning the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Tales of the South Pacific, his first novel, and other awards.

Michener believed a writer must know the country and experience an event to be able to write about it. I thought this was the right path to take, so I visited Spain, Australia (twice), Japan, China and other countries which, along with my library research, resulted in my publishing many hardbound books.

Such advice, however, can lead you astray — as in the research I did for a proposed book set in Hitler’s Germany. I read in a Paul Gallico book how the Nazis would put a tin bucket over a person’s head and beat on it with a stick to drive the poor person crazy. I wondered if this were really true.

Tags: Research