John DeDakis is a former Senior Copy Editor on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer" and is also the author of five novels in the Lark Chadwick mystery-suspense series. His fourth novel, Bullet in the Chamber, is the winner of the Reviewers Choice, Foreword INDIES, and Feathered Quill book awards. DeDakis regularly teaches novel writing at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland, at the Politics & Prose Bookstore in D.C., and at various writing conferences and literary centers around the U.S. and abroad. In his spare time, what little he has of it, he’s a jazz drummer.
His fifth novel, Fake, was published by Strategic Media Books in September 2019. In Fake, Lark is a White House correspondent in a #MeToo era when facts are suspect and reporters are targets. When popular First Lady Rose Gannon dies suddenly (and mysteriously) during an interview with White House correspondent Lark Chadwick, Lark is thrust into the midst of a media-bashing frenzy. Lark, still reeling from the death of her photographer boyfriend, finds herself covering a grieving president struggling with his pain while trying to defuse a looming nuclear war. In the era of fake news, when all facts are suspect (and reporters are targets), Lark tries to discover the truth while also under personal attack.
John DeDakis stops by In Reference to Murder today to talk about writing and researching his books:
Research: Writing What You DON’T Know
You’ve heard it a gazillion times: “Write what you know.” And, for someone who wants to be a writer, that’s excellent advice. The words flow easily when they come from a familiar place.
But what do you do when the story you’re writing requires knowledge about something that’s unfamiliar to you? Yes, the obvious answer is research. And this website is a fabulous resource. But let’s be honest: research can also be an endless detour down a rabbit hole of procrastination.
Here’s the dilemma: you’ll never know everything, but how can you tell when you know enough?
The answer will be different for everyone, but here’s how I’ve answered it over the course of writing five mystery-suspense novels:
Get Oriented: I begin a project focusing on what I DO know. Much of what I write is drawn from personal experience and places where I’ve lived, visited, or worked. Invariably, however, I’ll realize during the project’s planning phase that there are some things I need to know more about. When that happens, Google and Wikipedia become my best friends. I create a research folder and add links to articles and websites that flesh out the details of what I might need. This preliminary research gets me oriented, but it’s also a moment of grave danger. If I’m not careful, I’ll never leave this phase. It’s probably similar to what it must be like for a newly-recovering alcoholic to walk into a bar. For a writer, research is like catnip – you can never get enough.
Write the First Draft Straight Through: The best advice I ever got about writing comes from Robert Ray’s excellent book, The Weekend Novelist. Ray recommends that you turn off your internal editor and write your first draft all the way through. Resist the temptation to allow your forward momentum to be blunted while you track down a fact you don’t know. Simply make a note to yourself in the manuscript, using all caps, to “find out more about X.” Then, move on. Keep writing.
Use Your Imagination: As a writer, I’ve discovered something very spooky: the act of writing is like a straw that taps into my subconscious. Ideas, voices, and images show up as I type. It sounds counterintuitive, but, for me, the best way to break writer’s block is to write. So, when my writing enters unfamiliar territory, I allow my imagination (not research) to propel me forward. The goal here is momentum, not accuracy.
Target What You Need to Know: Finishing the first draft is exhilarating: It’s done! But it’s also depressing: It sucks!! Yet I can’t say enough about the sense of accomplishment that’s a direct result of having worked through the initial problems inherent in writing a novel from beginning to end. The hard part is over; now comes the fun part. No longer will your research be endless. Now that you have the essentials of your story written down, you can identify those items you need to learn more about.
Beta Readers and Going There: As I said earlier, “In Reference to Murder” is a wonderful website where you can get answers to many questions that might have surfaced as you were writing your manuscript. But, in addition, let me suggest two other research resources: Beta Readers and Going There. Portions of my second novel, Bluff, take place along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in the Andes Mountains of Peru. After I’d written several drafts, I was looking at pictures of the Inca Trail online and realized I needed to go there to experience it. I booked a trip and hiked the trail (four days, 15-thousand feet, 25 miles). I came back with several experiences that added depth and texture to the finished product. In my third novel, Troubled Water, 911 calls play an important part. One of my beta readers, Karen Hoel, used to train 911 operators in Wisconsin. I used my imagination to write the first draft, then sent the 911 chapters to Karen. She corrected some of my misconceptions, but when she read a scene I’d concocted out of thin air, I was stunned and relieved when she told me, “I’ve actually been in that situation.” Who knew?! (My subconscious did – spooky, indeed.)
Final thought:
Keep in mind that a novel shouldn’t be a pedantic data dump. The story is the most important thing. Your research should serve the story by making the characters, the setting, and the situation come alive.
You can find out more about John DeDakis and his books via his website and follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads. John's books, including Fake, are available via all major book retailers.
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