In Memory of Steve Link

Steve Link was in my writing group at Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institution. He has a talent for writing and I hope he continues his work up there in the wilderness of Wisconsin. However, we did disagree over me working on the third section of my "No Clean Slates" novel and to a lesser extent "Chasing Ashes." The problem I had with "No Clean Slates" is that I set the novel in the Kokomo of 2017 and I know nothing in depth of Kokomo and I certainly was not there in 2017. Steve thought I did not need to do research The problem with "Chasing Ashes" was I had a person returning to Indiana from prison and I needed to find out the changes that had happened - changes like the effects of the opioid crisis and the pandemic and changing economics had had on the people of Indiana. He came around - sort of.

Now I have read 4 Tips on Research for Writing Novels and Stories Beyond Getting the Facts Right from The Writer's Digest which states the same issue I felt:

There’s a whole other kinds of research that has to do not with practical verisimilitude—“Look, I know the street names in Nouakchott!”—but with learning how to achieve emotional verisimilitude. Getting the consciousness of a place right in a certain time. Getting into a character’s head, someone who’s pretty different from you.

The tips are: 

1. Read fiction in which people, places, and times like the ones you’re creating appear.
2. Once you’ve read that kind of fiction, do some interpretive work.
3. Read memoirs written by people who resemble the characters you want to create.
4. Read and watch things your character might have read and seen.

Number 4 was on my mind during my debates with Steve even if I could not, did not, articulate it so clearly. As were these ideas:

And once you’ve done that hard work, only then is it worthwhile to veer into the deep waters of playing at being the God of their minds. Once you’ve done the research—which can be wondrous in itself—you’ll find you have more room for exciting play in how you let your imagination run free with possibilities. And this—this is when writing can get really fun.

sch