During a recent interview, one of the questions I was asked to answer was “Do you do a lot of research for your writing?” So I thought I’d answer that question in this week’s post.

I do research for my writing. I actually like doing research. It gives my creative mind a rest as I focus on details and cross checking facts, work out how what I’ve learned will fit into the story. Research can take many forms—sometimes I’ll just talk to someone who is of the era I’m writing about. You can talk to a doctor about a medical condition, or symptoms. Sometimes I find even memory can act as research. For the scene in which Thomas has to deliver a eulogy, I remembered standing at a podium and looking at a sea of mourners and that memory enabled me to write one of the most powerful scenes in the book: “.. I opened my eyes and looked at the faces in that church. Every one of them seemed stunned, exhausted. Grief-stricken eyes seemed to ask: How many more times? How many more will we have to bury before this is over?”

Not every story requires research, particularly if it’s emotional and heavily character driven. So, most of my short stories don’t require a lot of research. One in particular, “The Cross” did. It’s a story told through a series of letters and is loosely based on The Stations of the Cross. For that one I actually spent time in a church, looking at the stations, making notes and trying to figure out how each station could be represented by a letter. The serenity of the place, the somber colorful lights from the stained glass windows, the whisper of the priests’ vestments, all lent to the mood of the story, though those elements don’t appear in the story.

By far the most research I’ve ever done to date was for What Binds Us. During edits, my Carina Press editor, Rhonda Helms, suggested I include references to music to ground the story in its time period. That was actually a lot of fun as I went back and rediscovered forgotten hits, the old music resurrecting memories half forgotten. That research enabled me to discovered a theme song for Matthew and Thomas—Randy Crawford’s “Where There Was Darkness” which perfectly summed up the way each felt about the other.

Because I wanted a very specific feel for the book and wanted to create very distinctive characters, I did a lot of research on cars, settling on a 1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk for main character Dondi, a 1946 Silver Wraith for Mrs. Whyte, and a Stutz Bearcat for maturing couple Thomas and Matthew. When Thomas first meets Matthew, Matthew is driving a Jeep, as matter-of-fact and low key as Matthew himself. For Colin, who lacked imagination, but not money, I chose the requisite Ferrari. Not only were the cars meant to help define the characters as highly individualistic, it also helped me visualize what the movie version would look like. (Yeah, I actually thought about how each scene would appear in the movie version as I wrote.)

When developmental edits required fleshing out the character of Mrs. Whyte, I researched female models of the 40s and 50s, discovered who the top designers and fashion photographers were. I learned that the first supermodel was Lauren Hutton. The term didn’t exist before then. And until then models were not exclusive. Which means Mrs. Whyte would have modeled for Balenciaga, Dior, Chanel―all the great houses. I used the research to capture that era and her life before the scandal threatened to ruin her—and her agency:

“Your mother was our top model. You should have seen her—she was this great, elegant, aristocratic beauty. She was mink and diamonds and chauffeur-driven Rolls Royces.” Clare’s voice had taken on the dreamy faraway quality of memory relived. “She was the model of the fifties. She was on every magazine cover. All the great photographers—Avedon, Irving Penn, Miller A. Green—they all photographed her. There was no doubt she had ‘it.’ To a certain extent every model has to have ‘it,’ that indefinable something. But she had it in spades. The only person I’ve ever met who came close to having what she had is Dondi.” She paused. “Then it all fell apart…”

By far the greatest research went into the AIDS crisis—even though it is not a large part of the story—particularly Thomas’ theory about how AIDS came into existence through a governmental conspiracy: “During the Nixon administration there was something known as the Special Virus Cancer Program. A bunch of government scientists, along with doctors from the Army’s biological warfare unit, worked on the genetic engineering of viruses. The thought was to identify a cancer-causing retrovirus…”

This was especially interesting because I’d done the original research when I first wrote the book 18 years ago when there were far fewer sources and no internet to speak of. Going back and researching again 18 years later, I was amazed by how much of his “wild” theory actually now was much more plausible. And finally research allowed me to quote history to help Thomas build the case for why his theory might just be fact:

“From nineteen thirty-two until seventy-two, there was an experiment in Tuskegee in which a group of poor black sharecroppers with syphilis were left untreated so that a group of government doctors could track the disease over the progression of their lives. These men had families. Lives. Many of them are still alive, in the last stages of the disease. That, Colin, is documented fact. Now, do you still think what Thomas is saying is so farfetched?”