Researching Abroad

One of the most difficult aspects of writing is making your words and descriptions read with an air of reality around them. It is difficult to write about an experience or a place when you yourself have never had that experience or been to that place.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading and research into the various topics and figures in my novel, but sometimes a lifetime of research can’t help you describe something as vividly as if you had experienced it yourself. Without giving too much away, I can tell you that my main character is female and is around my age. I find myself easily relating to her current frame of mind and experiences. At the same time, I have been gifting her with some of my own experiences. For this reason I have been finding it quite easy to write about her emotional state, but I have been struggling with the physical world surrounding her.

My protagonist (for those of you who don’t know a protagonist is the main character) is traveling throughout the majority of the novel and I am having trouble vividly depicting the places and culture that surrounds her. As great as I may think my dialogue or internal conflicts are, when I can’t get the atmosphere right it diminishes the integrity of the scenes as a whole.

Luckily for me, I have a golden opportunity on the horizon – a research trip (well partially). On August 1st I will be leaving on a month long trip to Europe. The first two weeks will be spent with my mom, sister, aunt and two cousins traveling in London and than throughout Ireland. When they leave for home two weeks later I will be hoping on a plane to Spain and Paris where I will be joined by my boyfriend for the remainder of my time abroad.

My protagonist will be traveling through most of these places as well so I will be spending much of my month taking in the atmosphere of the cities around me; walking the streets of Paris, feeling the sun on my face in Barcelona, drinking a pint in Galway. When I return to my little office here in early September I hope to have a vast arsenal of descriptions and additional experiences to truly bring the world of my novel to life.

I am traveling light so I won’t be bringing my laptop to update my blog while I’m away. For those of you who wish to keep up with my progress, I will try to post little notes and images to my Instagram account. Simply follow sargentbrandy.

Thanks for taking an interest and wish me luck. See you in a month.