research topic novel

How To Research Your Novel – A Step-By-Step Guide

Are you ready to start your novel? Do you want to make it believable? Not all stories are scientifically sound, but even ones with magic or set in futuristic worlds have a sense of reality that captures their readers. Research is a major part of making any story feel life-like, but it isn’t always easy to know where to start. This guide will show you how!

How to begin researching

Before you start, you need to decide the overall theme or topic of your novel. Do you want to share a life lesson? Do you want to capture a sense of horror? Maybe you want to tell a story about a relationship or a historical event. 

You might have an idea what you want to write about already. Whether you do or not, take a moment to ask yourself these questions:

What kind of story do I want to tell?

Is it centered around a real-world experience?

Will it be set in a fictional world or reality?

What genre will it fall in?

Who is your target audience?

Who are the main characters?

If you have all of the answers for these already, great job! But if not, don’t worry. You don’t need them all just yet. You will find the answers as you continue through this guide. 

Let’s take the questions one at a time.

This focuses on the theme or topic of your story. It could also mean the atmosphere – is this a comfort story? Something to disturb your readers? Something to provoke thought? 

Maybe you want to talk about the effects of pent up thoughts to the human psyche. Or perhaps you want to share a comedic allegory. Whatever it may be, it is what will make your story a story.

Take some time and look at your favorite films, TV series, and novels. What do you love so much about them? What are they about? What message do they tell? Do you see a common theme between them? 

Use this information to decide where you’d like your own story to go.

This could be anything from a small interaction you had with someone to a historical event. 

While that sounds like it only applies to non-fiction novels, it doesn’t have to. A real-world experience can be translated into an essence or idea – for example, Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game is about military strategy and economic tensions between humans and an alien race, but it is inspired by Cold War tensions between the U.S. and Soviet Union after WWII.

You get to decide. 

Are you the type of person who finds a setting is essential to the story, and loves reading about details of places in books? Do you like the idea of making up your own cultures, norms, or an alternative society? If yes, fictional world-building might just be your thing.

If you prefer to keep it in the real world, keep in mind the time period* and location you are aiming for. Placing a smartphone in 1854 wouldn’t work, unless you were writing alternative historical fiction.

On that note, you can also place your story in the “real world” but make changes yourself. Many stories include cities and towns that don’t actually exist. Others are inspired by real places. Veronica Roth’s Divergent series is placed in a dystopian version of Chicago, Illinois – completely unrecognizable from the real city.

*If you do choose to write historical fiction, spend some time researching the years your story will span. Focus on the customs, beliefs, and lifestyles people had back then. Take lots of notes. Set up a timeline of events to help guide your story. Feel free to reach out to experts for specific questions or even read a diary or two from someone who lived during that time.

This question might not be answered until you’ve completed your novel. It can be tricky. There are so many options to choose from, and many niches and subgenres.

If you run into trouble defining which genre your story actually falls into, take a look at genre descriptions like this one for more information. If your story contains elements of multiple genres, select the one it has the most of as the one to define it, or research if there is a subgenre that combines them. 

Maybe you want to have this answered before you even start. In that case, look at genre charts now and understand what types of themes and characters occur in each one. This will help you get an idea of what kind of conflict your story will have, what the characters will be like, and what your audience will expect.

Your target audience goes hand-in-hand with your chosen genre. Are you trying to attract mystery-lovers? Horror enthusiasts?

But it also includes certain demographics. Are you writing romance for middle-aged, single women? Self-help for college students? Moral lessons for tweens? 

Select an age range that might be interested in your story. Then, break it down into more demographics if necessary – occupation, interests, income level. 

You don’t want to write a novel about your fixer-upper journey and how you became debt-free at the age of 32 for retired millionaires. That would be for young adults (just-graduated high school students entering the workforce, college students, young newlyweds) looking to gain independence, buy their first house, pay off loans, and start a new hobby or source of income.

Write down each character and start defining who they are – their personalities, their motivations, their conflicts. 

It may help you to do a quick Google search for character charts . They are often a good character-building practice and can help guide you when you feel lost.  Many of them include details you won’t need in your novel, but they can help you get to know your characters better.

A good reader will notice when there are unseen details about your characters that they might not know, but you do. Whether you realize it or not, those details will bleed into your story. They make your characters feel much more alive.

Continuing your research

As you dive into the details of your story, you’ll want to make sure the information you collect is accurate, relevant, and from trustworthy sources.

When conducting your research, be sure to use reputable sources and cross-reference your facts. This can be especially important for a work of historical fiction, science fiction, or even fantasy. 

Get in contact with an expert – not only will they give you useful information and confirm details, but they can offer a different perspective. If one of your characters is a geologist, talking to a geologist and getting their opinion on your character wouldn’t hurt. 

When you’re ready, have other people read your novel and ask them for feedback. You do a lot while writing – you won’t catch everything on your own. Readers can help you find any plot holes or inaccuracies.

Writing a novel can be hard work and it’s easy to fall into a rabbit hole while learning about new and interesting things. You can make sure you stay on track while gathering information by setting up a timeline or map of your research. Take lots of notes and write down the source of any information you gather to reference back to later.

Start with your characters. Follow a character chart to learn about their personalities, goals, and motivations. The more you understand your characters, the easier it will be to tailor your research to their stories. Then, move on to your setting. Know the location, the climate, the culture. These details will help you fill in your own story and you gather more information.

Trustworthy

You don’t want to have false facts in your story. To get the most out of your research, consider looking at primary sources like diaries, newspaper articles, or interviews with people who experienced something first-hand or are an expert in their field. You can also find credible secondary sources in books, research papers, videos, and even blog posts.

Researching a believable novel

After following these steps, your novel should be believable. The key is relevancy. 

For example, if you’re writing a crime novel, look into the criminal justice system. Interview a judge or a police officer. Read up on past crimes to study criminal patterns. Read reports from psychologists to learn different mindsets and apply them to a character. 

Focus on your characters and setting, and conduct your research based on what you know about them. Be open to asking questions and always learning more.

And most importantly, have fun with it!

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How to Research a Novel: 9 Key Strategies

by Joslyn Chase | 2 comments

Have you ever started a story, gotten halfway through, and realized you don't know key facts about your story's world? Have you ever wondered how to find out the size of spoons in medieval England for your fantasy adventure story? Is that even relevant to your plot, or could you skip that fact? Here's how to research your novel.

As fiction writers, our job is to sit at a keyboard and make stuff up for fun and profit. We conjure most of our material from our imagination, creativity, and mental supply of facts and trivia, but sometimes we need that little bit of extra verisimilitude that research can bring to a project.

When it comes to research, there are key strategies to keep in mind to help you make the most of your time and effort.

9 Strategies to Research a Novel

Readers who’ve posted reviews for my thriller, Nocturne In Ashes , often comment about how well-researched it is. While that can be a positive sentiment, that’s not really what you want readers to notice about your book. The best research shouldn’t call attention to itself or detract readers from the story so I’m always relieved to hear those same reviewers go on to rave about the thrills and suspense.

When you're writing, you want to get the facts right and create a believable world. Doing research for your novel is the way to do that. But you also don't want to get sucked into a research hole, so distracted by the local cuisine of a small town in 1930s France that you never actually write. And you want to hook your readers with a page-turning story , not a dissertation on some obscure topic.

Here are nine key research strategies I’ve learned to write an effective (and exciting!) story.

1. Write first, research later

Research can be a dangerous enterprise because it’s seductive and time spent in research is time taken away from actual writing of the creative process. Getting words on the page is job one, so it’s important to meet your daily writing goal before engaging in research.

So if the piece you’re working on requires research, your first order of the day should be to write something else that doesn’t need research, something you can draw purely from imagination and your own mental well. Fill your word quota, practice your skills, meet your production goals, and THEN move on to research, so you don't derail your writing process with it.

I always have multiple works in progress. I’m writing project A while researching project B and thinking about and planning projects C through M.

2. Research is secondary; telling a good story comes first

After all the precious time boosting your knowledge of historical events or the feel for a subject, this point might hurt: only use a tiny fraction of your research in the story.

Don’t give in to the temptation to dump everything you've learned into the story. Sure, it’s fascinating stuff but you risk burying the story in scientific or historical detail.

A little bit of researched material goes a long way. Only use info related to the issues your character would know about and be concerned with. Leave out the captivating but irrelevant details.

Your research should enhance the story, not dominate it.

3. Write for your fans

Your story should be targeted to the readers who love what you write—your fans. Stop worrying about the five people out there who might read your story and nitpick that your character used the wrong fork or wore the wrong kind of corset.

A lot of writers fake it or write only from the knowledge they do have. They don’t let their lack of esoteric knowledge get in the way of the story. They do research for their novels, grab a few details for the sake of authenticity, and wing the rest.

With the exception of 11/22/63, Stephen King does very little research, but there are few who can write a more riveting story.

4. Don’t obsess over accuracy

Frankly, there are instances and reasons where you don’t really want to be accurate. For example, if you write historical romance, research might show that people of that time period rarely bathed and lost most of their teeth and hair at a young age. That’s probably not how you want to portray your heroine and the man of her dreams.

Sometimes, including a historically or scientifically accurate detail would require pages of explanation to make it credible for today’s audience—almost a surefire way to lose your reader. When in doubt, leave it out.

And no matter how hard you work at it, you’re not likely to cover every detail with one hundred percent accuracy, so don’t obsess over it. Do your best, but remember—story is what matters, not accurate details.

5. Go with the most interesting version

When researching an event, you’ll usually find a number of different accounts, especially when using primary sources, none in perfect agreement with the others. When this happens, do what the History Channel does—go with the most entertaining version of events.

Remember, you’re a storyteller, not a historian. Your goal is to grab and hold your reader’s attention and keep them turning pages. If it makes you feel better, you can include endnotes with references so interested readers can dig deeper into the “facts.”

6. Keep a “bible”

This is especially important if you’re writing a series. You can’t be expected to remember every important detail about the characters and settings you put in book one when, years later, you’re working on book seven.

Record these details in an easy-to-reference format you can come back to later to provide continuity and reader confidence in your ability to tell a coherent story.

7. Don’t fall down the wormhole

I love doing research. It’s fun, fascinating, and absorbing—so absorbing, it can suck you in and keep you from moving on to the writing. You need to be able to draw the line at some point. As Tina Fey says in her book, Bossy Pants , “The show doesn't go on because it's ready; it goes on because it's 11:30.”

Know when it’s time to leave the research and get to the writing. Pro tip: set yourself a time limit or a deadline. Even if you don't “feel” finished with research, you'll have a clear marker for when you have to put the research down and get back to writing.

8. Save simple details for last

Sometimes when you’re writing along in your story, you’ll find yourself needing a simple detail. Make a notation, resolve to come back to it later, and move on. Don’t let this interrupt or distract you from getting the story down on the page.

Later, you can come back and do the minimal research to fill in these little details like a character name , a location, a car model, etc. Shawn Coyne calls this “ice cream work” because it’s fun and feels frivolous after the concentrated work of writing the story itself.

9. Finish THIS project before starting another

One great thing about research is that you learn so much and find the seeds for so many new story ideas. The challenge is to not get distracted from your current project.

Make a note to yourself to pursue these other ideas somewhere down the road. Let those seeds sprout and grow in the back of your mental garden, but keep your focus on the story you’re writing now .

Resources: Where to Actually Research Your Novel

I’ve touched on how to do the research. Here, I’m adding a few suggestions about where to go for the goods.

• Wikipedia, and don’t forget to dig into the links at the bottom of the article
• Reenactor sites for historical battles, uniforms, etc.
• Costuming sites
• Travel guides
• Writer’s Digest Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in … fill in the blank (these are loaded with details of landscape, clothing, household items, and more)
• Biographies and autobiographies, and don’t overlook their bibliographies and footnotes
• Blog posts of expert and amateur historians
• Journals and diaries
• Weather reports
• Price lists, to find out how much were salaries, groceries, mortgage payments, etc.
• Birth and death certificates, court documents
• Etymology websites
• Museum exhibits and gift shops, including the little touristy booklets, maps, tour guides
• Libraries! Talk to a reference librarian—they’re awesome at plumbing resources.

Novel research rocks!

Research really is intriguing and a lot of fun. There’s so much to discover, but beware because you can get lost in it and never find your way out. You’re better off under-researching than over-researching, so know when to get out and move on.

Also, be aware that your novel's research requirements will differ somewhat based on the genre you’re writing . For instance, with historical fiction, you need to give your readers a travel adventure into the past with sensory details to draw them into the time period.

With science fiction, you need to be able to extrapolate from scientific fact and theory to the fictional premise of your story. In doing so, don’t get bogged down in the journey from point A to point B. Just get to the conclusion. The more you explain, the less credible it sounds to the reader.

With fantasy, it’s the little world-building details that count for so much. Know what your reader expects and craves and meet those demands.

And no matter how much research your book requires, don't discount your personal experience with being human—those emotional, intellectual, and philosophical experiences often cross time and space.

I wish you many happy hours of successful novel research, but don’t forget to write first!

How about you? Do you do research for your novels? Where do you turn for information? Tell us about it in the comments .

Use one of the prompts below or make up your own. Conduct a little research—just enough to add verisimilitude to the scene, a few telling details. Spend five minutes researching two to three facts that will help you set the scene. Then, take the next ten minutes to write a couple of paragraphs to establish the character in the setting.

The death of her father leaves Miss Felicity Brewster alone in regency England and places upon her the burden of fulfilling his last wish—that she marry a safe, respectable gentleman.

Accused of treason, Frendl Ericcson sets out to find his betrayer and restore his honor.

Dr. Vanessa Crane makes a breakthrough in her nanotechnology research. But will her discovery benefit mankind, or destroy it?

With the help of his mortician friend, Victorian-era detective Reginald Piper must use cutting-edge forensic methods to solve a string of murders.

When you are finished, post your work the Pro Practice Workshop here and don’t forget to leave feedback for your fellow writers! Not a member yet? Check out how you can join a thriving group of writers practicing together here.

Joslyn Chase

Any day where she can send readers to the edge of their seats, prickling with suspense and chewing their fingernails to the nub, is a good day for Joslyn. Pick up her latest thriller, Steadman's Blind , an explosive read that will keep you turning pages to the end. No Rest: 14 Tales of Chilling Suspense , Joslyn's latest collection of short suspense, is available for free at joslynchase.com .

I wish I’d read point 6 – keep a bible a couple of years ago before I wrote my 450k word magnum opus, because I’m now writing several supplemental short stories in that universe and I’m forever digging through for minor character’s names, details of meeting places etc

My current WIP is involving a lot more research than I expected. I had to re-write a hunting scene twice, because the first version, which I showed to a real bow-hunter, had him going after the deer right away, and my hunter-friend said to wait a half hour before you start tracking a deer. I don’t hunt myself, so I took his word and re-wrote it, but my gut said it wasn’t right. So I did some surfing and found both his advice, and advice that said you should go after a hip shot right away (basically agreeing with what my gut said should be happening). So was he wrong, were the sources that agreed with me wrong, or was he getting a wrong impression of what was going on? I decided I was overly in love with the opening sentence of the scene and re-wrote the whole thing yet again, using the “simple details” I’d discovered to clarify the deer had taken a hip shot. Minor scene, but a major position: it’s introducing the #2 member of my hero team.

Could it wait until later? Possibly, but I’m seriously considering serializing this thing, so the beginning chapters might be getting published before the end chapters of the first book get written, and I’m hoping for seven books out of this (probably close to 1M words total).

The Devil is in the details!

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How to research a novel: the 7 most up-to-date tips

Much of the advice available on researching novels is now dated. So this blog post includes the best modern tips on how to research fiction, with a case study included.

There I’ll show you step-by-step how I used the tools described below to construct a chapter in one of my novels. Once you’ve read through the tips and the Case Study  you can even jump here  to preview an ebook version of the completed product, which will give you a chance to assess how effective these tips are.

But first, for those who like to skim, let’s sum up the 7 basic pieces of advice on novel research.

How to research a novel

• Use Pinterest as you research your novel by building a  visual reference guide
• Use tools like Google Street View to add a  dash of realism  to descriptions
• Wikipedia is good for researching cultures, places and times for  historical novels
• Use  Instagram hashtags  to research specific locations in your novel
• You can use your  dreams  as a research tool!
• Remember to  step through the screen as you research
• Post questions on Quora and Reddit to tap the real  experience of strangers

1. Use Pinterest when researching your novel

Pinterest isn’t just great for collecting ideas for your next bathroom renovation or helping you find a really great bridesmaids dress – it’s also an invaluable tool for fiction writers looking to build a mental picture of what they’ll write about.

The key to Pinterest is that it’s a visual medium. So what you’re doing when using Pinterest to research a novel is  collating images that will enrich your mental picture of the world you’re writing . The visual side of what you write is really important, and collecting images into Pinterest boards will give your imagination a real boost.

Tip:  the best advice here is to go all-in on Pinterest. If you use it half-heartedly you run the risk of being excessively influenced by one or two images. But if you invest the time in collecting lots of diverse images that inform each part of your upcoming novel, then it’s more likely that the visuals that you write into the book will be greater than the sum of the parts that inspired them. So go for it: create some boards and start pinning picture that you find.

How to build a visual reference guide with Pinterest

There are two way you can approach Pinterest for novel research. The simplest is just to create a Pinterest account for yourself (or use your current one) then have it on hand as you browse the net so that you can pin images that inspire you as you stumble across them. The other more proactive way is to spend time researching in order to build a visual reference guide for each part of your book. To do this create boards for each aspect of your book that you feel needs more visual input – then search (both inside Pinterest and out) to build a visual library of images that speak to you. You can then refer back to these when writing to help spark your creativity.

Use Pinterest to create a mood board for each chapter

You can also collate images in Pinterest when researching your novel simply to help put your finger on a particular mood. A mood board for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, for instance, might include a board entirely filled with images of crumbling castles. But it could also include a mood board filled with photos of Romanian peasant village life to inform other scenes, and boards with images of upper-class Victorian life for the scenes that take place in London.

Use Pinterest to create a visual guide for each character

Drawing a blank when you try to picture an important character? Don’t stress. Just jump on Google Images and search all of the phrases that you have for your character. Are they tall, dark and brooding – Google that! Now look through any images that gel with what you had in mind and add them to the relevant board. Then rinse and repeat. By the end you’ll have a great sense of how your character looks.

2. Use Google products to research your novel

As the Google suite of products has expanded, so too have the tools available to authors. Don’t overlook the research techniques that Google now puts at your disposal.

Measure distance and travel times

When  Character A  needs to get to  Location B  it can help – if you’re writing in the real world, rather than a fantasy location – to ask Google for directions, in order to get a realistic sense of travel times. Writing about a road trip that you haven’t actually taken yourself? Avoid alienating readers that know the place by getting your distances and details right. And when it gets really crucial you can even use a point-to-point measuring tool in Google Maps by right clicking with you mouse on the map. That sniper shot across New York’s Central Park in your latest thriller is going to be that much more realistic when you know the space is exactly 845 metres wide.

Use Google Street View for flashes of veracity

Another great tip is dropping the little yellow figure on to the map to see exactly what any given street looks like from street level. You can really lift a scene – especially one set in a real place that you’ve never been to – by having your character note landmarks that are actually there. Maybe have them reflect on a church, or a distinctive building – or even notice some street art on a mural. Google Street View will help you add this layer of authenticity.

Find real shops and restaurants for particular scenes

In a similar vein to the point above, you can also easily set key scenes in real places with a little internet research. This can be a neat way to add veracity to a book, but it’s also a good way to step beyond your own visual limitations. What I mean is that you probably have a fairly straightforward scene in your head if you were to picture a generic cafe or restaurant – so by finding a real place online, you can really freshen a scene with a dose of reality. Top tip: menus are generally available via Google too!

Install Google Keep on your phone for taking notes on the go

Researching books isn’t just about collecting facts, it’s about having enough impressions and ideas to bring your scenes and characters – and their thoughts – to life for a reader. So if you see something unusual or striking in your day-to-day, jot it down and have your character notice it themselves in some scene, for that extra dash of realism. A notebook and pen in your back pocket is ideal for this – but better still is installing  Google Keep on your phone so you can take your notes down there. You can organise them into handy sections, they’ll be automatically backed up to the cloud, and you can even record voice notes for when you’re on the move.

Use baby name databases for character names

There are a lot of internet baby name databases designed to help parents choose a moniker for bubs – and most include the meaning and origin of each name, which is very helpful if you want your character names to resonate with your themes. Have a strong female Middle Eastern character? Find an Arabic woman’s name that means ‘brave’. Or you can easily do a little Googling to find out, for example, what working class men’s names were popular in Victorian England. After all you cockney jewel thief main character won’t ring true when he is called Tarquin or Eustace if real cockneys of the time were called Frankie or Bill.

3. Use Wikipedia to research places and cultures for historical novels

Wikipedia is an invaluable tool for historical novelists. Its accounts of various historic periods, places, people, cultures and religions are a veritable rabbit hole that you can fall down, with convenient hyper-links to each related topic. Just be sure to copy out the parts that are most useful, so you don’t lose them as you venture deeper in…

4. Use Instagram to research places for your novel

Instagram is naturally a useful resource when building a mood board for any given character or scene (see the tips on using Pinterest above) but perhaps its greatest use for novelists planning a book is in helping authors visualise places that they’ve never been. Travel photographers here are a goldmine. Simply search for a certain location or place by hashtag, and follow anyone who regularly posts from that place for a steady stream of genuine visuals. For instance when researching for  my young adult series set near Afghanistan and Iran  I found a series of fantastic young Iranian photographers who regular posted pics that totally expanded my awareness of what those places really look like.

5. Use your dreams as a research tool

Okay here I’m not talking about your deepest wishes and desires – I’m talking about your actual nighttime dreams. These are a tremendous resource of material for any work of fiction and, unlike all of the internet research resources listed above, your dreams are utterly unique to you. If you’re lucky enough to have good dream recall, then get in the habit of jotting down in a notepad beside your bed what you can remember when you wake. If you do that before they fade you’ll find them invaluable material for any creative work – especially novels.

6. Remember to step through the screen

Okay, hopefully you’re finding these tips useful, but before we go on let’s remember one important thing. The internet has no smell and it doesn’t have a sense of touch. So there’s a real risk when you research a novel that the material you uncover is one-dimensional. Remember, your job as a writer is to make people  feel  an experience, not simply visualise or think about it. So be sure to step through the computer screen when you research and try to imagine what the things you are finding out about actually feel like in real life.

7. Use Quora and Reddit to research your novel

Quora and Reddit are online communities where you’ll get great traction by posting questions  – so they’re another great tool for fiction research, especially on hard facts like ‘How far can a soldier march in one night?’ or ‘What’s the maximum operating altitude for a hot air ballon?’. And because those communities are full of random experts in all sorts of curious corners of knowledge, you can tap them for specialist details that you simply can’t source elsewhere: ‘What rights did women have in 17th Century Spain?’ perhaps (for those historical novelists again), or ‘What was considered elderly in Viking culture?’.

Top tip:  identify these questions early on and post them at the start of your research journey to give people time to respond.

Use Quora and Reddit for the feels

Most importantly though, unlike any of the other research tools above, you can use these platforms to find out what an experience is actually  like . Be sure to ask things like ‘What does it feel like being in your first firefight?’ or ‘What’s it like being swept up by an avalanche?’. This is the kind of level of realism that can make your novel shine.

Some Dos and Don’ts when researching a novel

To wrap up this part of what has hopefully been a useful post – and before we get in to a  Case Study  that gives an actual example of how this sort of research can play out, let’s look at some final dos and don’ts of the novel research game:

• Do  use internet research to spark your imagination.
• Don’t  use internet research to just assemble a collection of other people’s ideas.
• Do  let research morph into actual writing. You need to take your inspiration where it comes.
• Don’t  forget to back up your research (and manuscript). A simple upload to a free cloud service like Google Drive will save you heartache when your laptop harddrive fries or you leave it on the train.
• Do  store your research in one place. Even a simple word doc with links at the start to all relevant social media accounts (e.g. Pinterest, Quora) followed by notes broken into sections will do.
• Do  use your local library – but as a last resort. A physical trip there is likely a waste of your time, however pleasant. Find out what books you want to borrow by searching online, then order them through your library’s website.

Case study: Researching a novel in the age of Google

One of the things that only strikes you about writing a book  after  you’ve sat down and started is how crucial it is to write from immediate experience. It can be a real struggle to describe something you haven’t seen, smelled, heard and observed personally – and to stop it being a hollow and phoney reduction of other books and movies you’ve digested. Anyone who reads it is likely to sniff out that it’s phoney right away, and biff the book.

With this in mind, I thought I’d describe the process of writing a fiction chapter entirely via Google products – Google Maps, Streetview, Earth and Images – plus some extra research on Wikipedia.

It’s something that should have sounded a death knell for the chapter in question – but in this case, I think it worked. In fact, it’s probably my favourite out of the whole 87,000 word novel. (For those interested in seeing how using this approach played out, the chapter in question can be found in  Effra, A Novel  here)

It was a funny passage though. I decided to write it at a point where almost everything in the book had been planned. I had the logic of the plot and the themes and the development of the main characters all planned out in a kind of delicate arrangement (it only lacked a finale – that would come later). In my head it looked like a model of DNA – different threads wrapping around each other, all building towards a greater purpose. And I was pretty pleased with that image, because for a LONG time it had looked like a ball of wool that a cat’s played with. But then something funny happened. I’d sorted the logic of what happened and why and to whom – and the excitement died.

It felt like any reader who was familiar with basic story-telling would feel they were being hurried to a foregone conclusion. I was being careful to write a tight story, one without a lot of fat in it, but as a consequence you could see the bones. You could sense the logic. The story felt  inevitable  – and because it felt inevitable, it was no longer exciting. I’m a big believer in the reader providing at least half the story – after all,  you  make the pictures in your head,  you  provide the emotion – but a reader who feels like a story is inevitable, gets bored. Why should you care about a story that doesn’t let you play along, that seems intent on having things march along the way  it  wants, and expects you to just tag along for the ride?

So I decided to write something that would let the story breathe. Something completely pointless, that the reader would enjoy reading and I would enjoy writing (I think those two flow into each other): I sent my main characters on holiday.

Just for a short one – a train trip to the countryside for a day. The sort of thing I had done dozens of times from London. And anyway, I needed my characters to get close, and holidays are one way that happens. Perhaps by the time I finished the chapter, sparks would appear…

But where to go? This is where technology came in. I was writing about a trip out of London from a desk in suburban Auckland, and I wasn’t about to hop on a plane for research reasons, the way ‘real’ writers should. I had to do it over the net.

I needed them to visit a town a few hours, max, from London. It had to be on a train line – the characters had no car. It had to be small. And it had to be pretty.

I loaded Google Maps.

From London I scrolled around in a circle, and found the main train lines. Traced along the lines until I found towns – hunting for a small one somewhere nice. Sussex? Surrey? Kent… Kent would be good. Down the line I went, ’til I found Wye.

Well Wye not? Did it look nice? Up came Google Earth, I found the place and zoomed in – trees, fields, a line of hills – it was perfect. But what the hell was that?

The town had looked the right size, so using the tilt tool I’d raised the horizon up to a person’s perspective. That way I could see the place in the same way my characters would. I moved Google Earth to the train station where they’d disembark – and form their first impressions – and hit the 3D button for extra realism.

Up came the hills (or downs, rather), only to reveal a strange symbol carved in chalk – which would be visible from where they’d be standing.

This was perfect. My book had a theme of old things coming up through the surface of the modern – so this seemed like a gift from the gods. I would research what this strange symbol was via Wikipedia, and have my characters check it out as part of their day trip. Done.

Incidentally, anyone who’s read the book or this chapter will probably realise that the process of researching it matches closely to how the narrative evolves. The two characters start off not knowing where to go – they roll out a (real) map – choose the place, then pile out of the station and spot the carved chalk symbol. Everything they do just rolled out of the process of researching the town of Wye over a few days, and I wrote it as I went.

From the station I had them walk up the hill to the carved symbol, then I realised they would soon need some lunch. Out came Google Earth again – I needed to find them a pub. On Google Earth I spotted the next small town over (Crundale I think), and using the distance measure tool, I worked out that it was realistically walkable. Then I switched to Google Maps to get closer. That looked like a pub… I switched to Google Streetview and confirmed it – went back to Google Search to find the pub’s name, and had them walk over there across the downs. Phew.

Hey but what did those downs look like from ground level? At that point I started searching Google images for “Crundale” and “Wye” and found this idyllic shot of people walking between the two towns.

Perfect. What a relaxing image. It had exactly the feel I’d wanted to create in this chapter in the first place – that drifting holiday looseness. So where was the image from? Oh – the website of walking club for older gay men. Ha! And now that I looked closer at the people making their way down the hill, I realised I had a minor character in the making…

The portly gent in the floppy hat seemed just right. Plus, in all this research, I’d stumbled across the fact that Wye and Crundale are hotspots for rare English meadow butterflies. I imagined the gay walker in the photo as an amateur lepidopterist, and the character at the pub, David, was born.

I could go on and on about this chapter – actually I already have – so I’ll cut it short and just say that the whole experience generated a lot of writers luck. The butterfly thing matched with a mention I’d made in the book already; one of the streets in Wye had the same spooky name as a local Brixton lane; I’ve already mentioned the chalk carving: the whole thing just flowed and I wrote at top speed for two days. By the time I got my characters back home to London they, and I, were exhausted and the chapter’s ending – the sparks I’d hoped might be there – they just fell in to place naturally.

So to sum it up – and I’d like to hear what you think on this too – I reckon writing from internet research is dangerous.

For one thing, the internet doesn’t smell (except maybe if you pick that crud out of your mousewheel; I’m not sniffing that – and you shouldn’t either). It doesn’t have breezes or seasons, or move between dawn and dusk – there’s just one constant, backlit ever-day. In short, it’s not tactile in the ways I think you should draw on when writing. And on top of that, the experiences you do have are through someone else. You experience via someone else’s words, camera, website, Google-van, satellite, whatever – seeing things in a way they’ve been seen before – and I think you risk that derivative quality creeping into your writing.

Yet I like how my chapter came out.

And hell, the internet is incredibly powerful – you can get a street view of almost any place in the world, for crying out loud, without spending your life savings flying round the world researching like a ‘real’ writer. So I think that as a literary research tool, it’s here to stay.

But I think it’s crucial that when you use these tools you blend the things you gather with real experiences you’ve had –things that you’ve smelled, seen and thought – or you risk it coming out flat and flavourless.

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The Creative Penn

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How To Research Your Novel … And When To Stop

posted on January 18, 2017

I love book research. It's one of the most fun parts of the book creation process for me , but I definitely need to make sure I don't disappear down the rabbit-hole of research and forget to actually write!

If you’d like more help, check out my book: How to Write a Novel.

Is research really necessary?

If you're writing non-fiction, research will most likely be the basis of your book. For fiction, it can provide ideas on which to build your characters and plot.

You can go into the research phase with no concrete agenda , as I often do, and emerge with a clear idea of how your story will unfold. Or, if you have pre-existing ideas, research allows you to develop them further . In terms of reader expectation , research is critical in genres like historical fiction, as it will help you to create an accurate world and ground the story in reality.

When people read a story, they want to sink into your fictional world. If you introduce something that jolts the reader, the ‘fictive dream' is interrupted. For many genres, research can help you avoid this.

Most of my J.F.Penn thrillers are set in the present day and I like to have 95% reality in terms of places, historical accuracy and actual events. Then I push the edges of that reality a little further and see what happens.

How to research your novel

Research can take many forms. Here are some of my methods for gathering information.

(1) Research through reading and watching

“Books are made out of books” – Cormac McCarthy

Your research process can happen online at the various book retailers or Goodreads, but I also like to take it into the physical world by heading to libraries and bookstores, as you never quite know what you might discover. I think of it as serendipity in the stacks!

If you're writing fiction, it’s important to read extensively in your genre in order to understand the reader expectations, but many authors also find it helpful to read a wide range of non-fiction books on the topics they're interested in.

You can also read magazines and journals; browse images on Pinterest and Flickr; and watch documentaries and films on TV and YouTube. Fill the creative well!

If you have concerns about plagiarism, take note of this quote from Austin Kleon’s book Steal Like an Artist .

“Stealing from one person is plagiarism. Stealing from 100 is research.”

For example, if you read five books on the history of The Tudors and you've written notes on all of them, then you turn that into something new, that’s considered research and is an entirely natural part of the writing process. It only slips into plagiarism if you copy lines from another work and pass them off as your own , and of course, that’s something we would never want to do.

(2) Research through travel

One of my favorite ways to carry out research is to travel to places where I intend to set a novel .

This may not fit your budget, but it’s not always as expensive as you might expect, particularly if you travel during off-season periods. For my recent thriller End of Days , we did a research trip to Israel. You can join me for a walk around the Old City of Jerusalem in this video made on site .

Information on different locations can be found on our own doorstep and museum exhibitions are the perfect example of this. Follow your curiosity – maybe one museum exhibit leads you to another and each sparks your imagination somehow.

We're also very lucky in that we live in a time where it’s possible to research travel destinations online, so you can write about a place even if you haven't been there . You can find clips on YouTube, watch travel documentaries, read travel blogs, and even get a feel for walking around a location via Google maps.

(3) Research on Pinterest (or other visual social media)

We can find inspiration on Pinterest by browsing other people’s boards, but it’s also the perfect place to gather our own research and easily record it. I have Pinterest Boards for most of my J.F.Penn thriller novels now .

For fiction authors, the visual medium can be particularly valuable for sparking ideas and bringing our fictional worlds into reality. You can even share this inspiration with your readers.

(4) Let synchronicity emerge

When I started End of Days , I only had the title and I knew it would have to have some kind of apocalyptic event, but it also needed to be original.

I found two books:  The End ,  an overview of Bible prophecy and the end of days, and also The End: What Science and Religion Tell Us About the Apocalypse ,  a mix of scientific information and how different religions see the end of the world.

From these two books, I gathered a wealth of ideas including the quote for the beginning of the book from  Revelation 20:1-6

“Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he sees the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan and bound him for a thousand years and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him until the thousand years were ended .”

The serpent element  sparked my curiosity so I started Googling art associated with serpents. I discovered Lilith, called the first wife of Adam and a demon closely associated with serpents.

Then I found this quote from the Talmud (Jewish scripture) about Lilith:

“The female of Samael is called ‘serpent, woman of harlotry, end of all flesh, end of days.'”

Yes, it actually calls her End of Days. Talk about synchronicity!

[This type of thing seems to happen with every novel I write, which makes me agree with a lot of what Elizabeth Gilbert says in Big Magic about ideas. It's a great book!] 

Lilith and Samael emerged as my antagonists from this research, which also gave me rich story ideas for the plot. All this came from my willingness to go down the research rabbit hole.

(5) Research possible settings

The next stage was to consider a setting for my story and how I could use snakes in a much bigger way.

The setting is always a very important element of my books , so I looked initially at places sacred to serpent worship. I found an amazing documentary on YouTube about the Appalachian Christians, who use serpents in their worship, and from there the backstory of Lilith grew. I theorized that if she came from a group who were not afraid of serpents, then this might explain how she gets involved in the end of days conspiracy.

From one initial Google search on serpent worship, I had an outline for the plot of my novel .

This should give you an idea of how powerful research can be, taking you from an initial spark of creativity through to a completed book.

How to organize and manage your research

Your research will be far more effective if you keep track of it as you progress. You can put a couple of lines into your phone or write a few notes in a journal as you go along, but at some point, you need to organize this information so you can get writing.

There is no right or wrong approach to managing your research, just choose the option that works best for you and it will likely evolve as your writing career progresses. Some people use physical files, like a filing system, or a pin board .

When to stop researching

Research can be a lot of fun, but at some point you have to stop researching and start writing. Remember,  research can become a form of procrastination  and the more you research, the more information you will find to include.

Therefore, as soon as you have enough information to write a scene about a place, event or person in your novel, then maybe you should stop and do some writing about it. Keep a balance between consumption and creation , input and output.

Another way to approach this is to set a time limit . For example, if you know you need to start writing on a particular date to hit a (self-imposed) deadline, then work backwards to allow yourself a research period before this.

You can always do additional research as you write, but the important thing is that the book is underway.

Get started with what you have, fill in the blanks later.

Should you use an Author's Note about your research?

At the end of all of my books, I add an Author's Note which includes information on where my research came from and links to my videos and images along the way. It’s certainly not a requirement to do this but it can be beneficial to both you and the reader . My readers often comment on it when they email about the books.

We're all unique and that’s what sets our books apart so don’t be afraid to approach research in the way that suits you best. Whether you use research to spark initial ideas or to drive your narrative forward, the time invested in it will ultimately reap rewards in terms of the quality of your finished book.

Do you love the research process? Do you have any questions or tips to offer? Please leave a comment below and join the conversation. 

If you’d like more help on researching, plotting or writing your book, check out my book: How to Write a Novel.

Reader Interactions

September 15, 2022 at 10:39 am

I’m writing a novel about immigrants to NY in the first decade of the previous century. I’ve done quite a bit of general research, but I’m stuck with specific details that are necessary to determine for the story, but which I can’t find answers to. Where does one go/Who does one turn to for the missing details? I’m pretty frustrated.

[…] to procrastinate from actually getting words onto paper or fingers onto keyboard. Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn has a great little […]

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How to research for a book: 9 ways to prepare well

Deciding how to research for a book is a personal process, with much depending on your subject. Read 9 tips on how to research a novel:

• Post author By Jordan
• No Comments on How to research for a book: 9 ways to prepare well

How to research for a book: Scope, process, tools

• Define the scope of research
• List headline research you’ll need
• Do a ‘quick and dirty’ search
• Lean on .edu and library resources
• Speak to pros and specialists
• Shadow an expert if applicable
• Read authors on how to research a book
• Have a system for storing research
• Stop when you have enough to write

1. Define the scope of research

Research for a novel easily gets out of hand. You’re writing about Tudor England, for example. The next thing you know you’ve read every doorstop ever written about Anne Boleyn.

Define the scope of research you need to do, first.

This is particularly crucial if you’re new to researching novels.

‘Scope creep’ (where the task becomes bigger and bigger, and the focus dimmer) is a common challenge in research.

If, for example, you’re writing a novel featuring the Tudors (rulers of England between 1485 and 1603), ask questions such as:

• What duration within this era will my story span? (e.g. ‘the last five years of Henry VIII’s life’)
• What information is vital to know? If, for example, you’re writing about a monarch firing a particular associate, this will narrow down your research
• What broad picture elements do I need? (For example, a timeline of key background social or political events within a historical period)

Narrow down what you need to learn to the essentials necessary to begin writing.

2. List headline research you’ll need

Once you know the scope of your research, list the big, main events and subjects you’ll need to cover.

For a historical figure subject like Henry VIII, you might have a list of research to do like this:

• Timeline of major events in the king’s life
• Personality – accounts of what the king was like
• Appearance – descriptions of what the king looked like
• Controversy – king’s many wives, execution of Anne Boleyn, etc.

Make a document with a section per each of the core areas of the story you’ll need to research.

Populate these sections with article snippets, links to educational resources.

(Google, for example ‘Henry VIII reign .edu’ to find information from credible learning institutions.)

3. Do a ‘quick and dirty’ search

In learning how to research for a book, learn how to work smart, not hard. Research the way a student with an assignment hand-in due the next day would, to start.

Use Wikipedia (a no-no in academia). You can find broad information and an idea of what to look for to verify and fact-check later on .edu and library websites , or in physical book copies.

Search amateur history blogs, too. There are many subject enthusiasts who have devoted hours to digging up interesting historical and other information and share their learnings for free in blog articles.

If you’re writing about a real place, use Google Maps to do a street-view virtual tour. You can explore cities you’ve never been to before. Read more more on researching place when you are unable to get there.

Note details to include in scene-setting and worldbuilding such as specific landmarks and architectural details.

Get a professional edit

A good editor will help pinpoint major factual inaccuracies and other issues.

4. Lean on .edu and library resources

When deciding how to research for a book, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, favour credible resources.

You can even find fantastic primary source scans and recordings. Some examples of excellent, free online research resources:

• British Pathé : Pathé News, a producer of newsreels and documentaries from 1910 to 1970 in the UK has a rich and varied archive. It includes original footage (trigger warning: disturbing footage of aircraft explosion) of the Hindenburg Disaster.
• Tudor History: Historical .org websites such as this website on the Tudors provide a wealth of research information .
• The Smithsonian has regular online webinars, exhibitions and more where you can learn about a diverse range of natural history topics from experts.

If online research feels overwhelming, consider taking a course in online research skills.

The University of Toronto also put together this thorough list of questions to guide doing research online .

5. Speak to pros and specialists

Learning how to research a novel is made much easier by experts who are happy to share their knowledge.

If you are researching a specific place, language, historical figure, biological or medical issue or another detail, make a list of experts to reach out to.

Explain your fiction or non-fiction project and why you’d value their insights. You’ll be surprised how many are only too happy to contribute accurate, informed knowledge.

You can also find specialist knowledge in online forums devoted to specific subjects.

6. Shadow an expert if applicable

There’s no single ‘right way’ in how to research for a book.

You could take a leaf out of the method actor’s book, for example, and actually job shadow an expert [ Ed note: Once COVID no longer sets stringent limits on contact ].

Depending on the subject or industry, you may have variable degrees of success. For example, shadowing a medical professional has other issues involved, such as patient privacy/confidentiality.

In a roundtable discussion on preparing for roles, British actress Vanessa Kirby described job-shadowing on an obstetrics ward to research a role. Because she had never had a child herself, she wanted to give an authentic performance of a woman in labour (around the 18:15 timestamp).

Writing is very much like acting in this respect: You need to be able to fill in the blanks in your own imagination to prepare.

7. Read authors on how to research for books

In deciding how to research for a book, one also needs to decide how/where to use (or alter) source material. It’s helpful to read authors who write historical fiction and other research-heavy genres. What do they say about process?

Hilary Mantel, for example says this about taking creative license with historical facts:

History is a process, not a locked box with a collection of facts inside. The past and present are always in dialogue – there can hardly be history without revisionism. Hilary Mantel: ‘History is a process, not a locked box’, via The Guardian

8. Have a system for storing research

Research for a book easily becomes cluttered.

How do you keep research tidy and manageable, so that you have the information you need when you need it?

Organise your research for a novel with these apps and tools:

• Google Docs: Outline mode creates a clickable outline of your document in a left-hand panel – perfect for jumping between different categories of research.
• Evernote: This handy app makes it easy to snip bits of articles from your browser into collections to sort and store.
• Sytem folders: Create a folder on your operating system for your project, and subfolders for each research topic.
• Novel Novel Dashboard: You can also fill out character profiles and other prompts on Now Novel using historical sources (see an example below).

9. Stop when you have enough to write

In deciding how to research for a book, it’s important to set a stop point.

Ask yourself how much you really need to begin writing. Need to know what would have been served at a royal dinner in the year 1600? Make a note to add this detail later and describe the details of the occasion you can make up to keep going with your draft.

Balancing research and writing will ensure your research is fit to its purpose – finishing your book with relevant and precise detail.

Need help researching your book? Watch our webinar on writing research (and enjoy future live webinars and Q&A sessions too) when you subscribe to a Now Novel plan.

Related Posts:

• 5 easy ways to research your novel
• Historical fiction: 7 elements of research
• Book ideas: 12 fun ways to find them
• Tags how to research your novel

Jordan is a writer, editor, community manager and product developer. He received his BA Honours in English Literature and his undergraduate in English Literature and Music from the University of Cape Town.

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How to do Research for a Novel

March 30, 2022 10 min read Fiction Historical Fiction

There is an abundance of information in books and online about how to research for a novel. Many writing books only discuss the topic peripherally, in sections focusing on character, theme, setting, or viewpoint. There are mentions of research in chapters examining the craft of writing, or planning.

Research, it is claimed, is a poor substitute for what you have experienced yourself. Online sources indicate how to keep notes, 5 steps to research, 7 steps or 7 tips, 21 steps, 9 key strategies, or other such itemized approaches.

But this article is about the process of research through direct and indirect experience , a case study with a focus on indirect experience.

So, what is direct and indirect experience, anyway?

Direct experience is life experience. You have gone places and done things in your life, and this is researching your topic through direct experience. If you have direct experience, how do you begin transcribing those experiences and making them interesting, coherent, and structured enough for a novel ?

Indirect experience can be studying life during a specific time in history where direct experience is not possible. So, in that case, what do you do? Where do you start? 

Direct Experience

To take your memories and create the basis for a novel, you can begin by looking at your own unique past.

Novels created from direct experience can be very unique. 

I lived and worked in Ecuador, South America for a year. This formed the basis of my first two novels, Poor Man’s Galapagos , and Abundance of the Infinite . 

In Poor Man’s Galapagos , Tómas Harvey is an irrigation engineering student living on a small, impoverished island in Ecuador. His father is a renowned British travel writer who has travelled to many of the places I have visited. Many of the characters are conglomerations of people I knew there.

I was once locked in the university where I worked, along with students who were protesting against the president of the country. Tear gas bombs were being tossed inside by an armoured military vehicle. Burning tires lined the streets to prevent entry into the small town of Portoviejo. This forms the opening for my novel. 

Abundance of the Infinite is about a psychologist who travels from Toronto to a small coastal fishing town in Ecuador. It is a story about the blurred line between lucid dreams and reality in a place so utterly foreign as the tropical rainforest through which I, and the main character, travelled. 

Even with direct experience, some research is still required. This leads in to the next section…

Indirect Experience

In my latest novel, Intervals of Hope, the main character Nicholas lives with his mother and brother in London, England between the world wars. His father served with the First Battalion, First Canadian Regiment in the trenches of the Great War, and worked in the coal mines of South Leeds. This may seem, at first glance, like daunting research. 

In beginning this research, I had the looming question later posed to me in the book launch . How many other books are out there set in the same time and place, and what makes mine different? So these are questions you should keep in mind.

As I answered in my book launch, there were some crime novels that took place in England between the wars, and some mass-market type books with scenes in that time period such as Ken Follett's Fall of Giants and Winter of the World .  These were published within the last decade or so. A London Family Between the Wars , published in 1940, was written as a memoir but had a lot of interesting details.

So, I didn’t find a lot of interesting literary fiction set between the wars that explored the fascist movement in Britain at the time, the conditions leading England to war, the stories of the coal miners (although George Orwell’s Road to Wigan Pier was appealing), as well as the reality of those who chose to escape their countries in a time of war, and the homing call for them to return and fight.

A key to the uniqueness of Intervals of Hope is the examination of the father-son relationship during that tumultuous time, given that the main character’s father was a WWI veteran, and the novel’s examination of the effect his father’s legacy had on his son as WWII loomed and ultimately took shape.

Copious Reading

As the novel starts in London, England between the wars, that's where I started my research. I read books such as the history of London (which was long and quite dry, highly recommended for insomniacs) and In the News , a book of newspaper clippings from 1930-1939. And George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier about life in the coal mines of South Leeds.

A 1930s scrapbook showed common household items and magazines of the time. And Inside Europe by John Gunther, the October 1938 edition. That is a rare book, published just before WWII broke out, so it showed what the state of Europe was at that time without any skewed historical lens. 

So, where does your novel start? Perhaps your non-fiction research can start there.

Look for unconventional books, rare books that can help you put a unique spin on the world you are attempting to create.

But what of fictional influences? I read other books of fiction before and during the writing of the novel, and these are listed below. 

What fiction has influenced you to write the novel you are working on? Re-reading them might provide some fresh insights and inspiration, and infuse your book with renewed vitality.

Timothy Findley's The Wars . This was an interesting literary novel exploring the effects that WWI had on an empathetic main character. I once met with a publisher who said that Intervals of Hope shouldn't be published because The Wars was done so well. I disagree with his assessment, as under that presumption all writers should put their pens down based on the excellence of what's been done before.

Joseph Boyden's Three Day Road. Joseph drew upon family stories from his grandfather and uncle, who served as soldiers during WWI. For Intervals of Hope , I was provided with e ighty-five letters, which were sent home during WWI by my great-grandfather. These letters were discovered in a family attic, and form part of the novel.

Ken Follett's Fall of Giants and Winter of the World. This is a mass-market, sprawling epic focused on an assortment of characters in WWI and WWII. With the epic scope, the inner life of the characters was not explored in great detail, which is what I was after in my novel. However, these books provided interesting aspects of these times. 

Want to write better short stories? Sign up for a 1-on-1 consultation with our short story expert, Author  Tevis Shkodra .

Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls . Robert Jordan was an explosives expert with a mission to destroy a bridge in the Spanish Civil War. Pablo, the anti-fascist guerilla leader, and his wife Pilar are excellent secondary characters. A real inspiration.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. A very funny book set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of a bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him.

Roddy Doyle's A Star Called Henry about Henry Smart in the Irish Rebellion, which was quite comical at times. Well written, lively, not one I would have sought out but a reading suggestion from the publisher as I was engaging in rewrites. This is a real study in unique and bold characterization.  

Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage was published thirty years after the American Civil War had ended, by a man who was born after the war. It was acclaimed for its realism by veterans of the war. So maybe you are attempting something similar with your novel, and it may be worth a read. 

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, about WWI from the German perspective. The idealism of youth turns sour from what they see and experience. Another story similar to The Wars , exploring the effect of war on the individual.

There was also a book on Canadians who deserted the battlefields during WWI, which I found interesting and which forms part of the conflict that two of the characters face in the novel.  

So, that was my reading list. What is yours? Think about allocating space on your bookshelf for a reading list pertaining to your current novel. Refer to your books from time to time. Seek inspiration from them when needed. Immerse yourself in the world you are attempting to create. 

Reading for research and inspiration is essential, to which any author can attest. Read what has been done before. Learn why it is considered great.

But what else gives authenticity and life to your novel? 

Interviewing

In the course of writing Intervals of Hope , I wanted to get some details right. So, I contacted a man named George Sharp who lived in London, England between the wars. I was able to read his story online, and ask him questions about his life at that time.

Unlike the novel’s main character, George was a police officer. But he provided a lot of good input, clarifications, and details, and he seemed interested in sharing his memories and experience.

A key element of the novel is the father-son relationship. But originally, the father was not fully formed. He was a stale character , lacking any substance that would make for conflict between him and his son.

But then, I read about a man named Gordon Schottlander in a local newspaper. Gordon was a veteran of WWII who lived in London, England between the wars, and his father was a soldier in WWI. This paralleled the novel’s main character. So, I reached out to Gordon and he graciously agreed to be interviewed for the book. We had many wonderful conversations that I will always remember.

He attended the book launch. He read the book, and enjoyed it. There will be an interview with him and the publisher online, which is scheduled for early next month. Gordon was highly-trained as a British Commando, a special operations force formed by Churchill to engage in secretive and dangerous missions.

He was a commissioned officer who stormed the beaches on D-Day. He is an amazing and humble man and it's been a blessing to know him. And a lot of his story comes through in the book.    

Gordon sharing his experiences with me enriched the novel in countless ways: his wartime experiences , living in London in the 1930s, and Gordon's relationship with his father. This is part of what provides the book with authenticity and makes it unique. 

Look for opportunities that you may have to interview those who have lived the life of your characters, or can provide you with unique perspectives that will enrich your novel and bring it to life.

Letters and Correspondence

When searching for historical documents, look to libraries and public archives. Seek them out within your own family.

Look to others you know, or individuals you can contact about your subject. Pursue opportunities to obtain unknown historical documents. 

While writing Intervals of Hope , I learned that e ighty-five letters sent home during WWI by my great-grandfather, Wilfrid Littlejohn, had been discovered in a family attic. Wilfrid was in E Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Brigade and was one of the first Canadians to be sent overseas and among the last to return. He was one of 70 out of 1000 men in his regiment to have survived.

The letters were sent home to Wilfrid's parents, his brother, and his aunt from the trenches, hospitals and camps. Some sections of the letters were scribbled over by censors who would review the letters prior to sending them.

Letters were censored during WWI to prevent the enemy from obtaining secret information about upcoming battles , numbers of troops in specific locations, etc. so I had to surmise what might be in those sections.

When I received the letters, they were digitized and arranged chronologically. So, I read through and then transcribed them. When looking at what to include in the novel, I went through what effect certain letters would be on the main character at specific points in his life, knowing what was happening in his country in the 1930s in England, and what was occurring in Germany, Italy, Spain, and Japan.

Seek out opportunities to find such documents to be utilized within your novel, or as reference or research material. Such documents can prove to be invaluable.

Travel can not only add realism to your novel through details, but it can also inspire you to get to the business of writing! 

I travelled to London England many times and went around the city as the main character would have, visiting most of the places he frequented in the book. I took notes as I walked around, carefully documenting my surroundings and how these may have been perceived by the characters in the novel.

This helped inspire the story by allowing me to experience part of the life of the main character, and others. 

Final Thoughts

Good research lends credibility to your work, and gives the reader the feeling of direct experience. Imagine your readers feeling that they have lived the life of your characters as they read your book, and have therefore had a direct experience. What about that for a goal?

As a last word, given direct or indirect experience, you will still need to: 

• Read copiously. You should be interested enough in the research to read many books about your subject. Even boring books (for example, a book about the history of London, England) can also feed into your writing.  
• Interview , if possible, to derive from first hand experiences of people who were there.
• Communicate with others who know about your subject.
• Research on your own . When researching online, know that some sources such as Wikipedia can be changed and are therefore potentially unreliable. I have found information on Wikipedia that could not be corroborated elsewhere.  
• Travel to the places in your novel, if possible.
• Look at resources that are rarely used . In researching for an upcoming novel, I obtained a researcher card at the Toronto Library Archives and used a microfiche to get countless documents about my subject. I was able to learn about the basis for the main character of my novel.
• Don't get bogged down in research while you're writing . Focus on telling the story. Write out your scenes. See where more research is needed, and then add details utilizing research.

Now, get that novel going!

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Novel Research: 12 Ways to Ace Your Book

Maybe these self-directed questions will sound familiar:

• What if my novel research isn’t good enough?
• What if I put a street on the wrong side of the city?
• What if I’ve got the dialect all wrong?
• What if I’ve included a glaring anachronism?

The book I’m currently at work on—my historical superhero saga Wayfarer —is set in London during the Regency era (think Jane Austen). In many ways, it has been the most difficult of all the historical novels I’ve written, primarily because it takes place in such a popular period. I had some leeway in writing about the medieval Crusades (for one thing, the language is so different, perfect accuracy isn’t desired much less demanded) and the American west (where legend has taken over fact in so many areas).

But the Regency period? Put a chapeau-bras out of place, and fanatical readers will know it.

Never mind that the book is also set in London, which means correctly portraying a city I’ve never visited.

And don’t get me started on the language. Unlike the Middle Ages, 1820 isn’t so far away that the language of the period isn’t still decipherable to modern ears. What that means, of course, is every word choice must be filtered through not just the demands of British English, but also the question: Did that word even exist back then?

Cue the paranoia.

The Two Sides to Novel Research: Accuracy and Authenticity

There are two good reasons for any author to indulge in this paranoia over “the facts” in a novel (whether it’s historical or not).

Reason #1 to Panic: Your Readers Are Smarter Than You

Scary thought, ain’t it? Now granted, not  all of them are going to be smarter (aka, better read on your subject than are you). But I guarantee there will be a lot of them. No matter how conscientious you are in your research about Roman sewer systems or stamp collecting, there will  always be someone who knows something you don’t . And if that person happens to read your book, they may well call you out on your mistakes.

Reason #2 to Panic: Poor Novel Research Destroys Suspension of Disbelief

This reason is by far the more important of the two, however closely related. The whole point of novel research, after all, is to create a seamless reading experience. We want to immerse readers in the detailed and realistic worlds we create for our characters. If you’ve got your Olympic equestrian character casually mounting her horse on the right side (instead of the left), you’re going to instantly pop that suspension of disbelief bubble for any reader knowledgeable about horses and riding.

Commit to Accuracy in Your Novel Research

In short, blatant inaccuracies can ruin your book. So do your research. End of story. Stop panicking.

Does this sound too simple a solution after all that fear mongering up there?

Maybe a little. But let’s be practical.

There is absolutely  no way you can achieve perfect accuracy in your novel.

Never mind what Yoda says, the best you can do is try. After that, stop worrying about accuracy and start worrying about …  authenticity .

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), 20th Century Fox.

Why Authenticity Is More Important Than Accuracy

A story, by its very nature, is an illusion.

The characters aren’t real. The events aren’t real. The settings and events–even if portraying real life– are Shakespeare’s “but shadows.”

That’s why readers must suspend their disbelief in the first place. And they do. They willingly buy into the magic trick–as long as the magician (that’s you!) makes it  look real.

By far, the most important factor in convincing readers to suspend disbelief is creating a story world that  seems real. Readers aren’t asking for reality ; they only want something that  seems real enough for them to pretend, for a couple hours, that it  is real.

That’s where authenticity comes into play. As long as you have accuracy enough to provide a solid basis for your story, you then have a wide-open canvas upon which to create the illusion of an authentic experience .

To put it indelicately: Hook your readers with the truth and they’ll swallow all the rest of your story’s lies.

How can you find this balance of accuracy and authenticity in your book? Let’s examine twelve steps you can put into action right away.

6 Steps to Achieve Accuracy in Your Novel Research

Novel research is easy. All you have to do is read and remember. But it requires time and discipline upfront. Use these six steps to break your task into manageable bites.

1. Begin With a Basic Understanding of Your Subject

Presumably, if you’re interested in writing about a particular subject, then that very interest has led you to at least a  basic knowledge about it. For example, if you want to write about a homicide detective, then you might have been drawn to the subject because you enjoy TV shows about detectives. You know enough to at least create the framework, in your mind, for a story about a detective of your own.

Castle (2009-16), ABC.

2. Discover the General Questions You Need to Ask

Using that general knowledge, from Step 1, write your outline–or, if you’re a pantser, at least figure out the general beats and events in your story. This will help you get a handle on the general questions you’re going to need to answer about your subject. For example, after writing my outline for my 1920s barnstorming novel  Storming , I ended up with a list of specific research topics I knew I would need to research:

3. Collect a Bibliography

Using those questions/topics, create a research bibliography. Search your local libraries and Amazon to find sources that will answer all your major questions. Depending on the nature of your subject, you may also want to seek out experts with whom you can talk or who can give you access to hands-on experiences.

4. Commit Serious Time to Novel Research

Writers often ask me how much time I devote to novel research. Basically: as long as it takes me to read through my list of research books.  Wayfarer ‘s research took me six months.

And where do I find the time to do all that research?

Easy: writing time. Whatever part of the process I’m working on (whether outlining , researching, writing, or editing), I do it during “writing” time, which for me is two hours every morning. This, of course, means that during the research period, I get to sit around reading all morning and call it work.

5. Organize Novel Research Notes

Don’t trust your memory. Write down everything. Personally, I find it well worth the extra time it requires to  transcribe everything I highlight in my novel research (e-readers make this super easy, since you can find all your highlights online and simply copy/paste them).

This makes my notes searchable on the computer and allows me to collate them under pertinent headings. Your research will do you little good while writing if you can’t access it. (Plus, you can use your discoveries as part of your book marketing campaign to tease readers about your upcoming novels.)

6. Discover the Specific Questions You Need to Ask

Armed with all that general knowledge you gleaned during your novel research, you can then write your book. You should be well equipped to write knowledgeably and confidently about your subject. Even still, you’ll inevitably run into further questions during the blow-by-blow action of the actual story. Some of these questions will be simple enough for you to look up on the Internet during writing. For those that prove more complicated, include them in a running list and do whatever follow-up research is necessary after the first draft.

6 Steps to Achieve Authenticity in Your Novel Research

All that research was your logical left brain’s contribution to your story’s verisimilitude. Now, it’s time to unleash your creative right brain and let it take the scattered pieces of your research and connect the dots between them to creative an  authentic  experience for your readers.

1. Do Your Research

Authenticity must begin with a pursuit of accuracy. You can’t build an authentic experience of life as a concert pianist if you know nothing about music. Emphasizing  authenticity over  accuracy does not provide permission to simply ignore the facts. You must start with a solid foundation of reality if you’re going to have any chance of convincing readers to believe in the  unreal parts of your story.

Amadeus (1984), Orion Pictures.

2. Support Every Lie With Two Truths

In writing any kind of story, you will occasionally find yourself faced with situations in which you either  don’t know the facts or in which the story demands you  tweak the facts to serve the plot.

In either case, here’s a good rule of thumb for protecting the authenticity of your story: Every time you make something up, make sure the “lie” is supported by at least two “truths.”

Historical novels do this all the time by surrounding a fictional character with people who actually existed in the period. We believe in Emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, so why not a general named Maximus while we’re at it?

Gladiator , directed by Ridley Scott, produced by DreamWorks.

3. Show Readers What They Expect to See

The very essence of authenticity is in validating the experience readers  expect to have. Did Al Capone really say, “I want him dead! I want his family dead! I want his house burned to the ground!”?

The Untouchables (1987), Paramount Pictures.

Doesn’t matter, because this is exactly what we  expect Al Capone to say. It creates no cognitive dissonance in our expectations about 1920s gangsters.

The flipside of this is that sometimes you will find you  can’t use certain accurate facts. If a fact doesn’t jive with your readers’ expectations, then you need to question whether its (totally legitimate) inclusion is worth the risk of jostling their suspension of disbelief.

Funny story. In researching my 1901 novel, I was trying to be careful to use slang of the day, syntax–everything. We try, right? Well, I found that even innocent things they WOULD have said sound much too modern. Such as, “You have the coolest yard in town.” Um… sounds all wrong.

4. Don’t Sweat the Details

Remember my paranoia over  Wayfarer ‘s presentation of an accurate 1820 London experience?

On this last edit, I’ve been conscientiously researching the etymology of any word I thought might be suspicious. That’s a lot of suspicion. It’s also, after a certain point, ridiculous.

Can you tell me what’s “wrong” with this excerpt?

He had no notion life wasn’t always a long journey to a distant horizon. Sometimes it ended in a blink, in a blur of fire and pain.

Turns out “blink” and “blur” didn’t mean then what they mean now .

Now, Emma Woodhouse may not have been able to “blink” away the tears that “blurred” her eyes after Mr. Knightley gave her what for. But I gotta tell you: my protagonist totally does. Even though these words aren’t accurate within the historical setting, I would be shocked to discover any reader who noticed, much less took exception, to them.

As an author, you must occasionally make the call to depart from the smaller details of accuracy, for the sake of your overall story. Don’t sweat the details  too much. It is fiction, after all.

5. Maintain Consistency

Here’s the secret to authenticity: it must walk hand in hand with consistency. Indeed, consistency is the whole point . It’s why we avoid every detail that might jar–even if it’s an accurate detail. It’s why we don’t sweat the little, unrecognizable errors. As long you’re presenting your story’s truth with absolute consistency, readers will buy into it with little effort.

6. Show Your Bravado

Finally, be brave. Trust in your skill to create an authentic experience for your readers, and trust in that experience to help readers glide right past the places where you’ve sacrificed absolute accuracy for the sake of the bigger picture.

As any magician knows, you have to sell the performance. If you look like  you believe 100% in the illusion you’ve created, readers will be all the more likely to follow your lead and believe in it themselves.

The Long Trail by Brad Dennison (affiliate link)

But also be wise. Sometimes, no matter how perfect a word is to a scene, it still won’t belong, as in western writer Brad Dennison’s tongue-in-cheek comment to me:

The things you wish you could include in a story. In the western I’m working on now, Johnny McCabe … didn’t even know [his brother] Joe was in the area. … Johnny says to him, “How is it I didn’t see you out there?” Joe says, “Ain’t a man alive can find me if I don’t want to be found.” I would so like to have Johnny say, “What are you, Batman?”

The balance between accuracy and authenticity is ultimately the balance of the entire story. If your mastery of authenticity is strong enough to convince readers to suspend their disbelief, then they’ll forgive–and even embrace–your occasional lapse of accuracy.

Wordplayers, tell me your opinion! What has been the most difficult part of your novel research? Tell me in the comments!

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K.M. Weiland is the award-winning and internationally-published author of the acclaimed writing guides Outlining Your Novel , Structuring Your Novel , and Creating Character Arcs . A native of western Nebraska, she writes historical and fantasy novels and mentors authors on her award-winning website Helping Writers Become Authors.

Egyptian Hieroglyphics.

In my recent manuscript, I had the kids visiting Olympus (easy, it’s like going to the corner store everyone knows it so well) Asgard (just make some stuff up, nobody will know – but again, most of the pantheon are well known), and then the pyramid of Khufu, where I’ve never been, and there will be hieroglyphics that lead them to the secret entry.

Oh man, and the internet can’t agree on the meanings of those!

So I made some reasonable calls based on the majority of what I found, and if I run afoul of a scholar reading my kids’ book, then I might learn something in the dialog that follows.

Good for you! This is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about. When you *can’t* find the truth, don’t be afraid to make educated guesses.

Hey Andrew! Egyptologist here 😉 Ask away! (and it’s “hieroglyphs”, “hieroglyphic” is the adjective….) If you have a lot of text to cover, you can e-mail me at: fam.focke (a) gmx.de. Just please say you’re Andrew from Helping Writers Become Authors in the title so you don’t land in the spam… Actually, I’d need your email address anyway to send the hieroglyphs – though there ARE fonts, they’re a pain. It’s easier to use a hieroglyph program and export as a JPG.

Actually, that’s just the sort of thing that annoys me as an Egyptologist and history buff (sorry, Andrew). If someone gets the little things wrong (hey, you might not realize that the Egyptians didn’t have the “l” sound and name a character with an l in it) – okay. But something like translating a text – there are people out there who can help. Ask University faculties. Museums. I know there are some snobs out there, but there are also tons of people eager and willing to help. I suggest, in fact, if you are writing a historical novel to try and find an expert to read your novel AFTER it’s finished (I guesss around Beta level). The thing about research is that you have to look in the right places, and if you don’t know what the right places are, you can read tons of books and still make some glaring mistakes. That’s okay. It is, as we historians like to say, “not your field”. But it’s also something that can be fixed 😀 My husband and I are always amused by the fact that, apart from the obvious (and purposeful) anachronisms, A Knight’s Tale and the Three Musketeers movie with all the airships have some of the best and most historically accurate costumes and props. More so than “historical” films for any period except Regency. Go figure!

That’s interesting about Knight’s Tale and Musketeers . Supporting the theory of the bigger the lies, the bigger the foundation of truth must also be, perhaps?

No offense, but every time I read something like this I get really paranoid about my long-time unpublished novel. I did research on my NYC love story ( only been to NYC via internet) several years ago and felt good about it, however, I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say Gothic Bridge so I say a dark bridge, Empire State Building I say a tall building or the ferry to Staten Island I say island, Mayflower Tower I say a brownstone apt., etc. Can we be sued because I have a kidnapping in the Mayflower? Also, if I publish on Create Space Amazon instead of a traditional publish who has a reputation to lose, will the hungry perfectionist guru be less critical with mistakes? Thank you.

Names of places and things are not copyrighted. You can even use the names of real people, as long as you’re not libeling them.

Not sure what you mean by “hungry perfectionist guru,” but self-publishers need to be just as vigilant against mistakes as traditional authors–if not more so.

My series of historical novels (you’ve read them) involve a protagonist who’d been raised in England, but joined the German army in 1912 and pursued his military career through two world wars… (and went to the Berlin Olympics in 1936!!) My greatest problem of authentic language was avoiding any taint of Americanism that could not possibly be in his (or the story’s) jargon before 1945. I say ‘taint’, because we in Canada stand between a rock and a hard place in our use of the English language, and Americanisms are second nature. One slip with an “okay” and it would be ‘game over’. (another Americanism, I THINK.) My British beta reader told me of a number of language errors that had slipped through. Thank God for beta readers.

Hi Lyn, I was thinking a while back that I should read one of your historical novels. Having strategic beta readers to help with inaccuracies sounds extremely pivotal in this case.

Benjamin, I would love you not only to read one of my novels, but to give me your reaction, good, bad, or ugly. The truth from readers always helps the next effort.

Sounds good. The book covers look great!

I’ve always been incredibly impressed by how effortless you make your research look in your novels. As for Americanisms, I breathe in terror at the thought right now! I definitely need to nab a pair of British eyes to help me check this current WIP.

*raises hand to volunteer*

Hey, thanks! Are you in London?

I’m not British, but I’ve lived in England for several years now and notice when American words are used in a book that is supposed to be set in England. Drives me nuts 😀 But I try to remember that I hear the words every day while the author does not.

Thanks for this post. I needed it right now…research is hard for me becuase I know I need it for the book I’m working on, but I’m a little nervous I won’t get it right.

Americans get dinged for this a lot (and rightfully so), but it definitely happens the other way around. There was a memorable Doctor Who episode, set in Depression-era NYC that had all the American characters calling the elevator a “lift.” 😉

Thanks to Hulu, I watch British, Australian & Canadian (esp Vancouver) TV shows.

I got the impression that the folks in BC tended to speak an Australian vocabulary with an American accent.

Great topic! I’ve been waiting for something like this to pop up. First I’d like to congratulate you and all those who make an attempt to write historical fiction. Hats off you, seriously. Easier said than done. By the way, I had never even heard of historical fiction before discovering this blog and your writing. I also admire your approach as well your fine tuned writing process. Quality versus quantity. You certainly take your time to produce a quality novel and it definitely shows. That in itself is a testament to your own standard, mindset, and authenticity as you put it. The linguistics and semantics alone would stymie me. And I like languages!

I’ve thought about writing some historical fiction when I grow up. Inspired by you of course. There’s at least 2 or 3 ideas already on the backburner. But that’s definitely down the road as I learn about structure, outlining and the whole realm of writing. I do however, find the research part pretty daunting with my own kind of paranoia. Will they buy into this? Is it believable? They’ll see my mistakes! Sometimes I’ll dismiss doing too much research and rely on my imagination to write fantasy because I don’t have a complete grip on a subject. Know what I mean? Maybe I do have some obsessive tendencies! I’ll get too bogged down in all the “research” that I’m not writing at all and get overwhelmed. I HATE that feeling. On a positive note, it is fun too! I’ve consulted professionals about certain topics on justice and getting great feedback! One of them is a lawyer/SFF writer who happens to have an awesome book. Closest to the Fire: A Writers Guide to Lawyers and the Law.

I have a lot bottled up about this subject. When do you know you’ve done enough research? When do you draw the line before getting to overwhelmed or lost in the details? Or how much should you research? The more I research something, it seems the list just never ends and I end up going down a rabbit hole. Do you set parameters for yourself? Like, I’ll research only for six months or does it vary?

There definitely comes a point where you just have to *stop* researching. For me, that point comes when, as I say, I finish reading the list of books I’ve created for myself–and also, whenever, I’ve answered all the important questions posed by the story. Deadlines can also play a part for me if I feel I’m starting to waste too much time.

That definitely sounds doable.

Benjamin – start writing. The moment you get into the act of telling a story it becomes easier. An adventure. It’s not written in stone. Don’t stop to correct mistakes, just write. When you come to the end of telling the story, you then begin the editing process. This is as much fun as writing the first draft. Here is where you double check the historical facts and break up those information dumps and catch those little phrases inappropriate to the time and place… I could go on, but Katie covers all of this very thoroughly in her writings and on this site. GO for it. At this point the reader is the last thing you worry about.

Your right. I’m kind of a pantser at heart, or a tweener, so I think I need to feel my way through a little. Learning so many things at once.

Perfect timing! I’ve been tossing around a World War II story idea, and the research is intimidating. How to eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Now I’ve a strategy to do just that.

Thanks so much! 🙂

Another trick I’ve picked up over the years is to do a lot of “casual” research long before I ever start the book. For instance, right now, I know I want to eventually write a fantasy trilogy based on Tudor England. Every time, I run across an interesting tidbit in my pleasure reading, I make a note of it and type it up in a research folder for the book. I’ve already “effortlessly” collected over twenty pages of notes for that one story alone.

I like this.

Another great tip–thanks!

@Samantha: I’m writing a WWII story at the moment – let me know if you want any resource recs or anything like that, I’m happy to share the good ones 🙂

Sarah, how sweet of you to offer! Thank you.

If it’s okay to share a few links, and it isn’t too much trouble, I’d appreciate that. 🙂

The series taking the most research is the two thirds of a trilogy I’ve written in the Canadian North. Language, culture, history, mythical history, police procedure in the North. It’s been interesting. Especially as I’ve blended a few town together to create the setting for my stories. (Working on the rule of using a fictional setting if you are going to create mayhem.) I have one more book to write and will need to look at junior miners, prospecting, investments, and some new ways to create mayhem.

Hah, yes, sometimes it’s better to make a few things up rather than risk people in a real-life town getting upset. It’s also an easy way to base a setting on a real-life place without being 100% tied down to its facts.

Great tips – bad research can kill a novel for me, and I find a lot of American authors don’t know what they don’t know when it comes to British and European history (or they can’t be bothered finding out. It’s hard to say).

I like authors who provide an author’s note which separates fact from fiction, although that raises the question of whether they should be at the beginning or the end. At the beginning, and they can spoil the story. At the end, and I’m sometimes too frustrated by the “mistakes” to care that they were deliberate.

I recently read a disclaimer at the beginning of a novel (sorry, but I can’t remember which one), where the author apologised in advance for the facts she had changed. I thought that was clever – it told me she had done her research, but also that she had made deliberate choices to go against the facts to strengthen the story. I can respect that.

This might be the way to go – an introductory acknowledgement that certain facts have been changed, then a fuller disclosure at the end, where it won’t give away any important plot points.

“Don’t know what they don’t know”–that’s what always scares me. :p

I included an Author’s Note of that ilk in my medieval novel Behold the Dawn . I chose to put it at the end, since it was definitely spoilery.

Excellent advice in your latest piece. I’ve always believed that if the facts are right, the reader will believe the fiction, and that you contradict the laws of nature at your peril. Even fantasy (especially fantasy) has to be credible. Even minor characters need to be real and believable, so researching their lifestyles and ‘look’ has to be done. This is why I write stories set in today’s world, or in times I’ve lived through myself.

Settings and locations are best if you know them personally… even if only from a short visit… as the ambience of a place will come through in your writing. If it doesn’t, you’ll notice it yourself. It’ll feel wrong. The finer details can be honed by using ‘Streetview’ (or by visits if the location isn’t too far away) I’ve used ‘Streetview’ to verify sight lines when a character is observing others (I write crime novels) or to check on road layouts or what a character might see from a vehicle.

It’s also worth calling the reception desk at public buildings or companies etc. I needed to know where the gents’ toilets were in Cardiff County Hall, as a murder victim was to be killed on his way to relieve himself after a meeting. (The online building plan didn’t show the detail I needed.) I got all I needed from the security desk by phone. I’ve phoned police stations to check details, and specialist garages to ask about certain details of the classic cars they work on (for hiding things – It’s no good having those diamonds hidden in a magnetic box stuck inside the oil pan, if the oil pan is aluminium.) If you phone a place for information, and tell someone you’re an author, they’ll usually be happy to help. It brightens up another boring day at a desk.

In one book, I very nearly fouled up. I had my villain make an escape by stealing a boat, but my knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of the Bristol Channel’s sand bars and currents was limited to on line searches. I made the escapee a novice too, which almost worked… until I had the chapter read through by someone who’d sailed the area. A few changes to techniques and alterations to the boat’s course ended up with a far more interesting piece with even more sense of jeopardy. It was worth a phone call, followed by e-mailing the piece. I’d underestimated the dangers and the problems. I hadn’t realised the effects of those particularly fast tidal flows on steerage. I do now though.

I’ve made a rule for myself that if my knowledge is limited on a subject, and research doesn’t quite fill in all the details, then it’s better to keep things simple than to risk dropping a howler by stating something completely wrong. I leave that to the movies. I’ve seen too many Hollywood films where a character drives from one location in London to another by passing every known tourist landmark… (check ‘Brannigan’ – it’s a real howler from that point of view). As a former London based motorcycle despatch rider and delivery driver for twenty years, I know the city well enough (but still I’ll check Google Maps etc. because road layouts and new buildings have changed a lot since those days, and I now live in the West of England.)

A very useful piece for everyone. I particularly liked the point about readers perceptions of situations, even if they’re not entirely correct. I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose we’re all influenced by popular beliefs anyway, but having it spelled out made me think about it.

Keep up the good work.

Chris, a motorcycle despatch rider? LOVE it. I also love how you put it. “…it’s better to keep things simple than to risk dropping a howler.” KISS. I’ve always followed that route. One way I do it is to write from the protagonist’s PoV, so that everything in the novel shows only what he knows and sees. Many times I’ve taken refuge in showing his swift impression, allowing me to avoid hard details. Also, the passage of time in a narrative transition can gloss over missing factual research.

“It’s better to keep things simple”–I totally agree. Many times, I’ve gone back and deleted a seemingly great detail just because I could verify it.

I feel your pain- recently I was reading some Amazon reviews of Behold the Dawn (haven’t read it- looking into reading it) and encountered all the “controversy” over your use of the word “bucko.” Give an author a break, people! Seeing how many noticed and commented on an out-of-place word has me terrified about what might happen if I ever slip up.

For the story I am planning, I need to research medieval Japanese and Bedouin culture. I’m a little overwhelmed about where to start on research, especially since my library had zero books on these topics. Making a list of specific areas to research is a great idea.

Japanese and Bedouin, Brenna? Is there any connection?

I will be combining elements of the two cultures in my fantasy world. The novel will take place in a desert, but there will also be samurai-type warriors, an honor system, etc. Of course, the setting will be more cemented once I have done my research.

Sounds great. I love the Japanese ancient culture with its samurai and ninjitsu.

Brenna, Methinks you can do anything in Fantasy, including creating your own world background and history… But you’re right. You need a firm anchorage for the reader.

I completely agree with you, Lyn Alexander. I am creating my own world and history, with many elements from no source but my mind. However, I will be using Japan and the Middle East somewhat in the way Tolkien used England- as a backdrop, and for inspiration from the real world as I create my own.

I wonder if the Gobi Desert had (or still has) any honorable samurai. Wait, are you saying the Bedouins don’t have an honor system?

Ah … you do realize the ninjas were only a few families on the islands of Iga and Koga?

Hah! Thanks, Brenna. 😉 In all truth, that’s not a word choice I’d make for that book if I were writing it now. I’ve changed it in recent editions.

There’s another type of source, if you can’t find historical sources (although I think your library can probably get those via interlibrary loans). Consider anthropologists. I think both fantasy and science fiction writers could both do with lessons in anthropology, as this is the study of culture and societies.

Bedouins are nomads, if I remember correctly. There will be a difference in nomads vs. agricultural people. But nomads and farmers /land owners tend to cooperate with each other, and the farmers might even be offshoots of the nomad’s tribe.

In his book on the fall of Rome, historian Peter Heather mentioned that because anthropologists studied modern nomads (e.g., Bedouins), historians realized that nomads do not aimlessly wander. They travel in fixed patterns between their summer and winter pastures, so if they start showing up suddenly in new places, like the Huns, it’s a clue that something has happened.

So if you can’t find history books, give anthropologists a shot. There might be material to reverse-engineer the culture you’re trying to build.

Thank you for the recommendation! I am overwhelmed by the interest everyone is showing in my story. 🙂 Yes, actually I got the idea to use Bedouin culture because my main character is going to fall in with a group of desert nomads. I will definitely look for both historical and anthropological sources. Thanks again!

This really sounds like a good book. Sounds interesting!

Thank you, Benjamin. Of course, it’s only in the beginning planning stages, so time will tell if it turns out to be good and interesting!

Hi Brenna… Have you read ‘Dune’ (or any of the sequels). Frank Herbert did something very similar with his epic fifty years ago. Now that’s what I call desert culture.

Check it out. It might give you some ideas. (It’s an excellent book… A real classic, but it stands the test of time well.)

Good luck. I admire those who can create new worlds. I write in the real(ish) world of contemporary crime novels.

I saw the movie Dune when it first came out and loved it. Your right, the sand culture is amazing. I just rewatched the trailer for it last week.

Thanks! I’ll look in to reading those. I read a lot of classics. 🙂

Dune is my favorite! And I second the recommendation; Herbert did do his research. During the last Iraq War, a couple of sci fi nerds were convinced that Saddam Hussein had stolen some ideas from “Dune,” specifically the fedayeen, who are also called “fedaykin” in the book.

A few people had to gently explain that the Fremen were modeled on the Bedouins and the other cultures of the Middle East / North Africa.

Which reminds me, that Tuaregs / Berbers would be another nomadic culture. For my fantasy, I read “The Berbers: The Peoples of Africa,” by Elizabeth Fentress and Michael Brett. Sadly it didn’t have enough about their history, but it does talk about their modern culture.

Hah! I didn’t know that about Saddam “stealing.” That’s hilarious. :p

Excellent RECOMMENDATION. That’s a great idea.

One thing I discovered when working on my currently-backburnered historical trilogy was a tendency to get bogged down in the details. I once spent two weeks trying to figure out exactly when, between the Civil War and Wild Bill Hickok’s death in 1876 it became common to have numbers as well as suits on playing cards. Two weeks! It finally dawned on me that *it doesn’t matter* and I rewrote the scene to remove references to the cards. Gah!

As a history teacher, I think you’re spot on in the accuracy vs authenticity issue. Make us *feel it,* or as I say to my students *could* it have happened that way, and we’ll forgive a great many small error, if we even notice.

Sadly, I don’t have any recommendations for Bedouin or medieval Japan, but as a college history teacher, I can recommend some books on the Tudor period. Alison Weir has a ton of excellent books that are both academic-level history and very accessible to the non-academic (not a ton of jargon.). Pretty much any of them. There are enough excerpts from primary sources to give you a feel for the language, and details about life,as well as the lives of the nobility.

Anyway, wonderful post! Thank you

Thanks for thinking about it, anyway!

I did think of one for Japan, but it’s fiction and you’ve probably read it. Shogun is amazing for its accuracy and characterization of its Era…

I want to read these when you’re done!

The best source on ninjas is Stephen Hayes.

There’s another author his last name is Cummings that have weight into the secret life of ninjas and a translation of some of their ancient writings. Cool stuff.

Actually, I haven’t read it. I’ll look for it. Thank you for the recommendation!

Hey, thanks for the Tudor recommendations! I’m doing a lot of “painless” research on this series, since I won’t be writing it for several years yet. I’ll add these to my reading list right now.

My personal favorites are Princes in the Tower, Wars of the Rose’s, and Children of Henry VIII, buy they’re all good.

I’ll look forward to your foray into that time period as I do everything you write!

The Children of Henry VIII immediately caught my eye!

Alison Weir! I was coming here to say this, and I’m glad a bonafide history teacher likes her, too. Weir is very readable, and I don’t think there will be a minute of pain reading her 🙂

Another casual resource is the History Channel, assuming they still do history. I’d sometimes note the names of historians who popped up to give commentary on this or that historical event.

Thanks! Good to have a backup vote for Weir!

I want to put in a word for YouTube. I wanted to visit some of the places that my fantasy is based on, but they became unsafe suddenly (well, one always was). But YouTube came to the rescue, allowing me to see tours of the landmarks I wanted to explore, especially the ones narrated by historians.

Thanks to YouTube, I also learned how an astrolabe worked and exactly what’s happening during the “lost wax process” the ancients used in metalsmithing. For one thing, the name does not mean that people lost knowledge of how the wax process worked, so it’s a good thing I did not attempt to wing it in the story. Rather, it’s referring to what’s happening to the wax, and should be spelled “lost-wax.” I never go into the process in my fantasy, but I needed to be able to picture what the silversmiths were up to in the scene in which they appear.

I love the advice to be general, although some instances would probably happen by accident for me: it never would have occurred to me to mention what side someone was mounting a horse from. Just get on and giddy-up 🙂

I’m afraid of the British vs. American English from the other direction. My dad is from a more recent colony, and I grew up watching British television. Some of the books I read as a kid used ‘sceptical’ vs. ‘skeptical.’ This is where a lexicon dictionary comes in handy, because their etymologies say what language a word comes from and what it meant in that language, and when we started using it. Mine helped me to decide how to spell the name of the mythical creature with the eagle foreparts and the lion hindparts: gryphon is the original spelling, so I went with that to set the tone.

Also, browse the magazine racks for history magazines, including the Smithsonian’s. They taught us in school to always check the copyright date when it comes to history and science. A book on Roman Britain written before the discovery of the Vindolanda tablets will be missing some juicy tidbits. Magazines and news articles have nice updates to what’s in the books. Now we know for sure that Richard III was a hunchback; it wasn’t just Shakespeare’s propaganda.

Another resource: websites like the British Museum and NY’s Metropolitan Museum of Art are fantastic, not just for letting you see what objects were around in the time period — oh, that thingamajig existed back then, so I can let my heroine have one, etc. But also they’ll often list bibliographies in their articles.

For verisimilitude, don’t forget about historical reenactors. Bonus if historians are the reenactors; it turns out some historians have blogs. I wondered if the style of “bra” my Roman era fantasy heroines were wearing would be too hot (wool) or too uncomfortable. A reenactor demystified the whole thing on her website. Which was good, because now the characters had a hiding place for certain objects.

I don’t know how to conlag (making up languages or words in fake languages). So I’ve relied on Lexilogos.com which is one-stop shopping for dictionaries of ancient Greek, Latin, etc. I found another online dictionary for Akkadian. They’re great if you need to have a character say a spell, or you need to name a creature. Remember that “Aslan” just means “lion” in Turkish, so even the greats cheat, too 🙂

All that said — definitely do not sweat the details. At some point, you just gotta write. I like the idea of the author’s note. I plan to have one, just to point people to some of the sources I used for my people and monsters: Pliny, Herodotus, etc. I just took them seriously … it’s amazing how rich a fantasy can be just by going to the source material. Support one lie with two truth indeed!

Great, great stuff here, Jamie! I, for one, appreciate the reminder about YouTube. It should be a no-brainer, but I hardly ever think about it when I’m searching for visual info.

Google Maps has street views for many places

I think Google Maps street views are super helpful. I used it for researching my trips to London, and I truly did get a very accurate idea before I actually visited.

That’s right! I found a slew of info on YouTube alone.

Just a suggestion for those working on historical fiction—-the more esoteric the better—-see if you can find a historic reenactment group that’s focused on your chosen time and place.

Online enthusiast groups are great sources. In my novel (SF, with the early part in a post-apocalyptic setting) a lot of people are back to using horses and carts, buggies, etc., and I knew I could get myself in trouble. I found an online forum-—The Horse Forum—-and joined it just so I could seek help. I simply posted in the general forum, told them I was working in SF, and what I needed to know about.

They LOVED it! A few of them were SF fans as well, but those who responded were all vocal in their gratitude that I wanted to get it right. I’m thinking that if I ever get this thing finished, I’d like to figure out a way to offer those people discounted or free copies, personalized if possible (market strategy, right?).

What’s strange about this is that I hardly used any of what I learned. Importantly, though, I had *confidence* in it. In this, I think it’s like an impressionistic painting: tiny detail may not show up, but the Big Picture is consistent, correct, and easily identifiable; everything fits.

Hope this helps.

I second this. Most people who are passionate about a subject are *ecstatic* to get to talk about, especially if they think it will end up in a book. I’ve met a lot of great people this way.

Great points. It seems like a lot of this is intuitive (at least for me). As I was reading, I found myself sort of saying, “yeah.. THAT makes sense.” Of course it’s always good to have someone else (who’s a writer) solidify some of the same thoughts you have — so you know you’re not crazy! I also think, with all of this said, and even with an imperfect work, that honest negative feedback on the topic of research, is the next biggest step to improving. Like you said, no one should be expected to know every single little thing about a topic, because there is too much nuance and information that feeds realistically into your subject. BUT, if you can figure out (from the negative feedback) what area of research you might have failed in, there’s a good chance you can use that information so that the next time around, you’re thinking in these new ways: whatever they are, ways that help you approach research or maybe even a better way to organize research, etc.

I won’t say that I *like* it when a reviewer calls me out on historical quibbles in my published works. 😉 But I’ve definitely learned and grown from it as both a writer and a researcher.

Truth. It’s all in how we respond as learners. It’ll just help us grow.

The “You Can’t Say That” website you linked to is amazing! I had to force myself to stop reading it. 😉

Isn’t fascinating? Makes me want to go out and buy the full set of the Oxford English Dictionary.

It’s my DREAM to own the full set of the OED!

I have the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. In 2 volumes at 3750 pages, it’s adequate for me.

Ah, I should look into that. I was looking up the full set, and it only costs around $1,500. Um, no. :p

Hmm. I missed that. I’ll have to check that out.

Thanks for writing this. It’s very reassuring!

Yeah, perfection is just too hard a taskmaster. 😉

This post could not have come at a better time! I’m working on an alternate history (steampunk) story. I’ve been doing some research on when certain things happened here versus when said things (abolition of slavery, for example) happened in England (or the UK, depending on precisely when – something else for me to look up [again]). Now if I can only remember to make notes…

Alternate history is a lot of fun–just enough facts without being absolutely chained to their veracity.

Oh, alternate history stirs up my imagination. I’d like to give a whirl someday. Already collecting some info. *he he*

Wowsers. You guys are amazing. A lot of you sound like history buffs, which is certainly my worst subject. But I guess that’s what research is for right? I actually do like history more everyday and currently researching the history of kung-fu, wing-chun kung-fu, shaolin kung-fu as well as judiciary legal systems for my upcoming novel.

Thanks for this post Kate. Especially having the questions prior to diving into research for some sense of pararmeters. Research is FUN. But I need to limit myself to the necessary information critical to the story.

You guys rock!

I think I can safely say that my love of history is a large part of why I became a writer. After all, what is history except a story?

Don’t just restrict it to the facts pertinent to your story, Ben… Soak it all up. If you have a fuller understanding of the background, it’ll seep out into the writing and breathe life and reality into the story.

You never know when those facts will be useful. If they’re in your mind, then they’re there to inform your thoughts as you work out where you’re going next. Even when I’m dreaming in bed at night, I’ll sometimes get ideas for my plot, or how my characters are going to progress. These get informed by some of the ‘useless junk’ floating about in my head. It all helps.

Yes! I’m really liking that. I have a “soak it up” kind of mentality, so this goes along with my gut feeling. I’m a sponge when it comes to stuff like this.

Thanks for this! I can’t stress enough how important research is. Usually writers argue they don’t have time research. Well, in that case, they shouldn’t expect people to take their work seriously! Research should be the primary ingredient in a good story.

Your article is superb! What I found very difficult is for non-native English speakers to write in English. Even if their English is fluent, it’s very difficult to imitate everyday dialogue, unless you have actually lived in an English speaking country.

Actually, this is very much true even for dialects *within* the same language. Getting the British dialects right in my WIP was very important–and very tricky–for me as an American.

Thank you so much for this! I am in the middle of writing the first draft of my second historical novel and was really worrying about how to go about doing research when I am done. I hate squashing the inspiration of the first draft with wondering if I got a technical or minor historical detail right, so I tend to write and then research, writing down questions and things to check on as I go. This was very timely!

That’s actually one of the reasons I like to sandwich my research in between the outline and the first draft. I get to create my story in the outline and figure out exactly what I need to know, then research to find the answers, and then write the first draft with pretty much no concern about whether or not I’m headed in the wrong direction with my representation of facts.

That’s a good way to do it too! I’ll have to give it a try, usually I am just to impatient to get started on the writing and end of researching as I go 🙂

Well, I’m very much of a “ounce of preparation is worth a pound of proofreading” kinda person. 😉

The only thing I disagree with in this article is surrounding a character with real historical figures. For me, nothing pulls me out of a book faster than when a fictional character interacts with too many real people, especially if he/she influences either that character, or has a ridiculous influence over actual historical events (i.e., Moses’ former true love influencing Pharoah to go after the Israelites in The Ten Commandments, when in the Bible it was Pharoah’s own pride and hardness of heart that caused him to do it, no nagging wife needed). I’d rather the historical figures be more on the sideline myself, part of the atmosphere more than a Who’s Who of whatever time period it is that the MC goes around hobnobbing with. //rant over 🙂

Let me clarify: definitely not suggesting all historical stories need to incorporate historical characters.

Dear K. M. Weiland, My name is Haley and I’m thirteen. I am a writer. I know that you published your first book when you were fourteen. How did you write your book and still keep up with school work and other things? I know you must be busy with the book that you are currently writing but if you know of a way to help me I would really like to know. Thank you for giving good advice for writers and myself.

Welcome to the site, Haley! I was actually 20 when my first book came out. However, I’ve been writing steadily since I was 12. The key, as it is for writers of any age, is to set aside a doable amount of time and be consistent at showing up to write every single day. That’s a habit that will generate a huge amount of productivity and serve you very well over the long run.

Thank you for such great advice and for listening. I shall surely try to follow it.

I can’t wait to read Wayfarer! It’s so hard not to obsess about minor errors that slip in, but I don’t think they affect the quality of the work if the story is good. I seem to recall that some of Shakespeare’s plays have really egregious anachronisms — like a clock in Julius Caesar. I have to confess that sometimes I really superenjoy picking up on tiny little errors about something I am familiar with, like law or law schools or Louisiana or the South. This happens on television shows all the time and frankly adds to my enjoyment of the story, if it’s a good story. If it’s not, and I have to watch it for some reason, it gives me something entertaining to think about… (And of course no one would want courtroom scenes to be accurate. There are few things more boring than real-life courtroom scenes. More “can you identify this spreadsheet” than “you can’t handle the truth!”)

Actually, Shakespeare is a great example! We’re not so aware of it these days, but his plays are actually extremely inaccurate in the larger details, as well as the small. Didn’t seem to have hurt his authenticity too much. :p

Exactly! The important part is whether he tells the truth about the human condition — and he does!

“I do it during “writing” time, which for me is two hours every morning. This, of course, means that during the research period, I get to sit around reading all morning and call it work.”

I’m told ENFP personalities have these “energy spikes” that they rely on for creative work. It’s certainly true for me. I can’t set a writing schedule for beans– all I know is that I can’t do it first thing in the morning, when I can’t even tell the difference between my left hand and a refrigerator. XD But I did discover that simply setting a couple of alarms on my phone– one to go off in ten minutes, the second to go off thirty minutes after that– gives me enough motivation to sit down and write pretty quickly. I always go over that thirty minute limit by at least an hour.

I never thought about it before, but I wonder what would happen if I did the same thing for sitting down to read and do research? I get so easily sidetracked during my research phase sometimes. I find interesting links that *look* like they might be important to what I’m researching, but they don’t always turn out that way… and then I’m off “researching” a neverending chain of links, and before I know it, I’ve learned a lot more about recipes containing peanut butter or techniques for defeating the final boss fight in Spyro the Dragon than I have about Second Order Cybernetics. (To this day, I still don’t understand half this stuff I’m reading on it.) @_@

Which brings me to a question: What do you do when your research suddenly turns so agonizing that it’s no better than reading Wikipedia pages and you have to fight to stay focused? (I don’t know if other people are as put off by Wikipedia as I am.) Sometimes I feel like I’m learning about the entire universe, then sometimes I feel like the stupidest little insect, like I’ll never understand what I’m reading about, and therefore will fail at what I’m writing about. How do you get through it?

First of all, I believe it is *so* important to understand your personality in figuring how to “hack” your own process. I’m an INTJ, which means I eat, sleep, and breathe schedules and structure. That’s how I roll. It’s *not* how everyone rolls, and it’s valuable to recognize that and to recognize there isn’t a right or a wrong way to do any of this. There’s just one of many, many different ways that *work* for the individual person. So kudos to you for recognizing that in your life! You’re saving yourself a lot of grief.

As for your question, honestly, there’s no pretty answer. There’s only: keep at it. Sometimes taking breaks can help prevent your attention from wandering. But sometimes you just have to slog through the boring stuff to find that one little kernel you needed.

I have never fully taken control of those P energy spikes (I guess that’s the nature of the beast), but I find that making to-do lists is the best way for me to manage myself. (Yeah, I know — lists — that’s so J, isn’t it?!?)

I absolutely suck at sitting and deciding to do something for a certain amount of time. I really do well when I’m free to jump from task to task (I’m a big believer in the insights that come when you stop focusing directly on the subject). The best way for me to keep the energy rolling is to make a manageable list of things I can do in that sitting or in that workday and race through it as quickly as I can. This often turns out to be several hours, which flies by much more quickly and productively than if I had attempted to schedule the day.

I’m superb at putting out fires. I’m less superb at steadily plowing through non-emergency tasks, but the best solution for me is to make them emergency tasks by putting them on the TO DO RIGHT NOW list.

I have much more experience of how to manage this as a lawyer than as a writer, but as a writer, I find it MUCH better to structure my work around tasks than time-blocks.

I just had to share this since I’ve been struggling with this issue for years as a P-oriented lawyer. Another lawyer once told me that “J is the essence of being a lawyer.” I obviously don’t entirely agree, as I’m quite good at what I do, but it’s certainly true that a P has to fight the tendency to be a wild pony wandering aimlessly across the plain.

And, because Ps often need encouragement, please keep in mind that NOBODY can do precision work more quickly than a P on an energy spike! (And this may be because NOBODY gets more done when they’re not actually “working” than Ps.)

I would bet good money that though you may struggle to fit into a “J” occupation, the “unusual” perspective you bring to as a Perceiver makes you very good at your job indeed!

Thank you, Katie! On a good day, this is true. It helps that I am surrounded by people who know how to manage and/or support me, and that I’ve found the right area (complex regulatory compliance) and work situation (independence without having to be in charge).

“Every time you make something up, make sure the “lie” is supported by at least two “truths.””

You know, I did something similar to that once. My femal protag superhero rides a motorcycle, and she wanted a way to disguise it so people wouldn’t recognize it. At first, she and another character were considering paramagnetic paint (running an electric current through the paint would cause it to change colors), but another character pointed out that the YouTube video that popularized the idea of paramagnetic paint was a hoax: It was just that YouTuber’s demonstration of his use of Adobe After Effects. However, they went with electroluminescent paint. (Do a search on “The Science of LumiLor to see what it is.)

Along with the electroluminescent paint, they modified some of the motorcycle’s parts to open out and change shape, and I threw in a 3D printer for them to make some of the parts. So in the end I included a lie that remained a lie, threw in some truth, a bit more truth, and hopefully by the end of it all, nobody will notice or care that I haven’t got the faintest clue on how to modify a motorcycle. XD

Haha. That made me grin. As someone else who has no idea how to modify a motorcycle, I for one will suspend my disbelief. 😉

I found the internet quite useful in researching for my writing, especially with my last novel. I needed to know how an Uzi worked and the only time I fired one was when I was in the service more than 30 years ago. I was able to look at a clip on line and see one fired so that gave me what I needed to know. I found other things as well.

The Internet is great for gun and machine info. That is one thing I usually remember to use YouTube for.

How did we writers ever live without it? The only place you can look up what “that thing you use to do whatsit” is called.

For a while, I’ve been working on a science fiction/fantasy story that has A LOT of different environments, characters, technology-levels, etc. I think it’s a common misconception among non-writers that if you write speculative fiction — particularly fantasy — you don’t have to do any research, that you can simply make up everything and it will be fine. However, any writer worth their salt knows that this couldn’t be further from the truth. I will make no claim that speculative fiction requires more research than any other genre, but it certainly can have just as much as any historical fiction novel; which is saying something, considering the amount of work historical fiction writers put into their work. I’m definitely not an expert on the art of researching for writing, seeing as I am young and inexperienced in life in general, but I found a researching strategy that works well for me at least. With all the different planets and characters in my story, it gets hard to keep track of all the research and ideas I have for specific ones. So, (this is going to sound weird, I can feel it) I use the Pinterest secret boards to store all my research. I’ve created a board for each of my planets and characters. Then, when I do research online for one aspect of whatever setting or character I’m researching at the moment, I can pin the website to the board and type up a short summary of the information or some tags so I can find it again very quickly using the search engine. I don’t know if this is the best way, but it’s worked so far; plus it sure makes me happy to see all that research work lined up in perfectly straight columns!

Definitely agree with this. I do a lot of research for my fantasy novels, even though I don’t have to be as rigidly factual.

I wrote a short preface in present day, then the rest is a flash back to 1979. I minimized my research by sticking to the area I grew up in, in a time when I was a teenager.

It’s fun to write about a recent time when the technology was different. The house had one TV and maybe two telephones (you had to make sure someone wasn’t eavesdropping on the other extension). No computers and only a wrist watch to tell time while on the move.

Then there was trying to get an authentic dialect without going overboard. I slip in some iconic words, but try to avoid alternate pronunciations. How would I easily let the readers know that ‘wash’ is said as ‘worsh’?

Still, this week I was thinking of given names for new characters and realized even that’s changed. I’ll go through some high school yearbooks from our area at that time and make a list of the names people were giving their children in the late 50’s and early 60’s.

My last book was set in my hometown. It was such a change from the far-flung (and usually imaginary) settings I typically write, and it was a ton of fun!

I’m an INTP, so I just have to look something up and then tell you about it!

My HS, classes of 1977-1979, most common names (7 or more instances, in descending order)

Susan, Debbie, Cindy, Kathy, Mary (Ann, Jane, Jo, Kay), Barbara, Carol, Kim, Lisa, Nancy, Michelle, Patty

Dave, Mark, Jim, Jeff, Mike, Bob, John, Tom, Dan, Rick, Ron, Scott, Steve

Should’ve done it earlier for my own WIP, but for a particular location/time period, I can see making a list like this, and when you need a name for a character, pick one off the list.

We also have a good number of eastern European families that live here, so when I decided to give one of my characters a Serbian surname, I checked carefully to match the given name, that it wasn’t Croatian or whatever (which someone would get offended over)

The Social Security Database is another good place to look for top names of the year.

I am working on my first novel which is realistic fantasy about Ireland and the fairie faith. I need to be accurate about an American teen suddenly moved to live in Ireland with a rural Grandmother who strongly believe in fairies. The realism comes in where I want the Tuatha de Dannan to be a race that could manipulate matter and shape shift using advanced quantum physics. My biggest problem comes from that fact that that period and that of druidism have such limited real facts. It should make it easier to write but there is so much out there that has already been fantasized and I don’t want this to sound like a typical fairy fantasy story. Is there anyone out there who can tell me more about Ireland than I can find on the internet and in books on the fairy faith?

Not so much about fairies, but I just read a good book on early Ireland: Princes of Ireland by Edward Rutherfurd. It talks about the Tuatha de Dannan.

This was extremely helpful! Thank you for always giving concrete steps and examples – I see so many vague posts that just rehash the same things all over the internet. Your posts are always spot-on.

[…] Some writers love it, some hate it. K. M. Weiland considers the two sides to novel research: accuracy and authenticity, and Donald Maass thoroughly explores relevance in […]

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[…] as K.M. Weiland stresses in her great post on writing historical fiction, even more than getting the facts right (which you need to do), what […]

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[…] than two thousand years. This presented its own special set of challenges (see K.M. Weiland’s great blog post for some tips on writing historical fiction), but it felt right so I scrapped the first draft […]

[…] to Cut the Crap and Research Your Novel Effectively, Researching Your Novel: The Ultimate Guide, Novel Research: 12 Ways to Ace Your Book, and Fact-Checking Your […]

[…] Strive for accuracy but be happy with being authentic. Do the best you can to be accurate in your story. But unless you are writing non-fiction, you have wiggle room to be creative. K.M. Weiland says, Hook your readers with the truth and they’ll swallow all the rest of your story’s lies. […]

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Research Template

Collect research for your next novel

Research is a crucial step in the early writing process. It's a springboard for new ideas and can add substance and authenticity to your story. As author Robert McKee says "when you do enough research, the story almost writes itself. Lines of development spring loose and you'll have choices galore."

Milanote helps you organize your research in one place and see everything side-by-side. When you do this, new ideas and perspectives start to emerge naturally. This template is part of our guide on How to plan a novel .

• Explore ideas
• Organize visually
• Share with your team
• Gather feedback
• Export to PDF

How to use this template

Whether you’re writing a novel or a screenplay, follow this step-by-step guide to learn the modern process of organizing your research in Milanote, a free tool used by top creatives.

1. Start with an empty template

The Novel Research template contains empty placeholders for notes, images, video links and more.

Create a new board for your outline.

Create a new board

Drag a board out from the toolbar. Give it a name, then double click to open it.

Choose the  Novel Research  template.

Choose a template 

Each new board gives you the options to start with a beautiful template.

2. Add any existing notes

You probably know a lot about your chosen topic or location already. Start by getting the known facts and knowledge out of your head. Even if these topics seem obvious to you, they can serve as a bridge to the rest of your research. You might include facts about the location, period, fashion, or events that take place in your story.

Add notes to capture your existing knowledge

Drag a note card onto your board

Start typing then use the formatting tools in the left-hand toolbar.

3. Save links to articles & news

Wikipedia, blogs, and news websites are a goldmine for researchers. It's here you'll find historical events and records, data, and opinions about your topic. We're in the 'collecting' phase so just save links to any relevant information you stumble across. You can return and read the details at a later stage.

Drag a link card onto your board to save a website.

Install the  Milanote Web Clipper

Save websites and articles straight to your board.

Save content from the web

With the Web Clipper installed, save a website, image or text. Choose the destination in Milanote. Return to your board and find the content in the "Unsorted" column on the right.

4. Save quotes & data

Quotes are a great way to add credibility and bring personality to your topic. They're also a handy source of inspiration for character development, especially if you're trying to match the language used in past periods. Remember to keep the source of the quote in case you need to back it up

Add a note to capture a quote.

Start typing then use the formatting tools in the left hand toolbar.

5. Collect video & audio

Video and movie clips can help you understand a mood or feeling in a way that words sometimes can't. Try searching for your topic or era on Vimeo , or Youtube . Podcasts are another great reference. Find conversations about your topic on Spotify or any podcast platform and add them into the mix.

Embed Youtube videos or audio in a board. 

Embed Youtube videos or audio tracks in a board

Copy the share link from Youtube, Vimeo, Soundcloud or many other services. Drag a link card onto your board, paste your link and press enter.

6. Collect important images

Sometimes the quickest way to understand a topic is with an image. They can transport you to another time or place and can help you describe things in much more detail. They're also easier to scan when you return to your research. Try saving images from  Google Images ,  Pinterest , or Milanote's built-in image library.

Use the built-in image library.

Use the built-in image library

Search over 3 million beautiful photos powered by Pexels then drag images straight onto your board.

Save images from other websites straight to your board.

Roll over an image (or highlight text), click Save, then choose the destination in Milanote. Return to your board and find the content in the "Unsorted" column on the right.

That's a great start!

Research is an ongoing process and you'll probably continue learning about your topic throughout your writing journey. Reference your research as you go to add a unique perspective to your story.

Start organizing your research

Collect & organize your research.

Sign up for free with no time limit

Milanote is where creative professionals organize their most important work.

Free with no time limit

Create your account

21 Ways to Research your Novel

Before writing a novel, it’s important to do research on the location, the time period, the people, the food, and the hobbies and jobs of the characters. Many authors dread researching, but it can actually be fun! Here are a few ideas to help you research your novel.

Research your novel with experience

1. Write what you know—use personal experience to write your novel. 2. Visit restaurants that serve the same food your characters would eat in their location. 3. If you have the funds, travel to the location where your characters live. 4. Visit museum exhibits to discover more information about different locations and subjects. 5. Take classes on subjects your characters are interested or have talents in.

Read for research

6. Visit the library and find reference books on the subject. 7. Read novels that are in the same genre as the novel you’re writing (especially bestsellers). 8. Read magazines and journals on the subject.

Use the Internet

9. Look up videos on YouTube . Often a visual image will spark ideas you can include in your book. 10. Do a Google search and see what others have to say (be sure to check their sources, though, to make sure that what they’re saying is reliable). 11. Look up documentaries on the subject. 12. Look around on Pinterest for ideas, inspiration, and information.

Research by interacting with others

13. Call people who live in the location your novel takes place (even if it’s at random from the phone book!). 14. Interview people who have experience with the subjects you touch on in your novel. 15. Email or call experts in the field you need to learn more about, asking them just a few specific questions about the topic that you wouldn’t be able to easily find answers to elsewhere. 16. Watch others who are similar to your characters to see how they think, feel, and talk.

Miscellaneous ideas

17. Write down everything you discover and learn. You don’t need to use all the information you find—in fact, you absolutely won’t used it all—but it’s better to collect more than you’ll use than to have too little. Until you finish the actual writing, you never know what tidbit you might need to pull in. 18. Type up and organize your notes in a way that makes sense to you. 19. Don’t go so overboard when you research your novel that you start procrastinating the writing. If it’s helpful, set a time limit for your research. 20. After you begin your book, if you run into something minor you need to know (like the name or description of an object), you can always type XXXX as a placeholder and do the research for it later so you don’t bog down the writing at a moment when the writing is flowing. 21. Leave some of the things you researched out when you write. It’s extremely jarring to the reader when an author stops the flow of the story to explain how something works or what something means. If it isn’t pertinent to the story and doesn’t introduce confusion by its omission, leave it out! With your research, you can make sure your characters are using the correct terms and reacting appropriately, but you don’t have to include every detail of what you researched. A little authentic flavor goes a long way.

We hope this post has given you some researching ideas. Do you have any tips or tricks on how to research your novel? We’d love to hear in the comments!

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Leave a Reply

This 21 research guide has been so helpful. I have got a writing tip for you and your readers. Have you tried using the silly tweets on Twitter and The silly articles on Facebook as writing prompts? If not it’s worth a try.

I have written 2 short stories, i would love to send them to you for your feedback

Thanks for the tips. I actually left the whole runaway/cops out of one story, maybe realized it needs the social issue part of life in a romance. But my mystery novel has twist of having no cops.

Catia, helpful article. I write a column for a local Writer’s Organization. On occasion, I will get permission and use a column such as yours instead of writing my own. I always cite the author. I’m wondering if you’d be letting me use this column for that purpose. If so, please give me the wording to use to cite you and your columns. Thanks.

Judythe, you’re welcome to use quotes from the article as long as you include a link back to this page, or write a summary of the post and link back to this page, but please don’t use the entirety of the post, as that would be flagged as duplicate content by Google. Thanks!

Thanks, Catia. Judythe

First and foremost, Thanks for putting your knowledge out there to help others. I am a first time novel writer, and research has always been fun to me even if it has nothing to do with my current book project, all of your tips are spot on a few I have not tried in past but am going to insert them in to my current researching habits. Thanks for being you and doing what you do

Sincerely William Graham

Yes seeing through it but as they are passing through it they grasp a concept and learn it WELL ONE would hope that they grasp it and have personal growth from it. Sincerely, Fernando Augusto Osorio

Book Cave I love it! Its like the allegory of the cave hence me wanting a mentor get it? I love it even more that I remembered that Glaucon was with his mentor Socrates hence me wanting a mentor also, your Book Cave could be a very good site for me. Greatest regards, Fernando Augusto Osorio

I want to write a book in the future and would like a mentor what would you suggest I do to go about getting a mentor? Thanks, Fernando Augusto Osorio

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Get 10% off with 24start discount code, browse literature thesis topics, african american literature thesis topics, american literature thesis topics, children’s literature thesis topics, comparative literature thesis topics, contemporary literature thesis topics, diaspora literature thesis topics, english literature thesis topics, feminist literature thesis topics, gothic literature thesis topics, indigenous literature thesis topics, literary theory thesis topics, literature and film studies thesis topics, literature and history thesis topics, literature and philosophy thesis topics, literature and psychology thesis topics, medieval literature thesis topics, modernist literature thesis topics, postcolonial literature thesis topics, postmodern literature thesis topics, renaissance literature thesis topics, romantic literature thesis topics, science fiction and fantasy literature thesis topics, victorian literature thesis topics, world literature thesis topics, young adult literature thesis topics.

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• The treatment of race and ethnicity in the novels of John Steinbeck.
• The role of technology and media in contemporary American fiction.
• The impact of the Great Depression on American literary works.
• An examination of gothic elements in early American literature.
• The influence of transcendentalism in the works of Emerson and Whitman.
• Modernist expressions in the poetry of Wallace Stevens and Ezra Pound.
• The depiction of suburban life in mid-20th-century American literature.
• The cultural significance of the Harlem Renaissance in the development of American literature.
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• Analyzing the concept of alienation in the works of Edward Albee and Arthur Miller.
• The role of political activism in the plays of August Wilson.
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• The use of satire and humor in the novels of Kurt Vonnegut.
• Exploring the American South through the literature of Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner.
• The representation of LGBTQ+ characters in American novels from the 1960s to present.
• Consumer culture and its critique in American post-war fiction.
• The legacy of slavery in American literature and its contemporary implications.
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• The treatment of mental health in the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe.
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• The evolution of adventure themes in children’s literature.
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• Analyzing the narrative structure of children’s picture books.
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• Comparative analysis of postcolonial narratives in African and South Asian literatures.
• The concept of the tragic hero in Greek and Shakespearean drama.
• The treatment of love and marriage in 19th-century French and Russian novels.
• The portrayal of nature in American transcendentalism vs. British romanticism.
• Influence of Persian poetry on 19th-century European poets.
• Modern reinterpretations of classical myths in Latin American and Southern European literature.
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• Magic realism in Latin American and Sub-Saharan African literature.
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• Analysis of folk tales adaptation in German and Korean children’s literature.
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• The use of allegory in Medieval European and Classical Arabic literature.
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• The role of censorship in Soviet literature compared to Francoist Spain.
• Themes of redemption in African-American and South African literature.
• Narrative techniques in stream of consciousness: Virginia Woolf and Clarice Lispector.
• The intersection of poetry and politics in Latin American and Middle Eastern literature.
• The evolution of the epistolary novel in 18th-century England and France.
• Comparative study of the Beat Generation and the Angolan writers of the 1960s.
• The depiction of spiritual journeys in Indian and Native American literatures.
• Cross-cultural examinations of humor and satire in British and Russian literatures.
• Comparative analysis of modern dystopias in American and Chinese literature.
• The impact of globalization on contemporary European and Asian novelists.
• Postmodern identity crisis in Japanese and Italian literature.
• Comparative study of the concept of heroism in ancient Greek and Indian epics.
• Ecocriticism in British and Brazilian literature.
• The influence of the French Revolution on English and French literature.
• Representation of mental illness in 20th-century American and Norwegian plays.
• Themes of migration in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean literatures.
• Gender and sexuality in contemporary African and Southeast Asian short stories.
• The literary portrayal of technological advances in German and American literature.
• Comparative study of children’s fantasy literature in the British and Egyptian traditions.
• The role of the supernatural in Japanese and Celtic folklore narratives.
• The impact of digital culture on narrative forms in contemporary literature.
• Representation of the global financial crisis in 21st-century novels.
• Analysis of identity and self in the age of social media as depicted in contemporary literature.
• The role of dystopian themes in reflecting contemporary societal fears.
• Post-9/11 political and cultural narratives in American literature.
• The influence of migration on shaping multicultural identities in contemporary novels.
• Gender fluidity and queer identities in contemporary literary works.
• Environmental concerns and ecocriticism in 21st-century fiction.
• The resurgence of the epistolary novel form in the digital age.
• The depiction of mental health in contemporary young adult literature.
• The role of indigenous voices in contemporary world literature.
• Neo-colonialism and its representation in contemporary African literature.
• The intersection of film and literature in contemporary storytelling.
• Analysis of consumerism and its critique in modern literary works.
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• Examination of contemporary feminist literature and the evolution of feminist theory.
• The literary treatment of historical memory and trauma in post-Soviet literature.
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• The representation of class struggle in contemporary urban narratives.
• Changes in the portrayal of romance and intimacy in new adult fiction.
• The challenge of ethical dilemmas in contemporary medical dramas.
• Examination of space and place in the new landscape of contemporary poetry.
• Contemporary reimaginings of classical literature characters in modern settings.
• The role of privacy, surveillance, and paranoia in contemporary narratives.
• The blending of genres in contemporary literature: The rise of hybrid forms.
• The portrayal of artificial intelligence and its implications for humanity in contemporary works.
• The role of memory and nostalgia in the literature of the Jewish diaspora.
• Narratives of displacement and identity in the African diaspora.
• The portrayal of the Indian diaspora in contemporary literature.
• Cross-cultural conflicts and identity negotiations in Korean diaspora literature.
• The influence of colonial legacies on Caribbean diaspora writers.
• The concept of “home” and “belonging” in Palestinian diaspora literature.
• Exploring the Irish diaspora through literary expressions of exile and return.
• The impact of migration on gender roles within Middle Eastern diaspora communities.
• Representation of the Vietnamese diaspora in American literature.
• Transnationalism and its effects on language and narrative in Chicano/Chicana literature.
• Dual identities and the search for authenticity in Italian-American diaspora writing.
• The evolution of cultural identity in second-generation diaspora authors.
• Comparative analysis of diaspora literature from former Yugoslav countries.
• The depiction of generational conflicts in Chinese-American diaspora literature.
• The use of folklore and mythology in reconnecting with cultural roots in Filipino diaspora literature.
• The representation of trauma and recovery in the literature of the Armenian diaspora.
• Intersectionality and feminism in African diaspora literature.
• The role of culinary culture in narratives of the Indian diaspora.
• Identity politics and the struggle for cultural preservation in diaspora literature from Latin America.
• The portrayal of exile and diaspora in modern Jewish Russian literature.
• The impact of globalization on diaspora identities as reflected in literature.
• Language hybridity and innovation in Anglophone Caribbean diaspora literature.
• Literary portrayals of the challenges faced by refugees in European diaspora communities.
• The influence of remittances and transnational ties on Filipino diaspora literature.
• The use of magical realism to express diasporic experiences in Latin American literature.
• The effects of assimilation and cultural retention in Greek diaspora literature.
• The role of digital media in shaping the narratives of contemporary diasporas.
• The depiction of the African American return diaspora in literature.
• Challenges of integration and discrimination in Muslim diaspora literature in Western countries.
• The portrayal of Soviet diaspora communities in post-Cold War literature.
• The narratives of return and reintegration in post-colonial diaspora literatures.
• The influence of historical events on the literature of the Korean War diaspora.
• The role of diaspora literature in shaping national policies on immigration.
• Identity crisis and cultural negotiation in French-Algerian diaspora literature.
• The impact of diaspora on the evolution of national literatures.
• Literary exploration of transracial adoption in American diaspora literature.
• The exploration of queer identities in global diaspora communities.
• The influence of the digital age on the literary expression of diaspora experiences.
• Themes of loss and alienation in Canadian diaspora literature.
• The role of literature in documenting the experiences of the Syrian diaspora.
• The role of the supernatural in the works of Shakespeare.
• The portrayal of women in Victorian novels.
• The influence of the Romantic poets on modern environmental literature.
• The depiction of poverty and social class in Charles Dickens’ novels.
• The evolution of the narrative form in British novels from the 18th to the 20th century.
• Themes of war and peace in post-World War II British poetry.
• The impact of colonialism on British literature during the Empire.
• The role of the Byronic hero in Lord Byron’s works and its influence on subsequent literature.
• The critique of human rights in the plays of Harold Pinter.
• The representation of race and ethnicity in post-colonial British literature.
• The influence of Gothic elements in the novels of the Brontë sisters.
• Modernism and its discontents in the works of Virginia Woolf and T.S. Eliot.
• The treatment of love and marriage in Jane Austen’s novels.
• The use of irony and satire in Jonathan Swift’s writings.
• The evolution of the tragic hero from Shakespeare to modern plays.
• Literary depictions of the British countryside in poetry and prose.
• The rise of feminist literature in England from Mary Wollstonecraft to the present.
• The portrayal of children and childhood in Lewis Carroll’s works.
• Analyzing the quest motif in British Arthurian literature.
• The influence of the Industrial Revolution on English literature.
• Themes of alienation and isolation in the novels of D.H. Lawrence.
• The representation of religious doubt and faith in the poetry of John Donne and George Herbert.
• The role of espionage and national identity in British spy novels.
• Literary responses to the Irish Troubles in 20th-century British literature.
• The evolution of comic and satirical plays in British theatre from Ben Jonson to Tom Stoppard.
• The treatment of death and mourning in the works of Emily Dickinson and Christina Rossetti.
• Comparative study of myth and mythology in the works of William Blake and Ted Hughes.
• The depiction of the British Empire and its legacies in contemporary British literature.
• The role of landscape and environment in shaping the novels of Thomas Hardy.
• The influence of music and poetry on the lyrical ballads of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
• The impact of technology on society as depicted in the novels of Aldous Huxley.
• The critique of societal norms and manners in Oscar Wilde’s plays.
• Literary explorations of mental illness in the early 20th century.
• The intersection of literature and science in the works of H.G. Wells.
• The role of the sea in British literature: From Shakespeare’s tempests to Joseph Conrad’s voyages.
• The impact of Brexit on contemporary British literature.
• Themes of exile and displacement in the poetry of W.H. Auden.
• The influence of American culture on post-war British literature.
• The role of the detective novel in British literature, from Sherlock Holmes to contemporary works.
• The portrayal of the “New Woman” in late 19th-century English literature.
• The evolution of feminist thought in literature from the 19th century to the present.
• Analysis of the portrayal of women in dystopian literature.
• Intersectionality and its representation in contemporary feminist texts.
• The role of women in shaping modernist literature.
• Feminist critique of traditional gender roles in fairy tales and folklore.
• The portrayal of female agency in graphic novels and comics.
• The influence of second-wave feminism on literature of the 1960s and 1970s.
• Postcolonial feminism in the works of authors from Africa and the Caribbean.
• The depiction of motherhood in feminist literature across cultures.
• The impact of feminist theory on the analysis of classical literature.
• Ecofeminism: exploring the link between ecology and gender in literature.
• Feminist perspectives on sexuality and desire in literature.
• The intersection of feminism and disability in literary texts.
• The role of the female gothic in understanding women’s oppression and empowerment.
• Representation of transgender and non-binary characters in feminist literature.
• Feminism and the critique of capitalism in literary works.
• The representation of women in science fiction and fantasy genres.
• Analysis of domesticity and the private sphere in 19th-century literature.
• Feminist reinterpretations of mythological figures and stories.
• The role of women in revolutionary narratives and political literature.
• Feminist analysis of the body and corporeality in literature.
• The portrayal of female friendships and solidarity in novels.
• The influence of feminist literature on contemporary pop culture.
• Gender and power dynamics in the works of Shakespeare from a feminist perspective.
• The impact of digital media on feminist literary criticism.
• Feminist literary responses to global crises and conflicts.
• Queer feminism and literature: Exploring texts that intersect gender, sexuality, and feminist theory.
• The portrayal of women in wartime literature from a feminist viewpoint.
• Feminist poetry movements and their contribution to literary history.
• The influence of feminist literary theory on teaching literature in academic settings.
• Feminist analysis of women’s voices in oral narratives and storytelling traditions.
• Representation of women in the detective and mystery genres.
• The use of satire and humor in feminist literature to challenge societal norms.
• Feminist perspectives on religious texts and their interpretations.
• The critique of marriage and relationships in feminist novels.
• Women’s narratives in the digital age: Blogs, social media, and literature.
• Feminist literature as a tool for social change and activism.
• The influence of feminist literature on legal and social policy reforms.
• Gender roles in children’s literature: A feminist critique.
• The role of feminist literature in redefining beauty standards and body image.
• The evolution of the Gothic novel from the 18th century to contemporary Gothic fiction.
• The representation of the sublime and the terrifying in Gothic literature.
• The role of haunted landscapes in Gothic narratives.
• Psychological horror vs. supernatural horror in Gothic literature.
• The portrayal of madness in classic Gothic novels.
• The influence of Gothic literature on modern horror films.
• Themes of isolation and alienation in Gothic fiction.
• The use of architecture as a symbol of psychological state in Gothic literature.
• Gender roles and the portrayal of women in Victorian Gothic novels.
• The revival of Gothic elements in 21st-century young adult literature.
• The depiction of villains and anti-heroes in Gothic stories.
• Comparative analysis of European and American Gothic literature.
• The intersection of Gothic literature and romanticism.
• The influence of religious symbolism and themes in Gothic narratives.
• Gothic elements in the works of contemporary authors like Stephen King and Anne Rice.
• The role of curses and prophecies in Gothic storytelling.
• Gothic literature as social and cultural critique.
• The representation of death and the afterlife in Gothic novels.
• The use of dual personalities in Gothic literature.
• The impact of Gothic literature on fashion and visual arts.
• The role of secrecy and suspense in creating the Gothic atmosphere.
• The depiction of the monstrous and the grotesque in Gothic texts.
• Exploring the Gothic in graphic novels and comics.
• The motif of the journey in Gothic literature.
• The portrayal of science and experimentation in Gothic stories.
• Gothic elements in children’s literature.
• The role of nature and the natural world in Gothic narratives.
• Themes of inheritance and the burden of the past in Gothic novels.
• The influence of Gothic literature on the development of detective and mystery genres.
• The portrayal of patriarchal society and its discontents in Gothic fiction.
• The Gothic and its relation to postcolonial literature.
• The use of folklore and myth in Gothic narratives.
• The narrative structure and techniques in Gothic literature.
• The role of the supernatural in defining the Gothic genre.
• Gothic literature as a reflection of societal anxieties during different historical periods.
• The motif of entrapment and escape in Gothic stories.
• Comparative study of Gothic literature and dark romanticism.
• The use of setting as a character in Gothic narratives.
• The evolution of the ghost story within Gothic literature.
• The function of mirrors and doubling in Gothic texts.
• The portrayal of traditional spiritual beliefs in Indigenous literature.
• The impact of colonization on Indigenous narratives and storytelling.
• Analysis of language revitalization efforts through Indigenous literature.
• Indigenous feminist perspectives in contemporary literature.
• The role of land and environment in Indigenous storytelling.
• Depictions of family and community in Indigenous novels.
• The intersection of Indigenous literature and modernist themes.
• The representation of cultural trauma and resilience in Indigenous poetry.
• The use of oral traditions in modern Indigenous writing.
• Indigenous perspectives on sovereignty and autonomy in literary texts.
• The role of Indigenous literature in national reconciliation processes.
• Contemporary Indigenous literature as a form of political activism.
• The influence of Indigenous languages on narrative structure and poetics.
• The depiction of urban Indigenous experiences in literature.
• Analysis of Indigenous science fiction and speculative fiction.
• The portrayal of intergenerational trauma and healing in Indigenous stories.
• The role of mythology and folklore in contemporary Indigenous literature.
• Indigenous authors and the global literary market.
• The use of non-linear narratives in Indigenous storytelling.
• Comparative study of Indigenous literatures from different continents.
• The portrayal of Indigenous identities in children’s and young adult literature.
• Representation of gender and sexuality in Indigenous literature.
• The role of art and imagery in Indigenous narratives.
• The influence of non-Indigenous readerships on the publication of Indigenous texts.
• Environmental justice themes in Indigenous literature.
• The depiction of historical events and their impacts in Indigenous novels.
• Indigenous literature as a tool for education and cultural preservation.
• The dynamics of translation in bringing Indigenous stories to a wider audience.
• The treatment of non-human entities and their personification in Indigenous stories.
• The influence of Indigenous storytelling techniques on contemporary cinema.
• Indigenous authorship and intellectual property rights.
• The impact of awards and recognitions on Indigenous literary careers.
• Analysis of Indigenous autobiographies and memoirs.
• The role of mentorship and community support in the development of Indigenous writers.
• Comparative analysis of traditional and contemporary forms of Indigenous poetry.
• The effect of digital media on the dissemination of Indigenous stories.
• Indigenous resistance and survival narratives in the face of cultural assimilation.
• The role of Indigenous literature in shaping cultural policies.
• Exploring hybrid identities through Indigenous literature.
• The representation of Indigenous spiritual practices in modern novels.
• The application of deconstruction in contemporary literary analysis.
• The impact of feminist theory on the interpretation of classic literature.
• Marxism and its influence on the critique of 21st-century novels.
• The role of psychoanalytic theory in understanding character motivations and narrative structures.
• Postcolonial theory and its application to modern diaspora literature.
• The relevance of structuralism in today’s literary studies.
• The intersection of queer theory and literature.
• The use of ecocriticism to interpret environmental themes in literature.
• Reader-response theory and its implications for understanding audience engagement.
• The influence of New Historicism on the interpretation of historical novels.
• The application of critical race theory in analyzing literature by authors of color.
• The role of biographical criticism in studying authorial intent.
• The impact of digital humanities on literary studies.
• The application of narrative theory in the study of non-linear storytelling.
• The critique of capitalism using cultural materialism in contemporary literature.
• The evolution of feminist literary criticism from the second wave to the present.
• Hermeneutics and the philosophy of interpretation in literature.
• The study of semiotics in graphic novels and visual literature.
• The role of myth criticism in understanding modern reinterpretations of ancient stories.
• Comparative literature and the challenges of cross-cultural interpretations.
• The impact of globalization on postcolonial literary theories.
• The application of disability studies in literary analysis.
• Memory studies and its influence on the interpretation of narrative time.
• The influence of phenomenology on character analysis in novels.
• The role of orientalism in the depiction of the East in Western literature.
• The relevance of Bakhtin’s theories on dialogism and the carnivalesque in contemporary media.
• The implications of translation studies for interpreting multilingual texts.
• The use of animal studies in literature to critique human-animal relationships.
• The role of affect theory in understanding emotional responses to literature.
• The critique of imperialism and nationalism in literature using postcolonial theories.
• The implications of intersectionality in feminist literary criticism.
• The application of Freudian concepts to the analysis of horror and Gothic literature.
• The use of genre theory in classifying emerging forms of digital literature.
• The critique of linguistic imperialism in postcolonial literature.
• The use of performance theory in the study of drama and poetry readings.
• The relevance of Antonio Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony in literary studies.
• The examination of space and place in urban literature using spatial theory.
• The impact of surveillance culture on contemporary narrative forms.
• The application of chaos theory to the analysis of complex narrative structures.
• The role of allegory in political and religious texts through historical and contemporary lenses.
• Adaptation theory and the translation of literary narratives into film.
• The role of the director as an interpreter of literary texts in cinema.
• Comparative analysis of narrative techniques in novels and their film adaptations.
• The impact of film adaptations on the reception of classic literature.
• The portrayal of historical events in literature and film.
• The influence of screenplay structure on literary narrative forms.
• The representation of gender roles in book-to-film adaptations.
• The intertextuality between film scripts and their source novels.
• The use of visual symbolism in films adapted from literary works.
• The portrayal of psychological depth in characters from literature to film.
• The adaptation of non-fiction literature into documentary filmmaking.
• The impact of the author’s biographical elements on film adaptations.
• The role of music and sound in enhancing narrative elements from literature in films.
• The evolution of the horror genre from literature to film.
• The representation of science fiction themes in literature and their adaptation to cinema.
• The influence of fan culture on the adaptation process.
• The depiction of dystopian societies in books and their cinematic counterparts.
• The challenges of translating poetry into visual narrative.
• The portrayal of magical realism in literature and film.
• The depiction of race and ethnicity in adaptations of multicultural literature.
• The role of the viewer’s perspective in literature vs. film.
• The effectiveness of dialogue adaptation from literary dialogues to film scripts.
• The impact of setting and locale in film adaptations of regional literature.
• The transformation of the mystery genre from page to screen.
• The adaptation of children’s literature into family films.
• The narrative construction of heroism in literary epics and their film adaptations.
• The influence of graphic novels on visual storytelling in films.
• The adaptation of classical mythology in modern cinema.
• The ethics of adapting real-life events and biographies into film.
• The role of cinematic techniques in depicting internal monologues from novels.
• The comparison of thematic depth in short stories and their film adaptations.
• The portrayal of alienation in modern literature and independent films.
• The adaptation of stage plays into feature films.
• The challenges of adapting experimental literature into conventional film formats.
• The representation of time and memory in literature and film.
• The adaptation of young adult novels into film franchises.
• The role of directorial vision in reinterpreting a literary work for the screen.
• The cultural impact of blockbuster adaptations of fantasy novels.
• The influence of cinematic adaptations on contemporary novel writing.
• The role of censorship in the adaptation of controversial literary works to film.
• The portrayal of the American Revolution in contemporary historical novels.
• The impact of the World Wars on European literary expression.
• The depiction of the Victorian era in British novels.
• Literary responses to the Great Depression in American literature.
• The representation of the Russian Revolution in 20th-century literature.
• The influence of the Harlem Renaissance on African American literature.
• The role of literature in documenting the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.
• The depiction of colonialism and its aftermath in African literature.
• The influence of historical events on the development of national literatures.
• The role of literary works in shaping public memory of historical tragedies.
• The portrayal of the Holocaust in European and American literature.
• The use of allegory to critique political regimes in 20th-century literature.
• The depiction of indigenous histories and resistances in literature.
• The representation of the French Revolution in romantic literature.
• Literature as a tool for national identity construction in postcolonial states.
• The portrayal of historical figures in biographical novels.
• The influence of the Cold War on spy novels and political thrillers.
• The impact of migration and diaspora on historical narratives in literature.
• The role of the ancient world in shaping modern historical novels.
• The depiction of the Industrial Revolution and its impacts in literature.
• The role of women in historical novels from the feminist perspective.
• The representation of religious conflicts and their historical impacts in literature.
• The influence of myth and folklore on historical narrative constructions.
• The depiction of the American West in literature and its historical inaccuracies.
• The role of literature in the preservation of endangered languages and cultures.
• The impact of digital archives on the study of literature and history.
• The use of literature to explore counterfactual histories.
• The portrayal of piracy and maritime history in adventure novels.
• Literary depictions of the fall of empires and their historical contexts.
• The impact of archaeological discoveries on historical fiction.
• The influence of the Spanish Civil War on global literary movements.
• The depiction of social upheavals and their impacts on literary production.
• The role of literature in documenting the environmental history of regions.
• The portrayal of non-Western historical narratives in global literature.
• The impact of historical laws and policies on the lives of characters in novels.
• The influence of public health crises and pandemics on literature.
• The representation of trade routes and their historical significance in literature.
• The depiction of revolutions and uprisings in Latin American literature.
• The role of historical texts in the reimagining of genre literature.
• The influence of postmodernism on the interpretation of historical narratives in literature.
• The exploration of existential themes in modern literature.
• The representation of Platonic ideals in Renaissance literature.
• Nietzschean perspectives in the works of postmodern authors.
• The influence of Stoicism on characters’ development in classical literature.
• The portrayal of ethical dilemmas in war novels.
• The philosophical underpinnings of utopian and dystopian literature.
• The role of absurdism in the narratives of 20th-century plays.
• The concept of ‘the Other’ in literature, from a phenomenological viewpoint.
• The depiction of free will and determinism in science fiction.
• The influence of feminist philosophy on contemporary literature.
• The exploration of Socratic dialogue within literary texts.
• The reflection of Cartesian dualism in Gothic novels.
• Buddhist philosophy in the works of Eastern and Western authors.
• The impact of existentialism on the characterization in novels by Camus and Sartre.
• The use of allegory to explore philosophical concepts in medieval literature.
• The portrayal of hedonism and asceticism in biographical fiction.
• The exploration of phenomenology in autobiographical narratives.
• Literary critiques of capitalism through Marxist philosophy.
• The relationship between language and reality in post-structuralist texts.
• The depiction of nihilism in Russian literature.
• The intersection of Confucian philosophy and traditional Asian narratives.
• The exploration of human nature in literature from a Hobbesian perspective.
• The influence of pragmatism on American literary realism.
• The portrayal of justice and injustice in novels centered on legal dilemmas.
• The exploration of existential risk and future ethics in speculative fiction.
• The philosophical examination of memory and identity in memoirs and autobiographies.
• The role of ethics in the portrayal of artificial intelligence in literature.
• The literary interpretation of Schopenhauer’s philosophy of pessimism.
• The reflection of Epicurean philosophy in modern travel literature.
• The influence of Kantian ethics on the narratives of moral conflict.
• The representation of libertarian philosophies in dystopian literature.
• The philosophical discourse on beauty and aesthetics in literature.
• The exploration of virtue ethics through historical biographical novels.
• The philosophical implications of transhumanism in cyberpunk literature.
• The use of literature to explore the philosophical concept of the sublime.
• The narrative structures of temporality and eternity in philosophical novels.
• The impact of neo-Platonism on the symbolism in Renaissance poetry.
• The portrayal of existential isolation in urban contemporary novels.
• The reflection of utilitarianism in social and political novels.
• The exploration of ethical ambiguity in spy and thriller genres.
• The portrayal of psychological disorders in modernist literature.
• Exploration of trauma and its narrative representation in post-war novels.
• The use of stream of consciousness as a method to explore cognitive processes in literature.
• The psychological impact of isolation in dystopian literature.
• The depiction of childhood and development in coming-of-age novels.
• Psychological manipulation in the narrative structure of mystery and thriller novels.
• The role of psychological resilience in characters surviving extreme conditions.
• The influence of Freudian theory on the interpretation of dreams in literature.
• The use of psychological archetypes in the development of mythological storytelling.
• The portrayal of psychological therapy and its impacts in contemporary fiction.
• Analysis of cognitive dissonance through characters’ internal conflicts in novels.
• The exploration of the Jungian shadow in villain characters.
• Psychological profiling of protagonists in crime fiction.
• The impact of societal expectations on mental health in historical novels.
• The role of psychology in understanding unreliable narrators.
• The depiction of addiction and recovery in autobiographical works.
• The exploration of grief and mourning in poetry.
• Psychological theories of love as depicted in romantic literature.
• The narrative portrayal of dissociative identity disorder in literature.
• The use of psychological suspense in Gothic literature.
• The representation of anxiety and depression in young adult fiction.
• Psychological effects of war on soldiers as depicted in military fiction.
• The role of psychoanalysis in interpreting symbolic content in fairy tales.
• The psychological impact of technological change as seen in science fiction.
• The exploration of existential crises in philosophical novels.
• The depiction of social psychology principles in literature about cults and mass movements.
• Psychological aspects of racial and gender identity in contemporary literature.
• The representation of the subconscious in surreal and absurd literature.
• The application of psychological resilience theories in survival literature.
• The portrayal of parental influence on child development in family sagas.
• Psychological theories of aging as explored in literature about the elderly.
• The depiction of sensory processing disorders in fictional characters.
• Psychological effects of immigration and cultural assimilation in diaspora literature.
• The role of narrative therapy in autobiographical writing and memoirs.
• The portrayal of obsessive-compulsive disorder in narrative fiction.
• Psychological implications of virtual realities in cyberpunk literature.
• The representation of psychopathy in anti-hero characters.
• The exploration of group dynamics and leadership in epic tales.
• Psychological interpretations of magical realism as a reflection of cultural psyche.
• The use of literature in the therapeutic practice and understanding of mental health issues.
• The influence of Christian theology on medieval epic poems.
• The role of allegory in interpreting medieval morality plays.
• The depiction of chivalry and courtly love in Arthurian legends.
• Comparative analysis of the heroic ideals in Beowulf and the Song of Roland.
• The impact of the Black Death on the themes of medieval poetry and prose.
• The portrayal of women in medieval romances.
• The use of dreams as a narrative device in medieval literature.
• The representation of the otherworldly and supernatural in medieval texts.
• The function of medieval bestiaries in literature and their symbolic meanings.
• The influence of the Crusades on medieval literature across Europe.
• The evolution of the troubadour and trouvère traditions in medieval France.
• The depiction of feudalism and social hierarchy in medieval narratives.
• The role of satire and humor in the Canterbury Tales.
• The impact of monastic life on medieval literary production.
• The use of vernacular languages in medieval literature versus Latin texts.
• The portrayal of sin and redemption in Dante’s Divine Comedy.
• The literary responses to the Mongol invasions in medieval Eurasian literature.
• The development of allegorical interpretation in medieval biblical exegesis.
• The influence of Islamic culture on medieval European literature.
• The representation of Jewish communities in medieval Christian literature.
• The concept of kingship and rule in Anglo-Saxon literature.
• The use of landscape and nature in medieval Celtic stories.
• The role of pilgrimage in shaping medieval narrative structures.
• The depiction of witchcraft and magic in medieval texts.
• Gender roles and their subversion in Middle English literature.
• The literary legacy of Charlemagne in medieval European epics.
• The portrayal of disability and disease in medieval literature.
• The use of relics and iconography in medieval religious writings.
• The medieval origins of modern fantasy literature tropes.
• The use of cryptography and secret messages in medieval romance literature.
• The influence of medieval astronomy and cosmology on literary works.
• The role of manuscript culture in preserving medieval literary texts.
• The depiction of Vikings in medieval English and Scandinavian literature.
• Medieval literary depictions of Byzantine and Ottoman interactions.
• The representation of sermons and homilies in medieval literature.
• The literary forms and functions of medieval liturgical drama.
• The influence of classical antiquity on medieval literary forms.
• The use of irony and parody in medieval fabliaux.
• The role of the troubadour poetry in the development of lyrical music traditions.
• The impact of medieval legal texts on contemporary narrative forms.
• The influence of urbanization on narrative form in Modernist literature.
• Stream of consciousness technique in the works of Virginia Woolf and James Joyce.
• The role of symbolism and imagery in T.S. Eliot’s poetry.
• The depiction of the World War I experience in Modernist novels.
• The impact of Freudian psychology on Modernist character development.
• The intersection of visual arts and narrative structure in Modernist poetry.
• The critique of imperialism and colonialism in Modernist texts.
• The representation of gender and sexuality in Modernist literature.
• The influence of technology and industrialization on Modernist themes.
• The use of fragmentation and non-linear narratives in Modernist fiction.
• The evolution of the novel form in Modernist literature.
• The role of existential philosophy in shaping Modernist themes.
• The critique of traditional values and societal norms in Modernist works.
• The portrayal of alienation and isolation in the Modernist era.
• The impact of Jazz music on the rhythm and structure of Modernist poetry.
• The role of expatriate writers in the development of Modernist literature.
• The influence of Russian literature on Modernist authors.
• The exploration of time and memory in Modernist narrative techniques.
• The depiction of urban alienation and anonymity in Modernist literature.
• The role of patronage and literary salons in the promotion of Modernist art.
• The impact of cinema on Modernist narrative techniques.
• The representation of religious doubt and spiritual crisis in Modernist texts.
• The influence of Cubism on the form and structure of Modernist poetry.
• The use of irony and satire in the critiques of Modernist society.
• The interplay between Modernist literature and the emerging psychoanalytic discourse.
• The depiction of the breakdown of language and communication in Modernist works.
• The role of the anti-hero in Modernist novels.
• The impact of existential despair on the themes of Modernist literature.
• The representation of the New Woman in Modernist fiction.
• The influence of Eastern philosophies on Modernist thought and writings.
• The critique of materialism and consumer culture in Modernist literature.
• The role of myth and narrative reconfiguration in Modernist poetry.
• The depiction of war trauma and its aftermath in Modernist literature.
• The representation of racial and ethnic identities in Modernist works.
• The impact of avant-garde movements on Modernist literary forms.
• The influence of European intellectual movements on American Modernist writers.
• The role of the flâneur in Modernist literature and urban exploration.
• The exploration of linguistic innovation in the works of Gertrude Stein.
• The critique of historical progress in Modernist narratives.
• The impact of existentialism on the depiction of the absurd in Modernist theatre.
• The representation of colonial impact on identity in postcolonial narratives.
• The role of language and power in postcolonial literature.
• The portrayal of gender and resistance in postcolonial women’s writings.
• The depiction of hybridity and cultural syncretism in postcolonial texts.
• The influence of native folklore and mythology in postcolonial storytelling.
• The critique of neocolonialism and globalization in contemporary postcolonial literature.
• The exploration of diaspora and migration in postcolonial narratives.
• The role of the subaltern voice in postcolonial literature.
• The impact of postcolonial theory on Western literary criticism.
• The representation of landscapes and spaces in postcolonial works.
• The portrayal of historical trauma and memory in postcolonial fiction.
• The exploration of identity and belonging in postcolonial children’s literature.
• The use of magical realism as a political tool in postcolonial literature.
• The depiction of urbanization and its effects in postcolonial cities.
• The role of religion in shaping postcolonial identities.
• The impact of apartheid and its aftermath in South African literature.
• The representation of indigenous knowledge systems in postcolonial texts.
• The critique of patriarchy in postcolonial narratives.
• The exploration of linguistic decolonization in postcolonial writing.
• The portrayal of conflict and reconciliation in postcolonial societies.
• The depiction of postcolonial resistance strategies in literature.
• The representation of climate change and environmental issues in postcolonial contexts.
• The role of education in postcolonial literature.
• The impact of tourism and exoticism on postcolonial identities.
• The exploration of economic disparities in postcolonial narratives.
• The representation of refugees and asylum seekers in postcolonial literature.
• The portrayal of political corruption and governance in postcolonial works.
• The depiction of cultural preservation and loss in postcolonial societies.
• The role of oral traditions in contemporary postcolonial literature.
• The portrayal of transnational identities in postcolonial fiction.
• The exploration of gender fluidity and sexuality in postcolonial texts.
• The depiction of labor migration and its effects in postcolonial literature.
• The role of the media in shaping postcolonial discourses.
• The impact of Western pop culture on postcolonial societies.
• The portrayal of intergenerational conflict in postcolonial families.
• The depiction of mental health issues in postcolonial contexts.
• The exploration of postcolonial futurism in African speculative fiction.
• The representation of native resistance against colonial forces in historical novels.
• The critique of linguistic imperialism in postcolonial education.
• The depiction of decolonization movements in postcolonial literature.
• The use of metafiction and narrative self-awareness in postmodern literature.
• The role of irony and playfulness in postmodern texts.
• The exploration of fragmented identities in postmodern novels.
• The deconstruction of traditional narrative structures in postmodern works.
• The representation of hyperreality and the simulation of reality in postmodern fiction.
• The critique of consumer culture and its influence on postmodern characters.
• The exploration of historiographic metafiction and the reinterpretation of history.
• The role of pastiche and intertextuality in postmodern literature.
• The depiction of paranoia and conspiracy in postmodern narratives.
• The portrayal of cultural relativism and the challenge to universal truths.
• The use of multimedia and digital influences in postmodern writing.
• The exploration of existential uncertainty in postmodern philosophy and literature.
• The role of gender and identity politics in postmodern texts.
• The depiction of postmodern urban landscapes and architecture in literature.
• The representation of globalization and its effects in postmodern novels.
• The portrayal of ecological crises and environmental concerns in postmodern fiction.
• The critique of scientific rationalism and technology in postmodern literature.
• The exploration of linguistic experimentation and its impact on narrative.
• The role of the anti-hero and flawed protagonists in postmodern stories.
• The depiction of social fragmentation and alienation in postmodern works.
• The representation of non-linear time and its effect on narrative perspective.
• The portrayal of the dissolution of boundaries between high and low culture.
• The use of parody and satire to critique political and social norms.
• The exploration of subjectivity and the breakdown of the authorial voice.
• The role of performance and spectacle in postmodern drama.
• The depiction of marginalization and minority voices in postmodern literature.
• The representation of the interplay between virtual and physical realities.
• The portrayal of ephemeral and transient experiences in postmodern texts.
• The critique of capitalism and neoliberal economics in postmodern narratives.
• The exploration of human relationships in the context of media saturation.
• The depiction of dystopian societies and their critiques of contemporary issues.
• The role of surreal and absurd elements in postmodern storytelling.
• The portrayal of cultural pastiches and their implications for identity formation.
• The exploration of narrative unreliability and ambiguous truths.
• The depiction of multiple realities and parallel universes in postmodern fiction.
• The representation of anarchism and resistance in postmodern literature.
• The critique of colonial narratives and their postmodern reevaluations.
• The exploration of therapeutic narratives in postmodern psychology and literature.
• The role of chance and randomness in the structure of postmodern plots.
• The portrayal of artistic and cultural decadence in postmodern settings.
• The impact of humanism on the themes and forms of Renaissance poetry.
• The influence of Renaissance art on the literature of the period.
• The role of court patronage in the development of literary forms during the Renaissance.
• The depiction of love and courtship in Shakespeare’s comedies.
• The use of classical myths in Renaissance drama.
• The portrayal of political power in the plays of Christopher Marlowe.
• The evolution of the sonnet form from Petrarch to Shakespeare.
• The representation of women in Renaissance literature and the role of gender.
• The impact of the Reformation on English literature during the Renaissance.
• The development of narrative prose during the Renaissance.
• The influence of Italian literature on English Renaissance writers.
• The role of allegory in Spenser’s The Faerie Queene .
• The depiction of the supernatural in Renaissance drama.
• The exploration of identity and self in Renaissance autobiographical writings.
• The rise of satire and its development during the English Renaissance.
• The concept of the tragic hero in Renaissance tragedy.
• The role of travel and exploration narratives in shaping Renaissance literature.
• The influence of Machiavellian philosophy on Renaissance literary characters.
• The representation of religious conflicts and sectarianism in Renaissance texts.
• The depiction of colonialism and its early impacts in Renaissance literature.
• The portrayal of the city and urban life in Renaissance literature.
• The use of rhetoric and persuasion in the sermons and speeches of the Renaissance.
• The depiction of friendship and societal bonds in Renaissance literature.
• The influence of Renaissance music on the poetic forms of the time.
• The role of magic and science in the literature of the Renaissance.
• The treatment of classical philosophy in Renaissance humanist literature.
• The representation of nature and the environment in pastoral literature.
• The depiction of courtly and peasant life in Renaissance drama.
• The influence of Renaissance literature on later literary movements.
• The portrayal of villains and their motivations in Renaissance plays.
• The development of printing technology and its impact on Renaissance literature.
• The role of language and dialect in the literature of the English Renaissance.
• The depiction of the New World in Renaissance travel literature.
• The exploration of moral and ethical issues in Renaissance philosophical writings.
• The impact of Spanish literature on the Renaissance literary scene.
• The role of soliloquies in deepening character development in Renaissance drama.
• The treatment of death and mortality in Renaissance poetry.
• The representation of court politics and intrigue in Renaissance historical plays.
• The development of comedic elements in Renaissance literature.
• The exploration of Renaissance literary criticism and its approaches to interpretation.
• The exploration of nature and the sublime in Romantic poetry.
• The role of the individual and personal emotion in Romantic literature.
• The impact of the French Revolution on Romantic literary themes.
• The representation of the Byronic hero in Romantic novels.
• The influence of Gothic elements on Romantic literature.
• The depiction of women and femininity in the works of Romantic poets.
• The role of imagination and creativity in Romantic theories of art and literature.
• The portrayal of childhood and innocence in Romantic literature.
• The influence of Eastern cultures on Romantic poetry and prose.
• The interplay between science and religion in Romantic texts.
• The Romantic fascination with death and the macabre.
• The depiction of landscapes and rural life in Romantic poetry.
• The role of folklore and mythology in shaping Romantic narratives.
• The impact of Romanticism on national identities across Europe.
• The exploration of exile and alienation in Romantic literature.
• The critique of industrialization and its social impacts in Romantic writing.
• The development of the historical novel in Romantic literature.
• The role of letters and correspondence in Romantic literary culture.
• The representation of revolutionary ideals and their disillusionment in Romantic texts.
• The exploration of human rights and liberty in Romantic works.
• The portrayal of artistic genius and its torments in Romantic literature.
• The depiction of friendship and romantic love in Romantic poetry.
• The influence of Romantic literature on the development of modern environmentalism.
• The role of music and its inspiration on Romantic poetry.
• The exploration of time and memory in Romantic literary works.
• The depiction of urban versus rural dichotomies in Romantic texts.
• The impact of Romanticism on later literary movements such as Symbolism and Decadence.
• The role of melancholy and introspection in Romantic poetry.
• The representation of dreams and visions in Romantic literature.
• The depiction of storms and natural disasters as metaphors in Romantic writing.
• The exploration of political reform and radicalism in Romantic works.
• The portrayal of the supernatural and its role in Romantic narratives.
• The influence of Romantic literature on the visual arts.
• The depiction of heroism and adventure in Romantic epics.
• The role of solitude and contemplation in Romantic poetry.
• The exploration of national folklore in the Romantic movement across different cultures.
• The critique of reason and rationality in favor of emotional intuition.
• The depiction of the quest for immortality and eternal youth in Romantic literature.
• The role of the pastoral and the picturesque in Romantic aesthetics.
• The exploration of spiritual and transcendental experiences in Romantic texts.
• The role of dystopian worlds in critiquing contemporary social issues.
• The portrayal of artificial intelligence and its ethical implications in science fiction.
• The evolution of space opera within science fiction literature.
• The depiction of alternate histories in fantasy literature and their cultural significance.
• The use of magic systems in fantasy novels as metaphors for real-world power dynamics.
• The representation of gender and sexuality in speculative fiction.
• The influence of scientific advancements on the development of science fiction themes.
• Environmentalism and ecocriticism in science fiction and fantasy narratives.
• The role of the hero’s journey in modern fantasy literature.
• The portrayal of utopias and their transformation into dystopias.
• The impact of post-apocalyptic settings on character development and moral choices.
• The exploration of virtual reality in science fiction and its implications for the future of society.
• The representation of alien cultures in science fiction and the critique of human ethnocentrism.
• The use of mythology and folklore in building fantasy worlds.
• The influence of cyberpunk culture on contemporary science fiction.
• The depiction of time travel and its impact on narrative structure and theme.
• The role of military science fiction in exploring warfare and peace.
• The portrayal of religious themes in science fiction and fantasy.
• The impact of fan fiction and its contributions to the science fiction and fantasy genres.
• The exploration of psychological themes through science fiction and fantasy narratives.
• The role of colonization in science fiction narratives.
• The impact of science fiction and fantasy literature on technological innovation.
• The depiction of societal collapse and reconstruction in speculative fiction.
• The role of language and linguistics in science fiction, such as in creating alien languages.
• The portrayal of non-human characters in fantasy literature and what they reveal about human nature.
• The use of science fiction in exploring philosophical concepts such as identity and consciousness.
• The representation of disabled characters in science fiction and fantasy.
• The influence of historical events on the development of fantasy literature.
• The critique of capitalism and corporate governance in dystopian science fiction.
• The role of political allegory in science fiction during the Cold War.
• The representation of indigenous peoples in fantasy settings.
• The impact of climate change on the settings and themes of speculative fiction.
• The exploration of bioethics and genetic modification in science fiction.
• The impact of globalization as seen through science fiction narratives.
• The role of women authors in shaping modern science fiction and fantasy.
• The exploration of sentient machines and the definition of life in science fiction.
• The use of archetypes in fantasy literature and their psychological implications.
• The narrative strategies used to build suspense and mystery in fantasy series.
• The influence of Eastern philosophies on Western science fiction.
• The portrayal of family and community in post-apocalyptic environments.
• The representation of the British Empire and colonialism in Victorian novels.
• The impact of the Industrial Revolution on the social landscape in Victorian literature.
• The depiction of gender roles and the domestic sphere in Victorian novels.
• The influence of Darwinian thought on Victorian characters and themes.
• The role of the Gothic tradition in Victorian literature.
• The portrayal of morality and ethics in the works of Charles Dickens.
• The exploration of class disparity and social mobility in Victorian fiction.
• The depiction of urban life and its challenges in Victorian literature.
• The role of realism in Victorian novels and its impact on literary form.
• The representation of mental illness and psychology in Victorian fiction.
• The critique of materialism and consumer culture in Victorian literature.
• The portrayal of children and childhood in Victorian narratives.
• The exploration of romanticism versus realism in Victorian poetry.
• The depiction of religious doubt and spiritual crises in Victorian texts.
• The role of women writers in the Victorian literary scene.
• The portrayal of the “New Woman” in late Victorian literature.
• The exploration of scientific progress and its ethical implications in Victorian works.
• The depiction of crime and punishment in Victorian detective fiction.
• The influence of aestheticism and decadence in late Victorian literature.
• The representation of imperial anxieties and racial theories in Victorian novels.
• The role of sensation novels in shaping Victorian popular culture.
• The portrayal of marriage and its discontents in Victorian literature.
• The depiction of rural life versus urbanization in Victorian narratives.
• The exploration of philanthropy and social reform in Victorian texts.
• The role of the supernatural and the occult in Victorian fiction.
• The portrayal of art and artists in Victorian literature.
• The representation of travel and exploration in Victorian novels.
• The depiction of the aristocracy and their decline in Victorian literature.
• The influence of newspapers and media on Victorian literary culture.
• The role of patriotism and national identity in Victorian writings.
• The exploration of the Victorian underworld in literature.
• The depiction of legal and judicial systems in Victorian fiction.
• The portrayal of addiction and vice in Victorian texts.
• The role of foreign settings in Victorian novels.
• The depiction of technological advancements in transportation in Victorian literature.
• The influence of French and Russian literary movements on Victorian authors.
• The role of epistolary form in Victorian novels.
• The portrayal of altruism and self-sacrifice in Victorian narratives.
• The depiction of servants and their roles in Victorian households.
• The exploration of colonial and postcolonial readings of Victorian texts.
• The role of translation in shaping the global reception of classic literary works.
• The impact of globalization on the development of contemporary world literature.
• Comparative analysis of national myths in literature across different cultures.
• The influence of postcolonial theory on the interpretation of world literature.
• The depiction of cross-cultural encounters and their implications in world novels.
• The role of exile and migration in shaping the themes of world literature.
• The representation of indigenous narratives in the global literary marketplace.
• The portrayal of urbanization in world literature and its impact on societal norms.
• The exploration of feminist themes across different cultural contexts in literature.
• The depiction of historical trauma and memory in literature from post-conflict societies.
• The role of magical realism in expressing political and social realities in Latin American literature.
• The exploration of identity and hybridity in diaspora literature from around the world.
• The impact of censorship and political repression on literary production in authoritarian regimes.
• Comparative study of the Gothic tradition in European and Latin American literature.
• The influence of religious texts on narrative structures and themes in world literature.
• The role of nature and the environment in shaping narrative forms in world literature.
• The exploration of time and memory in post-Soviet literature.
• The portrayal of love and marriage across different cultural contexts in world novels.
• The impact of technological changes on narrative forms and themes in world literature.
• The exploration of human rights issues through world literature.
• The depiction of war and peace in Middle Eastern literature.
• Comparative analysis of the tragic hero in Greek tragedy and Japanese Noh theater.
• The role of traditional folk stories in contemporary world literature.
• The influence of African oral traditions on modern African literature.
• The exploration of social justice and activism in world literature.
• The portrayal of children and childhood in world literature.
• The depiction of the supernatural and the uncanny in world literary traditions.
• The impact of colonial histories on contemporary literature in former colonies.
• The exploration of gender and sexuality in Scandinavian literature.
• The portrayal of disability and mental health in world literature.
• The role of food and cuisine in cultural identity as depicted in world literature.
• Comparative study of poetry from the Middle Eastern and Western traditions.
• The exploration of death and the afterlife in world religious texts and their literary influences.
• The portrayal of the artist and the creative process in world literature.
• The impact of economic crises on characters and plot development in world novels.
• The exploration of architectural spaces and their symbolism in world literature.
• The role of multilingualism and code-switching in narrative development in world literature.
• The depiction of aging and intergenerational relationships in world novels.
• The influence of classical Chinese literature on East Asian modern narratives.
• The role of the sea and maritime culture in world literary traditions.
• The portrayal of identity and self-discovery in YA literature.
• The representation of mental health issues in YA novels.
• The evolution of the coming-of-age narrative in modern YA fiction.
• The role of dystopian settings in YA literature as metaphors for adolescent struggles.
• The depiction of family dynamics and their impact on young protagonists.
• The treatment of romance and relationships in YA fiction.
• The exploration of LGBTQ+ themes and characters in YA literature.
• The impact of social media and technology on character development in YA novels.
• The portrayal of bullying and social exclusion in YA fiction.
• The representation of racial and cultural diversity in YA literature.
• The use of fantasy and supernatural elements to explore real-world issues in YA fiction.
• The role of friendship in character development and plot progression in YA novels.
• The depiction of resilience and personal growth in YA protagonists.
• The influence of YA literature on young readers’ attitudes towards social issues.
• The portrayal of disability and inclusivity in YA narratives.
• The role of sports and extracurricular activities in shaping YA characters.
• The exploration of historical events through YA historical fiction.
• The impact of war and conflict on young characters in YA literature.
• The depiction of academic pressure and its consequences in YA novels.
• The portrayal of artistic expression as a form of coping and identity in YA literature.
• The use of alternate realities and time travel in YA fiction to explore complex themes.
• The role of villainy and moral ambiguity in YA narratives.
• The exploration of environmental and ecological issues in YA literature.
• The portrayal of heroism and leadership in YA novels.
• The impact of grief and loss on YA characters and their journey.
• The depiction of addiction and recovery narratives in YA literature.
• The portrayal of economic disparities and their effects on young characters.
• The representation of non-traditional family structures in YA novels.
• The exploration of self-empowerment and activism in YA literature.
• The depiction of crime and justice in YA mystery and thriller genres.
• The role of mythology and folklore in crafting YA fantasy narratives.
• The portrayal of exile and migration in YA fiction.
• The impact of YA literature in promoting literacy and reading habits among teens.
• The exploration of gender roles and expectations in YA novels.
• The depiction of peer pressure and its influence on YA characters.
• The portrayal of escapism and adventure in YA fiction.
• The role of magical realism in conveying psychological and emotional truths in YA literature.
• The exploration of ethical dilemmas and moral choices in YA narratives.
• The depiction of the future and speculative technology in YA science fiction.
• The portrayal of societal norms and rebellion in YA dystopian novels.

We hope this comprehensive list of literature thesis topics empowers you to narrow down your choices and sparks your curiosity in a specific area of literary studies. With 1000 unique topics spread across 25 categories, from traditional to emerging fields, there is something here for every literary scholar. The diversity of topics not only reflects the dynamic nature of literature but also encompasses a range of perspectives and cultural backgrounds, ensuring that every student can find a topic that resonates deeply with their scholarly interests and personal passions. Utilize this resource to embark on a thought-provoking and intellectually rewarding thesis writing journey.

Literature and Thesis Topic Potential

Literature encompasses a vast and vibrant spectrum of themes and narrative techniques that mirror, critique, and reshape the complex world we live in. For students embarking on the challenging yet rewarding journey of thesis writing, delving into the multitude of literature thesis topics can unlock profound insights and present significant scholarly opportunities. This exploration is not merely an academic exercise; it is a deep dive into the human experience, offering a unique lens through which to view history, culture, and society. Engaging with literature in this way not only enhances one’s understanding of various literary genres and historical periods but also sharpens analytical, critical, and creative thinking skills.

Current Issues in Literature

One prevailing issue in contemporary literary studies is the exploration of identity and representation within literature. This includes examining how narratives portray race, gender, sexuality, and disability. The rise of identity politics has encouraged a reevaluation of canonical texts and a push to broaden the literary canon to include more diverse voices. Such studies challenge traditional narratives and open up discussions on power dynamics within literature.

Another significant issue is the impact of digital technology on literature. The digital age has introduced new forms of literature, such as hypertext fiction and digital poetry, which utilize the interactive capabilities of digital devices to create multifaceted narratives. This shift has led to new interpretations of authorship and readership, as the boundaries between the two blur in interactive media. Thesis topics might explore how these technological innovations have transformed narrative structures and themes or how they affect the psychological engagement of the reader.

Environmental literature has also emerged as a poignant area of study, especially in the context of growing global concerns about climate change and sustainability. This trend in literature reflects an urgent need to address the relationship between humanity and the natural world. Theses in this area could examine narratives that focus on ecological disasters, the anthropocene, or the role of non-human actors in literature, providing new insights into environmental ethics and awareness.

Recent Trends in Literature

The recent trend towards blending genres within literature has led to innovative narrative forms that defy conventional genre classifications. Works that fuse elements of science fiction, fantasy, and historical fiction challenge readers to engage with literature in new and complex ways. These hybrid genres often address contemporary issues through the lens of speculative or fantastical settings, offering fresh perspectives on familiar problems. Thesis topics in this area could explore how these blended genres comment on societal issues or how they represent historical narratives through a fantastical lens.

Another noteworthy trend is the increasing prominence of autobiographical and memoir writing, which highlights personal narratives and individual experiences. This shift towards personal storytelling reflects a broader societal interest in authentic and individualized narratives, often exploring themes of identity, trauma, and resilience. Students could develop thesis topics that analyze how these works serve as both personal catharsis and a social commentary, or how they use narrative techniques to blur the lines between fiction and non-fiction.

Global literature, written in or translated into English, has expanded the geographical boundaries of literary analysis and introduced a plethora of voices and stories from around the world. This trend not only diversifies the range of literary works available but also introduces new themes and narrative strategies influenced by different cultural backgrounds. Thesis research could investigate how global literature addresses universal themes through culturally specific contexts, or how it challenges Western literary paradigms.

Future Directions in Literature

As literature continues to evolve, one of the exciting future directions is the potential integration of literary studies with emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning. These technologies could lead to new forms of literary creation and analysis, where AI-generated literature becomes a field of study, or where machine learning is used to uncover patterns in large volumes of text. Thesis topics might explore the ethical implications of AI in literature, the authenticity of AI-authored texts, or how AI can be used to interpret complex literary theories.

Another future direction is the increasing intersection between literature and other disciplines such as neuroscience, psychology, and anthropology. This interdisciplinary approach can deepen understanding of how literature affects the human brain, influences behavior, or reflects cultural evolution. Students could develop theses that examine the neurocognitive impacts of reading fiction, or how literary studies can contribute to our understanding of human culture and societal development.

Finally, the role of literature in addressing and influencing social and political issues is likely to increase. As global challenges like migration, inequality, and climate change persist, literature that addresses these issues not only provides commentary but also raises awareness and fosters empathy. Future thesis topics could focus on how literature serves as a tool for social justice, how it influences public policy, or how it helps shape collective memory and identity in times of crisis.

The exploration of literature thesis topics offers students a panorama of possibilities for deep academic inquiry and personal growth. By engaging deeply with literature, students not only fulfill their academic objectives but also gain insights that transcend scholarly pursuits. This exploration enriches personal perspectives and fosters a profound appreciation for the power of words and stories. The pursuit of literature thesis topics is thus not merely academic—it is a journey into the heart of human experience, offering endless opportunities for discovery and impact.

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Selecting a Research Topic: Overview

• Refine your topic
• Background information & facts
• Writing help

Here are some resources to refer to when selecting a topic and preparing to write a paper:

• MIT Writing and Communication Center "Providing free professional advice about all types of writing and speaking to all members of the MIT community."
• Search Our Collections Find books about writing. Search by subject for: english language grammar; report writing handbooks; technical writing handbooks
• Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation Online version of the book that provides examples and tips on grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and other writing rules.
• Select a topic

Choosing an interesting research topic is your first challenge. Here are some tips:

• Choose a topic that you are interested in! The research process is more relevant if you care about your topic.
• If your topic is too broad, you will find too much information and not be able to focus.
• Background reading can help you choose and limit the scope of your topic. 
• Review the guidelines on topic selection outlined in your assignment.  Ask your professor or TA for suggestions.
• Refer to lecture notes and required texts to refresh your knowledge of the course and assignment.
• Talk about research ideas with a friend.  S/he may be able to help focus your topic by discussing issues that didn't occur to you at first.
• WHY did you choose the topic?  What interests you about it?  Do you have an opinion about the issues involved?
• WHO are the information providers on this topic?  Who might publish information about it?  Who is affected by the topic?  Do you know of organizations or institutions affiliated with the topic?
• WHAT are the major questions for this topic?  Is there a debate about the topic?  Are there a range of issues and viewpoints to consider?
• WHERE is your topic important: at the local, national or international level?  Are there specific places affected by the topic?
• WHEN is/was your topic important?  Is it a current event or an historical issue?  Do you want to compare your topic by time periods?

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Choosing a Research Topic Reading Literature Research Paper Research Tips

Choosing the Research Topic and Reading Its Literature

by Puneet Mangla on March 16, 2022

Table of Contents

Choosing your research topic, find something that excites you and is relevant to the community, try to find a domain where the literature is not very crowded, work with your advisor or mentors, avoid compute-extensive projects, identify low-hanging fruits and potential gaps, analysis and understanding as research topics, identify applications, reading the literature, survey and analysis papers, github compilations, conference and workshop proceedings, online tools and platforms, reading strategy, citation information.

Are you starting with your first research project? Do you want to publish a research paper but don’t know where or how to start? A few years back, I was in a similar position: I was completely new to machine learning research and had no idea where and how to begin.

Fortunately, I had the opportunity to be a part of the machine learning and vision group ( Lab1055 ). With the proper guidance, several setbacks, and learning along the way, I have published my research in an ICCV Workshop. The learnings and principles I developed as a member of Lab1055 have helped me pursue research and publish in vision conferences, workshops, and journals (e.g., ECCV, WACV, ECML, PRL, CVPR, etc.).

Through this mini-blog series, I want to share these learnings and principles. I hope that these will help you hack your way into research and get something fruitful from it.

In this series, you will learn how to publish novel research.

This lesson is the first in a 5-part series on How to Publish Novel Research :

• Choosing the Research Topic and Reading Its Literature (this tutorial)

Ideating the Solution and Planning Experiments

• Planning and Writing a Research Paper
• Planning Next Steps When Things Don’t Work Out
• Ensuring Your Research Stays Visible and General Tips

To learn how to choose your research topic and go about reading its literature (Figure 1), just keep reading.

Nowadays, it’s hard to think of any problem where machine learning has not been applied. Everything seems to be virtually solved. And that’s why choosing a research topic in this vast space can be a tricky and overwhelming task. Here are a few ideas to help you narrow down your search.

Without a doubt, the topic should pique your interest. However, not every topic that excites you can benefit the community. As a result, one should look for something that interests them and is relevant to the community. For example, if image classification piques your interest, you should try few-shot, zero-shot, unsupervised, self-supervised, or domain-generalized classification. These topics gain more attention in the community as they model real-world constraints on available training data, unlike traditional supervised classification, which assumes an abundance of data. One method for identifying these trending or relevant topics is to conduct a topic-by-topic analysis of recent AI conferences. For example, Figure 2 shows the top 50 keywords of ICLR 2021 submissions. It indicates that topics such as GNNs, meta-learning, few-shot, unsupervised, supervised, and robustness are more popular, relevant, and trending in the community than topics like classification, CNNs, and so on.

When the literature is crowded, trying to be novel in your research becomes challenging and competitive. Crowded literature is more than just too many papers to read; it reflects how actively the community is working or publishing on similar topics. And given the rate at which these new works are published, you are likely to be scooped by them in terms of results or novelty.

I strongly advise you to collaborate with your mentors (PhDs, Research Scientists, and so on), as well as any advisors, to identify promising and relevant topics. Working on something that intersects with your advisor’s or mentor’s expertise can greatly increase your chances of producing novel research. With their expertise and research experience, you can receive appropriate guidance and feedback to help you improve and publish your work.

Note how much computation is typically required to solve the topic. Avoid those that necessitate intensive computation unavailable or unaffordable. This is to prevent any disappointment later in the project. For example, someone working on large-scale image generation should keep track of the computation required to generate higher-resolution images. This is a standard and fundamental experiment in this literature.

Identifying low-hanging fruits in the literature is probably one of the simplest ways to choose your topic. Low-hanging fruits are research topics that are simple to work upon but go unnoticed. These could be as simple as

• Mancini et al. (2020) are the first to combine Zero-shot learning and Domain Generalization and propose a simple curriculum-based class/domain mixup strategy to train models that generalize under both domains’ semantic shift.
• Ganea et al. (2021) present the first incremental approach to few-shot instance segmentation: iMTFA, which learns discriminative embeddings for object instances merged into class representatives.
• Chauhan et al. (2020) first propose studying the topic of few-shot graph classification in graph neural networks (GNNs) to recognize unseen classes, given limited labeled graph examples.
• Deng et al. (2021) first present a simple and effective transformer-based framework for visual grounding. Their TransVG method outperforms state-of-the-arts that rely on a complex module with manually designed mechanisms to perform the query reasoning and multi-modal fusion.
• Hendrycks et al. (2021) propose four new real-world distribution shift datasets consisting of changes in image style, image blurriness, geographic location, camera operation, etc.
• Gulrajani and Lopez-Paz (2020) implement DomainBed, a testbed for domain generalization (DG), including seven multi-domain datasets, nine baseline algorithms, and three model selection criteria. In addition, they test existing DG methods under their settings to understand how practical these algorithms are in realistic settings.

However, keep in mind that, because these are typically easy to identify and work on, you must act quickly to be the first to propose them. Another good strategy can be to identify the drawbacks/gaps in the current pipelines of space and work upon eliminating them. This could include gaps like making pipelines compute/time efficient without sacrificing performance, robust to shifts, etc.

Comprehensive analysis to provide a holistic understanding of a specific space can be a research topic in and of itself. Analyzing what works best, any intriguing phenomena, trade-offs, limitations, or standardized benchmarking can help you, and the community better understand the space and identify potential gaps to address in the future. The best part is that they get a lot of attention from the community through citations and discussions.

For example,

• Naseer et al. (2021) show and analyze several intriguing properties of Vision Transformers (ViTs), like their robustness to severe occlusions, perturbations, and domain shifts; their less texture bias compared to CNNs, and superior transfer learning capabilities.
• Xian et al. (2017) discuss limitations in zero-shot learning formulations and algorithms by comparing and analyzing a significant number of the state-of-the-art methods in-depth, both in the classic zero-shot setting and the more realistic generalized zero-shot setting.
• Chen et al. (2019) perform a consistent comparative analysis of several few-shot classification algorithms. They show that deeper backbones significantly reduce the performance differences among various state-of-the-art methods. Furthermore, in a realistic cross-domain evaluation setting, baseline methods compare favorably against other state-of-the-art algorithms.

Applying existing ideas to a relevant topic(e.g., medical images, editing, navigation, etc.) can also serve as a potential research topic. Following are examples of such papers.

• Papadopoulos et al. (2019) aim to teach a machine to make a pizza by building a generative model that mirrors an ordered set of instructions. They learn composable module operations to either add or remove a particular ingredient through GANs.
• Machiraju and Balasubramanian (2020) study the natural adversaries in the field of autonomous navigation wherein adverse weather conditions such as fog have a drastic effect on the predictions of these systems. These weather conditions can act like natural adversaries that can help test models.
• Richardson et al. (2021) propose a StyleGAN encoder able to directly encode real images into style space and show that solving translation tasks through StyleGAN significantly simplifies the training process and has better support for solving tasks without pixel-to-pixel correspondence.

With the exponential growth of deep learning-related publications ( Figure 3 ), it has become necessary to devise effective strategies to deal with the pacing literature. So, now that you’ve decided which topic to work on, let’s look at some popular resources/tools for understanding the topic better, skimming through its literature, and keeping yourself updated with the ongoing research in the community.

If you want to understand the fundamentals, different classes of algorithms introduced, or how they compare, survey papers are probably the best place to start. They are usually simple to locate and follow. On the other hand, analytical papers can help you better understand the topic by explaining gaps, limitations, trade-offs, best strategies, intriguing results, etc.

Explore GitHub to get compilations (e.g., Awesome Visual Transformers , Awesome Zero-shot Learning , Awesome Self-supervised Learning , Awesome Visual Grounding , etc.) of research papers specific to your topic. For a kickstart, read initial papers (to get fundamentals) and top papers (to see where the trend is going). They also include links to any implementations, blogs, videos, etc., and are updated regularly to reflect the most up-to-date content. You can find these compilations easily by using the search term “awesome <topic name>.”

Following the proceedings of top conferences (e.g., CVPR, NeurIPS, ICCV, ICML, ICLR, ECCV, ACL, EMNLP, KDD, etc.) is an excellent way to stay up to date on the latest research. As an example, Figure 4 ranks out various computer vision conferences by h-index. Another great way to stay up to date is to attend area-specific workshops where you can find research talks, presentations, and submissions that are more relevant to your topic. In addition, these workshops often consolidate a specific research space, allowing you to understand the current trends better.

For example, the Workshop on Meta-Learning has been a popular NeurIPS workshop focusing on advancing meta-learning methods. Another popular workshop at ICML, Uncertainty and Robustness in Deep Learning , aims to make deep neural networks more reliable. The Adversarial Machine Learning in Real-World Computer Vision Systems and Online Challenges at CVPR focuses on recent research and future directions for security in real-world machine learning and computer vision systems. Finally, 3DVR Workshop (CVPR 2021) discusses the unique challenges and opportunities in the 3D vision for robotics.

Here are a few tools you can use to ease your search of papers relevant to your topic:

• With Connected Papers , you can build a graph of papers relevant to a particular field and discover prior or derivatives works in your field of interest. It further allows you to create a bibliography for any future use cases.
• Arxiv Sanity allows researchers to keep track of recent papers, search for papers, sort papers by similarity to any paper, see recent popular papers, add papers to a personal library, and get personalized recommendations of (new or old) Arxiv papers.
• Alpha Signal provides you with a weekly summary of research papers trending and worth reading.
• Using Google Scholar , you can add your personalized keywords, fields, researchers and get notifications whenever any paper relevant to them gets uploaded.
• Twitter , in my opinion, is by far the best place to stay up to date. If you follow the right people, research labs, and conferences, you will find a wealth of content, insights, and collaboration opportunities. The best part is that you can directly share your thoughts or ask questions with the community. Figures 5 and 6 recommend several researchers, academic, and industry labs that you can follow to create an excellent feed for yourself.

After you’ve read the fundamental and introductory papers, devise a reading strategy that will help you efficiently filter out the relevant content and save you several hours of reading irrelevant articles.

• Examine the abstract for a high-level summary of the work.
• Look for any introductory figures or illustrations (to get a sense of the approach).
• Skim through key results, and so on.

Papers are organized in a consistent format (Abstract, Introduction, Related Work, Methodology, Experiments, and Conclusion), making it simple to find anything specific. Aside from that, you can get a good overview by looking at their posters, spotlight videos, or blogs.

Keshav (2020) proposes a three-pass approach for reading papers.

• The first pass gives you a general idea of the paper. It involves reading the abstract, introduction, conclusions; glancing over references to decide whether the paper is relevant to you and needs any other passes. After the first pass, you should be able to answer questions about the category, context, contributions, correctness, and clarity of the work.
• The second pass lets you grasp the paper’s content by focusing on figures, illustrations, or diagrams, marking any unread references for future reading. This pass will help you see if the work can be relevant to your topic (can it be a potential baseline, related work, or even a solution to your topic). If yes, then go for a third pass to fully understand it.
• The third pass involves reading the paper carefully ​​to identify its strong and weak points. In particular, you should be able to pinpoint implicit assumptions, missing citations to relevant work, and potential issues with experimental or analytical techniques.

Consider yourself a reviewer and ask pertinent questions to ensure a thorough assessment. For example, are there any simpler methods/guidelines that the authors did not consider? Are the authors’ assumptions reasonable? Is their approach technically sound, or do they have any limitations (expensive computation, training/inference overheads, etc.)?

Think creatively to determine whether the presented idea can be extended, integrated, or have some applications. Highlight important content, thoughts, or criticism, or summarize it in a few paragraphs. This will greatly assist you when rereading the paper or writing about it in the related work section of your paper.

What's next? We recommend PyImageSearch University .

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Selecting a research topic can be difficult in this vast machine/deep learning space. Not every topic that piques your interest can be turned into a successful research topic. As a result, one should look for domains relevant to the research community, align with their interests, and are not in a crowded space. Furthermore, take note of the compute typically required to solve these topics and avoid working on those where the compute is unavailable or unaffordable.

After you have narrowed down your list of topics, consult with your mentors and advisors to see if they’re particularly interested or experienced in any of them. Then, begin with them and look for any low-hanging fruits. But do not forget to act quickly if you want to be the first to claim it. Parallelly, look for any constraints, gaps, trade-offs, or intriguing phenomena that could lead to a good analysis or concerns to address.

Conducting a literature review can be a daunting task. Start with survey papers and GitHub compilations to understand the fundamentals and skim through the recent approaches. Next, follow the proceedings of top conferences and their area-specific workshops to stay updated with the ongoing research. Utilize online tools and platforms such as Twitter to obtain a curated set of content relevant to your issue. Look for blogs, posters, or spotlight videos to get a quick paper overview. Finally, but most importantly, devise a reading strategy for parsing a paper without wasting time.

I hope this lesson will assist you in narrowing your search for your research topic and efficiently dealing with its literature. Stay tuned for the next lesson on ideating for a solution planning your experiments.

Mangla, P. “Choosing the Research Topic and Reading Its Literature,” PyImageSearch , P. Chugh, R. Raha, K. Kudriavtseva, and S. Huot, 2022, https://pyimg.co/oravw

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How to Choose a Dissertation Topic | 8 Steps to Follow

Published on November 11, 2022 by Shona McCombes and Tegan George. Revised on November 20, 2023.

Choosing your dissertation topic is the first step in making sure your research goes as smoothly as possible. When choosing a topic, it’s important to consider:

• Your institution and department’s requirements
• Your areas of knowledge and interest
• The scientific, social, or practical relevance
• The availability of data and resources
• The timeframe of your dissertation
• The relevance of your topic

You can follow these steps to begin narrowing down your ideas.

Table of contents

Step 1: check the requirements, step 2: choose a broad field of research, step 3: look for books and articles, step 4: find a niche, step 5: consider the type of research, step 6: determine the relevance, step 7: make sure it’s plausible, step 8: get your topic approved, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about dissertation topics.

The very first step is to check your program’s requirements. This determines the scope of what it is possible for you to research.

• Is there a minimum and maximum word count?
• When is the deadline?
• Should the research have an academic or a professional orientation?
• Are there any methodological conditions? Do you have to conduct fieldwork, or use specific types of sources?

Some programs have stricter requirements than others. You might be given nothing more than a word count and a deadline, or you might have a restricted list of topics and approaches to choose from. If in doubt about what is expected of you, always ask your supervisor or department coordinator.

Start by thinking about your areas of interest within the subject you’re studying. Examples of broad ideas include:

• Twentieth-century literature
• Economic history
• Health policy

To get a more specific sense of the current state of research on your potential topic, skim through a few recent issues of the top journals in your field. Be sure to check out their most-cited articles in particular. For inspiration, you can also search Google Scholar , subject-specific databases , and your university library’s resources.

As you read, note down any specific ideas that interest you and make a shortlist of possible topics. If you’ve written other papers, such as a 3rd-year paper or a conference paper, consider how those topics can be broadened into a dissertation.

After doing some initial reading, it’s time to start narrowing down options for your potential topic. This can be a gradual process, and should get more and more specific as you go. For example, from the ideas above, you might narrow it down like this:

• Twentieth-century literature   Twentieth-century Irish literature   Post-war Irish poetry
• Economic history   European economic history   German labor union history
• Health policy   Reproductive health policy   Reproductive rights in South America

All of these topics are still broad enough that you’ll find a huge amount of books and articles about them. Try to find a specific niche where you can make your mark, such as: something not many people have researched yet, a question that’s still being debated, or a very current practical issue.

At this stage, make sure you have a few backup ideas — there’s still time to change your focus. If your topic doesn’t make it through the next few steps, you can try a different one. Later, you will narrow your focus down even more in your problem statement and research questions .

There are many different types of research , so at this stage, it’s a good idea to start thinking about what kind of approach you’ll take to your topic. Will you mainly focus on:

• Collecting original data (e.g., experimental or field research)?
• Analyzing existing data (e.g., national statistics, public records, or archives)?
• Interpreting cultural objects (e.g., novels, films, or paintings)?
• Comparing scholarly approaches (e.g., theories, methods, or interpretations)?

Many dissertations will combine more than one of these. Sometimes the type of research is obvious: if your topic is post-war Irish poetry, you will probably mainly be interpreting poems. But in other cases, there are several possible approaches. If your topic is reproductive rights in South America, you could analyze public policy documents and media coverage, or you could gather original data through interviews and surveys .

You don’t have to finalize your research design and methods yet, but the type of research will influence which aspects of the topic it’s possible to address, so it’s wise to consider this as you narrow down your ideas.

It’s important that your topic is interesting to you, but you’ll also have to make sure it’s academically, socially or practically relevant to your field.

• Academic relevance means that the research can fill a gap in knowledge or contribute to a scholarly debate in your field.
• Social relevance means that the research can advance our understanding of society and inform social change.
• Practical relevance means that the research can be applied to solve concrete problems or improve real-life processes.

The easiest way to make sure your research is relevant is to choose a topic that is clearly connected to current issues or debates, either in society at large or in your academic discipline. The relevance must be clearly stated when you define your research problem .

Before you make a final decision on your topic, consider again the length of your dissertation, the timeframe in which you have to complete it, and the practicalities of conducting the research.

Will you have enough time to read all the most important academic literature on this topic? If there’s too much information to tackle, consider narrowing your focus even more.

Will you be able to find enough sources or gather enough data to fulfil the requirements of the dissertation? If you think you might struggle to find information, consider broadening or shifting your focus.

Do you have to go to a specific location to gather data on the topic? Make sure that you have enough funding and practical access.

Last but not least, will the topic hold your interest for the length of the research process? To stay motivated, it’s important to choose something you’re enthusiastic about!

Most programmes will require you to submit a brief description of your topic, called a research prospectus or proposal .

Remember, if you discover that your topic is not as strong as you thought it was, it’s usually acceptable to change your mind and switch focus early in the dissertation process. Just make sure you have enough time to start on a new topic, and always check with your supervisor or department.

If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Methodology

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

Formulating a main research question can be a difficult task. Overall, your question should contribute to solving the problem that you have defined in your problem statement .

However, it should also fulfill criteria in three main areas:

• Researchability
• Feasibility and specificity
• Relevance and originality

All research questions should be:

• Focused on a single problem or issue
• Researchable using primary and/or secondary sources
• Feasible to answer within the timeframe and practical constraints
• Specific enough to answer thoroughly
• Complex enough to develop the answer over the space of a paper or thesis
• Relevant to your field of study and/or society more broadly

You can assess information and arguments critically by asking certain questions about the source. You can use the CRAAP test , focusing on the currency , relevance , authority , accuracy , and purpose of a source of information.

Ask questions such as:

• Who is the author? Are they an expert?
• Why did the author publish it? What is their motivation?
• How do they make their argument? Is it backed up by evidence?

A dissertation prospectus or proposal describes what or who you plan to research for your dissertation. It delves into why, when, where, and how you will do your research, as well as helps you choose a type of research to pursue. You should also determine whether you plan to pursue qualitative or quantitative methods and what your research design will look like.

It should outline all of the decisions you have taken about your project, from your dissertation topic to your hypotheses and research objectives , ready to be approved by your supervisor or committee.

Note that some departments require a defense component, where you present your prospectus to your committee orally.

The best way to remember the difference between a research plan and a research proposal is that they have fundamentally different audiences. A research plan helps you, the researcher, organize your thoughts. On the other hand, a dissertation proposal or research proposal aims to convince others (e.g., a supervisor, a funding body, or a dissertation committee) that your research topic is relevant and worthy of being conducted.

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Novelty in Research: What It Is and How to Know Your Work is Original

One of the key prerequisites for researcher success, irrespective of their field of study, is identifying the novelty in research. They hope to make new discoveries that build on the work of others and produce fresh perspectives on existing knowledge in their field. To achieve this, researchers invest considerable time and effort in reading relevant literature, conducting experiments, and staying up to date on the latest developments in their own and related fields. Most journals seek to publish research that is novel, significant, and interesting to its readers. Establishing novelty in research is also critical when applying for funding, which makes it essential to prove this early in the research process. But what is meant by novelty in research and how can one judge the novelty of their research study? This article will help you answer these questions in the simplest manner.

Table of Contents

What is meant by novelty in research?

The word ‘novelty’ comes from the Latin word ‘novus,’ which simply means new. Apart from new, the term is also associated with things, ideas or products for instance, that are original or unusual. Novelty in research refers to the introduction of a new idea or a unique perspective that adds to the existing knowledge in a particular field of study. It involves bringing something fresh and original to the table that has not been done before or exploring an existing topic in a new and innovative way. Novelty in research expands the boundaries of a particular research discipline and provides new insights into previously unexplored areas. It is also one of the first things academic journals look for when evaluating a manuscript submitted for publishing. This makes it essential for researchers to ensure novelty in research in order to create new knowledge and make a significant contribution to their field of study.

How can you ensure novelty in research?

Academics are often immersed in their research and so focused on excellence that it can be difficult to examine your work as an author and judge its novelty in research objectively. But this challenge can be overcome with time and practice by adding research reading to your daily schedule. Assessing novelty in research means evaluating how new and original the ideas or findings presented in a study are, in comparison to existing knowledge in the field. Here are some ways to judge the novelty of research:

• Conduct a literature review: A literature review is an essential component of any research project, and it helps to establish the context for the study by identifying what is already known about the topic. By reviewing the existing literature, researchers can identify gaps in the knowledge and formulate new questions or hypotheses to investigate, ensuring novelty in research.
• Compare with previous studies: Researchers can assess the novelty of their work by comparing their findings to those of previous studies in the same or related fields. If the results differ significantly from what has been previously reported, it can be an indication that the study is novel and potentially significant.
• Read target journal publications: Subscribe to your target journal and other reputed journals in your field of study and keep up with the articles it publishes. Since most high-impact journals typically ensure novelty in research when publishing papers, this will help you keep track of the developments and progress being made in your subject area.
• Assess contribution to the field: One way to assess novelty in research is to evaluate how much it contributes to your specific field. Research that makes a significant contribution to advancing knowledge or addressing important questions is often considered more valuable than those that simply replicate elements from previously published research.
• Consider an alternative methodology: Even if the topic or area of study has been studied, one can bring in novelty in research by exploring various methodologies or by tweaking the research question to provide new insights and perspectives. Researchers can highlight aspects of the study that have not been done before, introduce these in the proposed research design, and illuminate how this will ensure novelty in research.
• Get support from your peers: Engage with your mentors/supervisors, professors, peers, and other experts in the field to get their feedback on introducing novelties in their research. It’s a good idea to join and actively participate in scientific research and scholarly groups or networks where users provide updates on new technological innovations and development.
• Make research reading a habit: An overwhelming number of research papers are published every day, making it difficult for researchers to keep up with new, relevant developments in the world of research. This is where online tools for researchers can help you simplify this process while saving on time and effort. Smart AI-driven apps like R Discovery can understand your areas of interest and curate a reading feed with personalized article recommendation, alerts on newly published articles, summaries to help you quickly evaluate articles, and many other useful features for researchers. By taking the search out of research, it gives you back time that you can then spend to stay updated and ensure novelty in research.

In an ideal world, all research done would be completely original. Yet with rapid advances in technology and research, there are bound to be overlaps with previously published papers. The key here is to find a new way of looking at old problems, trying new methodologies and angles, and coming up with interesting insights that can add to or alter current knowledge in your field of research. Smart online tools have made it easier to read and keep up with the latest in research and we’re sure the tips above will help you better assess your project and judge the novelty of your research study.

R Discovery is a literature search and research reading platform that accelerates your research discovery journey by keeping you updated on the latest, most relevant scholarly content. With 250M+ research articles sourced from trusted aggregators like CrossRef, Unpaywall, PubMed, PubMed Central, Open Alex and top publishing houses like Springer Nature, JAMA, IOP, Taylor & Francis, NEJM, BMJ, Karger, SAGE, Emerald Publishing and more, R Discovery puts a world of research at your fingertips.  

Try R Discovery Prime FREE for 1 week or upgrade at just US$72 a year to access premium features that let you listen to research on the go, read in your language, collaborate with peers, auto sync with reference managers, and much more. Choose a simpler, smarter way to find and read research – Download the app and start your free 7-day trial today !  

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1000+ FREE Research Topics & Title Ideas

Select your area of interest to view a collection of potential research topics and ideas.

Or grab the full list 📋 (for free)

PS – You can also check out our free topic ideation webinar for more ideas

How To Find A Research Topic

If you’re struggling to get started, this step-by-step video tutorial will help you find the perfect research topic.

Research Topic FAQs

What (exactly) is a research topic.

A research topic is the subject of a research project or study – for example, a dissertation or thesis. A research topic typically takes the form of a problem to be solved, or a question to be answered.

A good research topic should be specific enough to allow for focused research and analysis. For example, if you are interested in studying the effects of climate change on agriculture, your research topic could focus on how rising temperatures have impacted crop yields in certain regions over time.

To learn more about the basics of developing a research topic, consider our free research topic ideation webinar.

What constitutes a good research topic?

A strong research topic comprises three important qualities : originality, value and feasibility.

• Originality – a good topic explores an original area or takes a novel angle on an existing area of study.
• Value – a strong research topic provides value and makes a contribution, either academically or practically.
• Feasibility – a good research topic needs to be practical and manageable, given the resource constraints you face.

To learn more about what makes for a high-quality research topic, check out this post .

What's the difference between a research topic and research problem?

A research topic and a research problem are two distinct concepts that are often confused. A research topic is a broader label that indicates the focus of the study , while a research problem is an issue or gap in knowledge within the broader field that needs to be addressed.

To illustrate this distinction, consider a student who has chosen “teenage pregnancy in the United Kingdom” as their research topic. This research topic could encompass any number of issues related to teenage pregnancy such as causes, prevention strategies, health outcomes for mothers and babies, etc.

Within this broad category (the research topic) lies potential areas of inquiry that can be explored further – these become the research problems . For example:

• What factors contribute to higher rates of teenage pregnancy in certain communities?
• How do different types of parenting styles affect teen pregnancy rates?
• What interventions have been successful in reducing teenage pregnancies?

Simply put, a key difference between a research topic and a research problem is scope ; the research topic provides an umbrella under which multiple questions can be asked, while the research problem focuses on one specific question or set of questions within that larger context.

How can I find potential research topics for my project?

There are many steps involved in the process of finding and choosing a high-quality research topic for a dissertation or thesis. We cover these steps in detail in this video (also accessible below).

How can I find quality sources for my research topic?

Finding quality sources is an essential step in the topic ideation process. To do this, you should start by researching scholarly journals, books, and other academic publications related to your topic. These sources can provide reliable information on a wide range of topics. Additionally, they may contain data or statistics that can help support your argument or conclusions.

Identifying Relevant Sources

When searching for relevant sources, it’s important to look beyond just published material; try using online databases such as Google Scholar or JSTOR to find articles from reputable journals that have been peer-reviewed by experts in the field.

You can also use search engines like Google or Bing to locate websites with useful information about your topic. However, be sure to evaluate any website before citing it as a source—look for evidence of authorship (such as an “About Us” page) and make sure the content is up-to-date and accurate before relying on it.

Evaluating Sources

Once you’ve identified potential sources for your research project, take some time to evaluate them thoroughly before deciding which ones will best serve your purpose. Consider factors such as author credibility (are they an expert in their field?), publication date (is the source current?), objectivity (does the author present both sides of an issue?) and relevance (how closely does this source relate to my specific topic?).

By researching the current literature on your topic, you can identify potential sources that will help to provide quality information. Once you’ve identified these sources, it’s time to look for a gap in the research and determine what new knowledge could be gained from further study.

How can I find a good research gap?

Finding a strong gap in the literature is an essential step when looking for potential research topics. We explain what research gaps are and how to find them in this post.

How should I evaluate potential research topics/ideas?

When evaluating potential research topics, it is important to consider the factors that make for a strong topic (we discussed these earlier). Specifically:

• Originality
• Feasibility

So, when you have a list of potential topics or ideas, assess each of them in terms of these three criteria. A good topic should take a unique angle, provide value (either to academia or practitioners), and be practical enough for you to pull off, given your limited resources.

Finally, you should also assess whether this project could lead to potential career opportunities such as internships or job offers down the line. Make sure that you are researching something that is relevant enough so that it can benefit your professional development in some way. Additionally, consider how each research topic aligns with your career goals and interests; researching something that you are passionate about can help keep motivation high throughout the process.

How can I assess the feasibility of a research topic?

When evaluating the feasibility and practicality of a research topic, it is important to consider several factors.

First, you should assess whether or not the research topic is within your area of competence. Of course, when you start out, you are not expected to be the world’s leading expert, but do should at least have some foundational knowledge.

Time commitment

When considering a research topic, you should think about how much time will be required for completion. Depending on your field of study, some topics may require more time than others due to their complexity or scope.

Additionally, if you plan on collaborating with other researchers or institutions in order to complete your project, additional considerations must be taken into account such as coordinating schedules and ensuring that all parties involved have adequate resources available.

Resources needed

It’s also critically important to consider what type of resources are necessary in order to conduct the research successfully. This includes physical materials such as lab equipment and chemicals but can also include intangible items like access to certain databases or software programs which may be necessary depending on the nature of your work. Additionally, if there are costs associated with obtaining these materials then this must also be factored into your evaluation process.

Potential risks

It’s important to consider the inherent potential risks for each potential research topic. These can include ethical risks (challenges getting ethical approval), data risks (not being able to access the data you’ll need), technical risks relating to the equipment you’ll use and funding risks (not securing the necessary financial back to undertake the research).

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Speaker 1: please stop letting your PhD supervisor dictate your project or your thesis topic. The thing is, is that these supervisors tend to choose something that interests them. The topic tends to be related to their current research, and in my experience, they're getting worse and worse at selecting a PhD or thesis topic. They either choose a project that's far too narrow or far too broad, they're not very good at looking at cross-disciplinary stuff, that's what I wanna say. So what you've gotta do is choose your own research project with your supervisor, I think that's very, very important. And the first thing you need to look at is novelty. Novelty is, has this been done before, and is it new? Now don't overthink this, it doesn't have to be amazing, it doesn't have to change the world, it just has to be a little bit new. So, go check out my other video after this video, obviously, where I talk about how to find a research gap, but importantly, it's about finding that thing that no one else has done that contributes to the field. Easier said than done, I know, but there is no shortcut to just reading the literature, the current state of the field, and coming up with your own questions, and being like, I wonder if this has been done, I wonder if this has been done. Trying questions larger. Larger. Trying questions smaller. Oh, a new tiny question. So all of those things need to be considered when choosing the novelty, or looking at the novelty of your research question. The first thing I like to do is use semantic search, so I head over to tools like this. I head over to illicit.com and I ask a research question, and I see what's come up. So, if I've got a question in my mind, like, are aardvarks good at dancing, I can go there and find the aardvark's dancing abilities. Research has shown that certain dance moves can influence perceptions of dancing ability, and that blah blah, so there we are, you can see that further research is needed to determine if aardvarks are good at dancing, so there we are. There is a research gap. It's not an important research gap, and no one wants it in the world, but that's how you do it. Another kind of tool that I can go over to is consensus, and ask the same question, or a similar question. Let's see if, there we are. So, this is the sort of question I'm interested in, apparently, and it's this sort of search that you need to go through over and over again. Start reading papers, review papers in your field. Start looking at very specific questions to see if they've been answered, and then you'll start to build up this kind of sixth sense as to what is new, what is novel, what's interesting, and to be honest with you, these days, a lot of the most novel and interesting questions are found at the interface of different fields, which is why relying solely on your supervisor can be a bit dangerous, because they like to stay in their own little box, and they don't like to go outside of it. I've seen it firsthand. So, that is how you do it. So, let's have a look. Something new, yes. Unique contribution, yes. Research gap, yes. That's what you first need to look at, but that's not the only thing you need to look at. This, arguably, is more important. There's your transition. The second thing to consider about a great research topic is, is it relevant? Does it matter? Who benefits from you answering this research question? One place I like to go when I'm unsure of the current state of a field, or if I just want to get a little bit of inspiration on what's hot, like a hot new topic, because that's what we really want, is I head over to something like SCI News or Science Alert. These are written by science journalists, and journalists have a really great way of framing exciting topics and finding out what is new, current, and interesting to the general population. I'm not saying this is the only way you should select a research topic, but I like my research topic to be at least a little bit interesting to the general population. So, if I go to Science Alert, for example, and I type in bats, then we can see, okay, what sort of stuff is being asked about bats? I can go here. Bats and humans are closer than ever, and the risks have never been. The secret to avoiding the next pandemic. Okay, so now we're looking at bats and pandemics. So, that clearly was interesting to people during COVID, and then we've got huge bats used to walk around in New Zealand, and four limbs. That's interesting. I'll open up that. So, this is where I can find interesting, relevant, new research that the general public are arguably more interested in than something that's really blue sky. Now, I'm not saying that the blue sky research is not important. What I'm saying is this is a great way of finding out if something is relevant to the population at the moment, and it is a really nice way to find out if your research field is going to be valued. Valued by people outside of academia, but also inside of academia. Money flows to where the hot topics are. That's why you see all these researchers trying to mold their research into the latest thing, whether it's 3D printed food, whether or not it's flexible organic photovoltaics like it was years ago. That is why people shift topics, like professors shift topics, because they're finding where the money is. If you find a hot topic that's relevant and is easy to kind of answer the question, why is it important, and who does this benefit, the money starts flowing to you like a river. Oh, I'm getting my mouth money. So, if you want longevity in research after your PhD or thesis, that is something very important to consider. The third thing that's really important is, is it feasible? A lot of the times, PhD supervisors forget that you should actually think about doing this in two or three years, because their career's been going for ages. They're dinosaurs of the academic world. They don't care about one or two years, but you do, because that's all you really have to do your PhD in. Now, you'll think that I just said one or two years as like a slip up. I didn't, because there is so much failure in a PhD that about a year of any PhD is just failure, going backwards, trying things again. So, when you're thinking about feasibility, you need to think, what project can I do in two years? That is really the feasibility marker, because there's so much failure, there's so much wasted time and effort, that if you were to only work on successful things during your PhD, they'd probably only take about one and a half to two years. So, you need to really change that frame of reference and not say, oh, what can I do in like five years or three years? What can you do in two years or three years? That is really the most important question that you've got to answer. So, is it feasible in terms of the data that you can get access to? Are you accessing data or are you creating your own things? If you're creating your own data, have you got access to the equipment and the expertise that you need? You've also got ethics approval. Is it feasible to do your project with all of the paperwork that you have to go through? Consider that before you even start your research project. And then, also, time. Don't choose something that's super narrow that you can do in like a weekend, obviously. That's not a PhD or a thesis. But don't choose something that you think is gonna take 10 years. Your research supervisor is working on stuff that takes 10 years and his PhD students are little tiny steps along the way. What little tiny step can you do in about two years? That's a good rule of thumb. So, play about with the size and scope of the research project. Make it narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow, and then go, oh, that's a bit too narrow. Make it larger, larger, larger, larger, and go, oh, no, I wouldn't be able to do that in two years. And then, somewhere in the middle is the good sweet spot. And remember that every research project fails multiple times and it is about sort of like readjusting your focus and what you're doing. So, don't make it too narrow that when stuff fails, you're just at a dead end and you're like, oh, no, this is terrible, and you've got nowhere to go. You always want options, options, options, options, options. That's the best sort of like scope of a research project. The last thing I want you to know is that these projects aren't made on their own. You shouldn't come up with a research project on your own, sat at the computer. Talk to people, talk to your research supervisor, talk to other people in the field, talk to other PhD students, postdocs in the group that you want to go into. The best research projects have been pressure tested by many, many people before they even started. So, that's why you can't rely on just your supervisor or just you to come up with a good research project. Have it sort of like pressure tested by a few people, ask questions, and then that will help refine the idea and ultimately lead to better foundations for your research thesis or your dissertation. There we are. If you like this video, you should go check out this room. I talk about five tips for choosing a PhD research topic. I think you'll love it. Thank you.

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Credit: Johns Hopkins University

Study inspired by curious 15-year-old could advance search for novel antibiotics

New bacteria found in raw honey could benefit the fight against legionnaires' disease and antibiotic resistance, according to new johns hopkins medicine research.

By Alexandria Carolan

Equipped with a suitcase full of honey, high school sophomore Carson Shin contacted university after university, hoping to work with expert biochemists to investigate the sticky substance's antimicrobial properties.

The only problem? Scientists seemed wary of collaborating with a 15-year-old.

Image caption: Carson Shin

Shin couldn't have predicted that, five years later, he would co-author a Johns Hopkins Medicine report showing that dormant and previously undescribed bacteria found in raw honey produce antibiotics that can kill the bacterial pathogen Legionella . The pathogen can be found in potable water and causes Legionnaires' disease, a life-threatening pneumonia that kills one in 10 people infected with it.

The published report not only offers a first step in the development of new antibiotics for Legionella , but has the potential to aid in the fight against antibiotic resistance, says senior author Tamara O'Connor , assistant professor of biological chemistry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Shin reached out to O'Connor in the spring of 2019, beginning a summer internship with the professor that he hoped would uncover a novel antimicrobial property of honey.

"Carson showed tremendous initiative and was very inquisitive," O'Connor says. "It's exciting to have any student join the lab who demonstrates this level of intellectual engagement in science."

Initially, Shin and O'Connor exposed Legionella to raw, unpasteurized honey, to test whether the natural substance could kill the bacteria. Surprisingly, honey had little effect on Legionella . However, in the course of these experiments, they identified several different bacteria in the honey that, in response to Legionella , produced and secreted antibiotics that were lethal to the pathogen.

"We found the right conditions for the honey bacteria to thrive, allowing us to tap into a resource we didn't know was there," Shin says.

In nature, O'Connor says, "bacteria figure out ways to outcompete one another, which often involves releasing toxic molecules that kill their competitors." The honey bacteria Shin and O'Connor isolated "recognize Legionella as competition and launch a deadly response."

The honey bacteria were identified as members of the Bacillus and Lysinibacillus genera of bacteria. This is not surprising, O'Connor says, because bacilli produce spores that are protected from the antimicrobial properties of honey. These bacteria are commonly found in raw honey, explaining why it is recommended to eat only pasteurized honey, she says.

Upon sequencing the genomes of two of the bacterial isolates, strain AHB2 and strain AHB11 , the researchers identified them as members of the species Bacillus safensis . Previously, the ability for this group of bacteria to produce antibacterial molecules was not well-documented.

Further experiments revealed how specific the response of honey bacteria to Legionella was.

"Remarkably, the bacteria in honey only produce these antibacterial molecules in response to Legionella species, as none of the other bacterial pathogens we exposed them to elicited this response," O'Connor says.

Image caption: Tamara O'Connor

While other pathogens did not cause honey bacteria to produce these antibiotics, many were susceptible to them, O'Connor says. These results suggest antibacterial molecules produced by honey could target other harmful pathogens and could be used as broad-spectrum antibiotics. While these preliminary findings offer the identification of new antibacterial molecules, more research is needed to determine their potential for developing viable therapeutics, O'Connor says.

Antimicrobial resistance is one of the largest threats to global public health, contributing to nearly 5 million deaths in 2019, according to the World Health Organization—creating a dire need for the development of new antibiotics to treat bacterial infections.

Similar studies of the biowarfare between microorganisms have led scientists to identify many antimicrobial molecules, says O'Connor. The vast majority of antibiotics prescribed by physicians originate from natural products, she says.

"The ability to tap into these resources by identifying new bacteria and the conditions that cause them to produce antibacterial molecules is critical in the fight against antibiotic resistance," she says.

Young scientists like Shin are crucial to combat antibiotic resistance, O'Connor says.

"Carson exemplifies how the curiosity of an aspiring young scientist can lead to exciting new discoveries," she says.

Shin, who is beginning his senior year of college this fall at the University of Pennsylvania, said his experience at Johns Hopkins influenced his decision to study anthropology. Before reaching out to O'Connor, Shin had looked into raw honey's historic and ancient role in traditional medicines of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Islamic countries over thousands of years.

"Our research stems from studying culture. You can learn valuable information about medicine from cultures across the world and across time," Shin says.

The research was supported independently by the Department of Biological Chemistry and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine .

Posted in Health

Tagged antibiotics , department of biological chemistry , bacteria

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Explore NIAID Topics for Small Business Innovation Research Contract Solicitation

Funding News Edition: September 4, 2024 See more articles in this edition

NIH's SBIR program accepts Phase I, Phase II, Fast Track, and Direct-to-Phase II research proposals.

Each year, NIH solicits research proposals from small businesses through A Solicitation of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Contract Proposals . The latest version was published on August 2, 2024. The solicitation serves as a vehicle for offerors to propose research projects on a multitude of scientific topics from across NIH.

Proposals are due by October 18, 2024, at 5 p.m. Eastern Time.  

NIH’s Small Business Education and Entrepreneurial Development (SEED) program will host an HHS SBIR Contract RFP Pre-proposal Conference Webinar (PHS-2025-1) to discuss the mechanics of the contract opportunity on September 23, 2024, from 2 to 4 p.m. Eastern Time. The presentation materials will be posted on that same event page following the session. 

Note : This SBIR contract solicitation is distinct from the 2024 SBIR and STTR Omnibus/Parent Grant Solicitations for the NIH, CDC, and FDA released in July, which are notices of funding opportunities for grant awards (despite the word “solicitation” appearing in their titles). Learn about those grant opportunities in our August 7, 2024 article “ Small Business Research: Priority Funding Topics for 2025 .” 

To differentiate among the proposal types: 

• Phase I—research to determine the scientific or technical feasibility and commercial merit of the proposed research or research and development (R&D) efforts. 
• Phase II—continuance of Phase I research efforts, dependent on successful Phase I results as well as scientific and technical merit and commercial potential of further work. 
• Fast Track—simultaneous submission of Phase I and Phase II proposals, to facilitate a streamlined transition from Phase I to Phase II if merited by research outcomes. 
• Direct-to-Phase II—allows a small business concern to commence with Phase II research if Phase I stage-type research funded through other, non-SBIR/STTR sources is already complete. 

The table below summarizes NIAID’s research topics of interest for contract proposals. Refer to the attachment posted within the solicitation linked above for full details, including the number of anticipated awards and descriptions of required activities and deliverables. 

Your contract proposal should address only one topic; if you wish to pursue multiple topics, submit a separate proposal for each topic. Submit your proposal(s) through the electronic Contract Proposal Submission . Direct any technical questions about the solicitation and NIAID’s topics to Jonathan Bryan in NIAID’s Office of Acquisitions at [email protected] or 240-669-5180.  

Find general information and advice on our Small Business Programs page and contact NIAID SBIR/STTR Program Coordinator Natalia Kruchinin, Ph.D., at [email protected] for funding questions specific to small businesses.

Email us at [email protected] for help navigating NIAID’s grant and contract policies and procedures.

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FDA Approves Novel Drug to Treat Moderate to Severe Hot Flashes Caused by Menopause

FDA News Release

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Veozah (fezolinetant) , an oral medication for the treatment of moderate to severe vasomotor symptoms, or hot flashes, caused by menopause. Veozah is the first neurokinin 3 (NK3) receptor antagonist approved by the FDA to treat moderate to severe hot flashes from menopause. It works by binding to and blocking the activities of the NK3 receptor, which plays a role in the brain’s regulation of body temperature.

“Hot flashes as a result of menopause can be a serious physical burden on women and impact their quality of life,” said Janet Maynard, M.D., M.H.S., director of the Office of Rare Diseases, Pediatrics, Urologic and Reproductive Medicine, in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “The introduction of a new molecule to treat moderate to severe menopausal hot flashes will provide an additional safe and effective treatment option for women.”

Menopause is a normal, natural change in a woman’s life when her period stops, usually occurring between ages 45 and 55. Menopause is often referred to as “the change of life” or “the change.” During menopause a woman’s body slowly produces less of the hormones estrogen and progesterone. A woman has reached menopause when she has not had a menstrual period for 12 consecutive months. Hot flashes occur in around 80% of menopausal women and can include periods of sweating, flushing and chills lasting for several minutes.

Some women who experience hot flashes and have a history of vaginal bleeding, stroke, heart attack, blood clots or liver disease, cannot take hormone therapies. Veozah is not a hormone. It targets the neural activity which causes hot flashes during menopause. 

Patients taking Veozah should take one 45 milligram pill orally, once a day, with or without food. The pill should be taken at the same time each day. If a dose is missed, or not taken at the regular time, patients should take it as soon as possible and return to their regular schedule the following day.

The effectiveness of Veozah to treat moderate to severe hot flashes was demonstrated in each of the first 12-week, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind portions of two phase 3 clinical trials. In both trials, after the first 12 weeks, the women on placebo were then re-randomized to Veozah for a 40-week extension study to evaluate safety. Each trial ran a total of 52 weeks. The average age of the trial participants was 54 years old.

The prescribing information for Veozah includes a warning for elevated hepatic transaminase, or liver injury. Before using Veozah, patients should have blood work done to test for liver damage. While on Veozah, routine bloodwork should be performed every three months for the first nine months of using the medication. Patients experiencing symptoms related to liver damage—such as nausea, vomiting, or yellowing of the skin and eyes—should contact a physician. Veozah cannot be used with CYP1A2 inhibitors. Patients with known cirrhosis, severe renal damage or end-stage renal disease should not take Veozah. 

The most common side effects of Veozah include abdominal pain, diarrhea, insomnia, back pain, hot flush and elevated hepatic transaminases. 

The FDA granted the Veozah application Priority Review designation.

The approval of Veozah was granted to Astellas Pharma US, Inc.

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Advancements in Agricultural Monitoring with AI Enhanced Remote Sensing Techniques

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Keywords : Data Processing, LiDAR, AI Algorithms, System Development, Agricultural Applications, Pests, Multisppectral, Hyperspectral

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Dear Colleague Letter: Seeking Community Input for Topic Ideas for Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) Program

September 3, 2024

Dear Colleagues:

The purpose of this Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) is to invite the research community to submit suggestions for Topic Ideas to be considered for the FY 2026/27 Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) Program Solicitation. Suggestions for EFRI Topic Ideas are currently solicited and vetted every two years. Selected Topic(s) become the focus of research supported by the EFRI Program. Research proposals that address the specified Topic area(s) are invited via the EFRI solicitation.

This DCL is not a request for submission of a single research proposal idea ; rather, it is designed to solicit submission of emerging topic areas of potentially transformative research and innovation. Candidate topic ideas, including a 500-word description, may be submitted at the URL given below.

The deadline for topic idea submission is: October 15, 2024 .

The mission of the NSF Directorate for Engineering is to transform our world for a better tomorrow by driving discovery, inspiring innovation, enriching education, and accelerating access. Specifically, NSF Engineering aims to propel U.S. leadership in transformational engineering approaches to problems with societal impact.

The EFRI Program is the signature activity of the Office of Emerging Frontiers and Multidisciplinary Activities (EFMA) in the Directorate for Engineering. The EFRI Program aims to focus the engineering community on important emerging areas in a timely manner. EFRI evaluates, recommends, and funds interdisciplinary initiatives at the emerging frontiers of engineering research and innovation. These transformative opportunities may lead to new research directions and/or new industries or capabilities that result in a leadership position for the country; and are expected to result in significant progress on a recognized national or societal need, or grand challenge.

EFRI invests in high-risk multidisciplinary opportunities with high-potential payoff and substantive potential for societal impact. Its role is to support research areas that would not fit within the scope of an existing program. These frontier ideas push the limits of engineering knowledge and are often at the intersection of multiple fields.

The EFRI Program continuously gathers information for use in deciding future research topic areas to support. This rolling process ensures input and feedback from the engineering community on promising upcoming research opportunities. Input comes from diverse sources including workshops, advisory committees, proposals and awards, technical meetings, and professional societies, as well as from individual engineering researchers. From this comprehensive input, the EFRI team identifies, evaluates, and prioritizes those frontier topics that best match EFRI criteria.

TOPIC IDEA SUBMISSION

Through this DCL, the NSF EFRI team is providing a direct opportunity for the research community to offer input on potential EFRI topic ideas for FY 2026/7 by submitting emerging frontier Topic Idea suggestions for consideration. This opportunity is open to all disciplines, but topic ideas should have engineering research at their core.

Topic Idea submitters will be asked to provide:

• E-mail address
• Organization
• Title of Proposed Topic
• Up to three Key Words, and
• A Description (maximum 500 words) that encompasses how the suggested topic meets the EFRI topic criteria: transformative, addressing a national or societal need or grand challenge, and with a leadership role for Engineering.

Submit your ideas at https://www.nsf.gov/eng/EFRItopicideas .

NOTE: Ideas you submit should provide forward-looking views and identify opportunities in emerging frontiers of research and innovation. Topic ideas should not simply represent your own ongoing or planned research activities. Suggested topics should identify challenges or opportunities rather than solutions. Topics or areas of opportunity should be those that would be unlikely to be supported through existing NSF programs. In order to facilitate broader discussion of the submitted ideas, topic suggestions will not be kept confidential. NSF staff will review submitted candidate topic ideas in consultation with external experts. NSF plans to invite up to ten submitters to engage with NSF for further discussions of their proposed topic. Those submitters selected will be notified in December 2024 and will be invited to present their frontier idea suggestions to NSF in early 2025.

Inquiries may be directed to: Dr. Louise R. Howe or Dr. Sohi Rastegar at [email protected] .

We thank you in advance for taking the time to submit your emerging frontier ideas to the NSF Directorate for Engineering.

Susan Margulies, PhD Assistant Director Directorate for Engineering