Because of the crank-out-the-words pace of NaNoWriMo, there are a lot of holes I’ll need to fill out in my novel in the coming months. I’m not talking about plot holes (although there are lots of those as well), I’m talking about mistakes that must be littering my manuscript based on lack of knowledge. For example, one of my characters owns a comic book store. I consider myself about a 6 out of 10 on the Nerd Scale – possibly a 7 – but I’m fairly new to the comic book world and I certainly don’t know anything about how to go about owning and managing a comic book store.
I could easily lose myself in hours of research at this point. For example, how does the store gets its stock? Are the comics delivered via the postal service? UPS? Boxes or manila envelopes? Is there a universal comic book delivery day each month, or do Marvel comics come out on a different day than DC Comics? What is the profit margin on these items? Should Harvey add some kind of online store to her business? And will any of this information be necessary to my story?
The truth is I don’t know, and I won’t know until the story is written. Right now my imagination fills in the gaps, and that’s as it should be. Because once I start the research, I know I’ll get sidetracked. That would hurt my story in two ways:
1) Distraction. You know how it goes. You Google “comic book store deliveries” and the next thing you know you’re reading articles about impending post office closings instead of writing your book.
2) I might be tempted to put unrelated and unnecessary information into my story just because I have it. That makes for a boring read, and nobody wants that.
So don’t fall into the first draft research trap. Write, write, write! Fix later. And hang in there, Wrimos! We’re on the home stretch!
———————–
She cracked open another box. This one was filled with X-Men comics. She started counting them, got to six, then looked up at me. “Well, if you don’t want to talk about yourself, tell me about your family.”
“My family?”
“Yes, Kara. Your family. Do you…have any brothers or sisters?”
“I have a sister. Mandy.”
She nodded and continued counting. “Okay. What’s she like?”
I shrugged. What was Mandy like? “She’s the baby of the family, so naturally she’s spoiled.”
“Naturally.”
“She’s uh…twenty-two. At least, I think she’s twenty-two.” I thought for a second. I had just turned thirty. Subtract three years… “I guess she’s twenty-seven. She lives in New York.”
“City or state?”
“Both.” She acknowledged the attempt at humor with a half-smile, but said nothing. “She does something arty. Dancing or acting, or some bullshit like that. And she’s sort of pretty.”
She tossed aside the empty X-Men box. It landed at my feet. “How is someone ‘sort of pretty’?”
“What I mean is that she would be pretty, if she–”
“If she hadn’t been hit by a car? If she’d been born with a nose?” She chuckled. “If her spiteful ex-boyfriend hadn’t thrown acid on her face?”
“What? No. Just…she’d be pretty if she’d do something with her hair.”
“So what you mean is that she’s pretty and she has messy hair.”
I nudged the box gently with the toe of my sneaker. It flipped over onto its side. There was nothing printed on it to identify that it had once held X-Men comics. Just a plain, cardboard box with a plain, white address label. Center Street Comics. It was a stupid name for a comic book store, a boring name. What about Kapow Comics?
Boff! Splat! Kapow!
I kicked the box, hard. Harvey and I both watched it sail through the air, then knock over a display of Batman mugs. Three of them broke. She turned back to me and grinned.
“That’ll be $26.97. Plus tax.”
Me likey. Me want more.