Research in Fantasy

When I started college, I was rather scornful of the portion of my writing class that was dedicated to research. I even tried to argue about it with my professor - "But I'm a fantasy writer! Why would I need to research anything real?"

Oh, the follies of youth.

I am currently more than halfway through JH Plumb's The Italian Renaissance. When I am finished with that, I have easily half a dozen more books on the Renaissance and the Mayan civilization in the 1500s on my reading list. All this for a fantasy story that has only the barest outline, because I don't dare start doing any real work on it until I have all my ... yes, you guessed it ... research done. This story is not even set in the real Renaissance, but in a fantasy world that resembles it. Yet, in order to create that fantasy world accurately, to know which things I can tweak or leave out, and which would be historical anachronisms, I need to study that real period in time.

In writing The Eldest Daughter, a YA fantasy set in a post-Roman Celtic type world, pulling in traditional Welsh lore, I not only studied the Celtic culture, but also read many, many Welsh fairy tales and legends, so that I knew what I could include and what I couldn't, or what I could include as a deliberate stand-out.

Even when I was writing my children's fantasy, about a magical garden that took the children on many historical and fantastic adventures, I not only studied the times and places they visited, but also had to learn about gardens, about what bloomed when and where, what plants could survive without tending, etc. (My mother, an avid gardener, was my main source of information on that point, but she even delved into her books to help me on some sticky points).

I have come to the point where I do enjoy research now, for its own sake as well as its usefulness for my writing (and will occasionally try to concoct a plot around a particular time or place I want to study, just so I can justify learning about it), but even if I was still in my college attitude of "Research is boring," I would be forcing myself to do it, just for how it helps to shape my world-building and bring details into my writing that wouldn't be there otherwise.

And, let's face it, education for its own sake is useful - even if my MSS never get published, at least I will have all this knowledge about other places and cultures, making me a more well-rounded and knowledgable person. I think that is a worthy cause in and of itself!