How Did Again and Abel Train and Prepare for Their Mission The Book of Sarah Crossan
Some writers get airheaded at the idea of a bit of research. They dive into it, borrowing stacks of library books and trawling the net for slices of documentaries or newspaper opinion pieces related to any topic their book is almost. Some spend months doing this. I met a novelist who sets bated 18 months for research alone. When he told me this, I snorted; I idea he was joking. He wasn't, of course, and went on to earnestly explain how he e'er travels before he writes and how he reads hundreds of books so he knows the subject matter intimately.
I wanted to ask how he feeds himself if he is only managed, on average, to publish a book every three years, but I didn't recollect information technology polite. So, I tried my best to human activity as though I understood him, but at the time I did not because I have not been i of these writers.
I am usually a author for whom starting a new book is then exciting that I have to brainstorm equally shortly as a fresh idea comes to me; I have to bung everything I know to exist true nigh a grapheme and his or her story onto the page before I allow silly stuff similar facts to arrive the way. And with my iv previous books, I wrote my novels showtime, and I researched later. I got the story and characters in place, the plot written, the voice realised, then I went back and made the changes that needed to be made based on what I subsequently discovered about the existent world.
Simply this wasn't how One came to be. One is a different book to all my others because it was the subject matter above everything else that motivated me to write almost Tippi and Grace. I watched a BBC documentary about Minnesotan conjoined twins Abby and Brittany Hensel and was immediately captivated by the thought of their lives – fascinated by the ways in which these amazing women managed to live as two divide people in one trunk, and I made information technology my mission to find out everything I maybe could about conjoined twins. I knew there was the potential for a novel in at that place, but I was as well petrified of writing well-nigh something that was entirely unknown to me.
Although I was working on Apple and Rain at the fourth dimension, and actually scrambling to become it to my publisher past deadline, I would go to the British Library every mean solar day and instead of focusing on Apple and Rain, would enquire the librarians to aid me find manufactures and books about the lives of conjoined twins through history and specially medical research about separation surgery. I had found a topic that I wanted to write about, but I wanted to tell it honestly and accurately, because the more the I read, the more I realised how misunderstood the lives of these people have been, and how ready people seem to be to say, "If it were me, I would want to exist separated," without every fully considering the intimacy of such a relationship, not to mention the many joys it brings.
And because I wanted to tell an accurate story, the research for the book took months, perhaps even more than a year. I read a mountain of books, close to l articles, and I watched every documentary I could get my hands on (and I managed to notice a lot thanks to my friend who works at the BBC pulling strings to get me copies of films from the athenaeum).
It was no use simply scouring the Internet considering all I could find at that place were sensational videos and "OMG look at these conjoined twins really walking" sorts of pieces. And my inquiry continued right up until I was at the copyediting stage of writing because at the last minute, and to my great delight, I managed to get Edward Kiely, leading separation surgeon for conjoined twins in Europe, to help reply some of my hypothetical medical questions, forcing me to tighten up certain parts of the plot to create a world that was completely real. The quondam me would take shrugged at this idea but the new me, the research-giddy me, knew that I had to get it right because people built-in with unusual bodies and particularly conjoined twins deserve that respect.
Then which camp am I in now? It's hard to say. I recently completed a new novel for which I did very little initial research and this worked perfectly. Now I'one thousand working on some other projection, the subject matter of which is serious and hard and I'm back into research manner, 14 books read and 15 documentaries watched. I'g learning to exist more disciplined. I'yard learning to start slowly and go information technology right. And generally I'm learning to do what the book demands. Merely still, 18 months of research? Come on, dude, pull your finger out!
Sarah Crossan's volume One is available to purchase from the Guardian bookshop.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/oct/13/sarah-crossan-conjoined-twins-research-one
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