Step Four: Research

Research Can Be the Unsung Hero of Your Novel If You Handle It Right

Welcome back! I’ve missed this series and am excited to get back to work.

I’ve written about research many times over my career—so many that I wasn’t quite sure where to begin. My goal is to help you think outside the box and maybe find a new idea or two about tackling what can sometimes seem like an insurmountable task.

From ride-alongs with patrol offices and homicide detectives to autopsies to visits with FBI profilers and field offices, I’ve spent a lot of time doing hands-on, first-person research with the folks who live the lives I like to write about. For years, I wrote books about characters who knock on people’s doors to deliver bad news or are arriving at a crime scene, and that takes a strong stomach and a lot of humility to execute well.

When I shifted into standalone suspense, I found myself writing from the other side of the door, and, naturally, my research changed. I was diving deep into the lives of the people whose doors are knocked upon and telling their stories, which usually centered on turning their worlds upside down.

I still had a deep knowledge base to lean on, and I have law enforcement components in almost all my books, but I needed to broaden my horizons. My characters almost always have something in their lives that I’m fascinated with. That’s what makes the research fun. I like to say I get a Ph.D. with every book—and it’s almost all self-directed education. Whether it’s an Olympic-level skier, a writer, an artist, an assassin, an architect, a headmaster, a cop, or an astronaut, I have to learn who they are from the inside out and become a temporary expert in their chosen field in the process.

How? Primary, secondary, anecdotal, and online research.