Research for Writers Level Three: Books

Okay, so for level three, we're going to cover books. That post title should really say: Books, Librarians, and Libraries, but that's too damn long.

Like yesterday's post about websites and the internet, using books to do research for writing novels is an incredibly broad subject, one that is almost impossible to cover without getting incredibly specific.

Before I go into my own specific example I just want to cover, for a moment, how to find books on the topic you need. Obviously you can use Wikipedia, as we covered on Monday. The References listed at the bottom of most articles usually point to some excellent books about the subject. You can also search Amazon.com or B&N, or even Google, just looking for a specific title. Google used to even have a great tool for shopping, called Froogle, but it looks like they've changed it to just a tab across the top called shopping now. Anyway, there are countless ways to find books on a specific topic, but far and away the very best is to go to your local library, and talk to your librarian.

Librarians are Masters of Books. They've spent their whole career gaining and maintaining knowledge about books, research, reading, and even sometimes, writing. If you have never talked to a Librarian about research for writing I highly suggest you do so as soon as possible. There is no better method, no better technique, no better experience in existence. You absolutely cannot compare the value of human ingenuity, especially when someone has spent most of their life mastering a craft, even when compared to the power of something like Google.

If, like me, you live in a small town, still go to your local library. The Librarian there will usually happily point you to a bigger library if necessary, and even if they don't stock the books you need, they can still help you find out that the books exist. Which is a start.

If, like I used to, you live near a big city, I highly suggest that you visit the main downtown library. There is nothing quite like the main library in a large city. You may not be able to track down the head librarian, but almost every librarian in places like those is a genius.

So, now that my library rant is over, let's cover my specific example.

WARRIOR-MONKS contains a scene in which the characters take part in the forging of a steel sword. To be more precise it's a traditional Japanese Katana, but when researching how to write this scene I wanted to cover the art of blacksmithing in general as much as I could.

Hands down the very best book I found on the topic was The Craft of the Japanese Sword, by Leon Kapp, Hiroko Kapp and Yoshindo Yoshihara. I actually heard of this book in the acknowledgements of a novel I read, so that goes against my points above, I suppose, but it doesn't really matter.

It was the only research book I bought to keep, but I checked out several other books on smithing, sword-crafting, metallurgy, and other topics that seems related, like polishing steel, scabbard making, hilt making, armor, and so on.

Here is a list of several other books I looked at. I did not necessarily check all these out, and it was a while ago now, so I don't remember for sure which ones I used the most, but each of these books deserves a look, especially if you are interested in swords or blacksmithing:

• The Backyard Blacksmith: Traditional Techniques for the Modern Smith by Lorelei Sims
• The Complete Bladesmith: Forging Your Way To Perfection by Jim Hrisoulas
• The Art of Japanese Sword Polishing by Setsuo Takaiwa, Yoshindo Yoshihara, Leon Kapp, and Hiroko Kapp
• Art of the Samurai: Japanese Arms and Armor, 1156-1868 by Morihiro Ogawa
• New Edge of the Anvil: A Resource Book for the Blacksmith by Jack Andrews
• The Complete Modern Blacksmith by Andrew Weygers
• The Pattern-Welded Blade: Artistry In Iron by Jim Hrisoulas
• Knives and Scabbards (Medieval Finds from Excavations in London) by J. Cowgill, M. de Neergaard, and N. Griffiths
• Facts and Fundamentals of Japanese Swords: A Collector's Guide by Nobuo Nakahara
• The Japanese Sword: A Comprehensive Guide (Japanese Arts Library) by Kanzan Sato

I could go on, but I'm sure you get the point. The blacksmithing scene was by far the one that required the most research, but there were several other things I had to learn more about to write my novel. About half of the books listed above were suggested to me by my librarian, the other half were found by plugging the names of the books she showed me into Amazon, and letting it suggest similar titles.

I didn't necessarily have to read every single one of these books. Many weren't available, but by getting a look at the first few pages, the cover art, and the title, I was able to tell with decent accuracy how much help a particular book would be.

Questions? Thoughts? Have you ever rocked your nerd card this hard and went so deep with research on a topic that you had fun with it? Lost your mind? Gave up on the scene?

Don't forget to come back tomorrow for level four.