Re-Imagining Material - How to Use Research in Your Writing

The allure of an interesting doorway is very similar to  that of a gripping book; it is to me, at any rate.

Both provide a portal to a vivid new world and every time I pick up a book, even a dog-eared paperback, the literary equivalent of the battered old door above, I'm  transported  to a different realm.

This has never been more true than with Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel. I won't rehash the story for you here -- suffice to say it follows the downfall of Henry VIII's queen, Anne Boleyn, as seen through the eyes of the consummate politician, Thomas Cromwell. There are countless reasons why, if you are interested in writing, you should rush out and beg, steal or borrow a copy: Mantel's characterisation is faultless, she can turn a phrase so that the axis of your imagination shifts while you are reading it, her pen sheds light on people, places and events so that the novel becomes positively luminous.

All of these are reasons enough to read her work. However, the greatest lesson that a fledgeling writer can learn from her is how to take hard facts and turn them into magical fiction.  It's a kind of alchemy, honestly, it is.  Her research is inexhaustible and meticulous, meaning that she writes with accuracy and authority -- you believe the truth of what she is saying, but it is never, for a single instant, like reading a history book It's like being at the beating heart of a lost era. She knows how to translate historical events into living, breathing actuality by means of beautifully observed, vividly drawn characters.

Writers new to the craft can sometimes lack a lightness of touch when it comes to using research they have unearthed, either historical, emotional or plain factual. Perhaps it's thriftiness, not wanting to waste anything, or perhaps it's a kind of security blanket. When you are sweating blood trying to bring your material to life, here are a few things to bear in mind:

• Don't include everything you know about the subject, use just enough information to give veracity to your work.
• Don't be literal about anything - only include information if it is significant, suggestive, seductive.  It must show the reader something as well as tell them.
• Reveal, don't regurgitate.
• Don't be afraid of including more than one version of the truth.  Look at an event or a person from several different angles.  Leave it to the reader to decide which speaks most clearly to them.
• In fact, leave as much as you can to the reader. Use your imagination to work on theirs -- you are handing them the tools -- your words -- to do the work for themselves.
• Find the telling detail -- a single pinprick of light will be more illuminating that a blanket of grey fog. 
• Go for the small picture rather than the large -- from little acorns...