Knowledge, Or the Lack Thereof

I have lately been experiencing the above conundrum in two of my current works, and it's difficult to work my way out of these states.

First, Knowledge.

I like to research. I am that nerdy girl at school who practically clapped when a research paper was announced. I do super in-depth dramaturgical work when I'm in a play... sometimes for every character or situation presented. Sometimes, my research goes horribly awry, like when I was collecting facts for my 2009 NaNo novel, Remembrance. I sent it away to be edited by a friend, and when it came back, she had noted that most of my research was incorrect. All of my hard work was for nothing, and now I had a very mistaken point of view of English history. Other times, I simply know too much-I research to the point where what I know about the subject can't possibly be worked into the manuscript, especially in a natural, non-info barf-y way. This is an issue I came across recently, when I decided to write my analytical essay for class on my favorite play and its film adaptation, which I also love. I re-read the play, watched the film, collected sources, and wrote ten pages of notes. The essay was only allowed to be 2,500 words wrong and by about 2,000, I had only talked about three of my points and hadn't needed to use a single source because I had so much to say on the subject in the first place.

This latter problem is what is going on for one piece, in a way. When I began writing my Peter Pan play, I waffled about whether to send my main character, Mary, to an insane asylum. As I started doing more research in about February of last year, I came to learn that in Victorian England, seeing things and talking too much about things that people don't want to hear merits you a one-way ticket to a nice padded cell.
I worried that this might be too dramatic and waffled for about six months as to whether to put it in or not. In the end, I decided that she would be sent to the asylum but skipped over the actual asylum part. leaving off when she found out she was being sent away and picking up when he returns. When I presented my semi-finished script to my playwrighting class around November of last year, my teacher specifically requested that I write a scene in the mental institution.
All through this, I had been thinking of doing so, if only for myself, and had been doing research. I learned a lot. A lot, a lot. My entire perception of the medical world in the Victorian era was changed because of the methods they used to cure women of the disease my character was thought to be suffering from (hysteria, the catch-all diagnosis for all inconvenient behavior in the 19th century.) I wrote the scene. I turned it in. I was happy with it.
Then I came to England and started a class called Madness and Medicine in Modern Britain. The class specialised in the examination of asylums in the Victorian era, with a unit devoted to hysteria. I read a dozen articles on it, covering them in highlighter. I took detailed notes during class. I gave my own presentation on hysteria. Then I went back to my script, armed with my new knowledge. Then I realised something.

I knew too much. There was no possible way I could go deep enough into the subject in two or three scenes without making it unnatural and/or confusing a potential audience. I needed to, not dumb it down, but keep it simple, on the surface. Let the audience know what the disease was and the milder ways it was treated (some of the more serious treatments not only shocked me and would be hard for me to write about, but there's no way my fourteen year old character would have been subjected to that... I hope.) However, it's been difficult for me to pull back and see just how much is too much to be dumping on the audience.


Then there's the problem at the other end of the spectrum: too little knowledge. This problem came in when I was working on my NaNo '10 novel, which I've been editing since December.
See, in the novel, my character has a boyfriend. The first time they get together in a romantic way, they kiss pretty seriously to the point where my main character gets uncomfortable and leaves. However, she does let herself get carried away before realising what she's doing.
Yeah... like I know what that's like. Besides not being great at writing kissing scenes- I've only ever written one, and it was more of a very chaste kissing moment- I have little personal experience with the act myself. I've never gotten to the point that Lyddie does in that scene.
I wrote it early in the process and when I shared it nearly a year later, people seemed to think it was realistic. But reading it over this week, I realised that it wasn't serious enough. While the reader knew that she was getting uncomfortable... there were really no details and so they just had to take my word for it, and I don't think that would satisfy many people. That's the problem with this being a novel and not a screenplay. I've written screenplay/play kisses and it looks like this:

(They kiss.)

I can do that (unless I'm the actor carrying out the direction, which I have been. Then I'm just as inept.)
In a novel, especially one being told in first person present like mine... you need more than "he kisses me" (well, at least for this scene. I do in fact have a few more, no-details-given kisses in the book.)
I wanted to add more but what? I didn't know what would go on in a situation like that. So I spent some time on the romance boards of NaNoWriMo.org, consulted my favorite book series, and added a bit to the scene.
I'm happy with how it stands right now, but I honestly don't know if it's realistic, and unless I find a lovely English boy who will love and care about me, I don't anticipate getting any real-life experience in the near future that would help me confirm it.

*sigh*

Chapter Three: NaNo Headquarters

Word Count: 12,455/50,000

Though my NaNo novel lives in Microsoft Word, the real NaNoWriMo headquarters are located at http://www.nanowrimo.org/. On this site, there are updates, pep talks, author profiles, personal profiles, and much, much more. I love going on this site and I generally have it up 24/7 (along with Facebook).

My favorite part of the site is probably the forums. On the forums, there are many initial categories to choose from, everything from your novel's genre, a clubhouse for distressed writers (as well as one for triumphant ones), and categories for Character & Plot Realism and Plot Doctoring. Even when I'm not waiting for an answer myself, I love reading other posts. People have so much knowledge and some of the topics are not only very interesting, but they help me out, too. I guess that's probably why they make it forum style rather than saying, "So and So knows a lot about the justice system, so send all your questions to her!", they make all answers availible to everyone. It's fantastic.


And now, since I don't have a lot to say on that topic, another excerpt.



Ruthie looked around for her two best friends and spotted them standing by the entrance. After making sure Noah was headed in the direction of the lower school, Ruthie rushed over to them.
“You’re late,” Nora Savidge pointed out as Ruthie took her place next to them.
“We haven’t got a clock in our shelter yet. We got up so late that I had to wear a dress that my mum had brought down – and she got it out of a box to hand down to my cousin!”
Annie Payson giggled as she straightened her hair clip. “I didn’t think I’d seen you in it since the year before last.”
Ruthie looked around at her fellow students, all talking intently. “Is everyone talking about the air raid last night?”
“Of course,” said Anne. “It was the scariest thing that’s ever happened! I thought our shelter would be hit any minute.”
“I was worried that a bomb would go off five streets over and just the wind itself would blow our shelter over,” Nora remarked wryly. “I think my dad just propped two pieces of metal against each other and put a door in front of them.”
“Your dad is a teacher,” Ruthie pointed out. “It’s not like he’s ever had to do it before.” Nora opened her mouth to respond, but before she could say anything, the bell rang and the students began to rush into the building, still chattering about what had happened the night before.
As Ruthie took her seat in the classroom, she noticed that Jimmy Henderson’s seat next to hers was empty. At first, she didn’t think much of it- it was not unusual for him to be too busy plying a prank to make it to class on time. But his seat was still empty when her teacher, Miss Whittaker, called the class to order and Ruthie began to worry.
“Class,” Miss Whittaker said, standing in front of her desk as her students took their seats again. “Miss Burns has an announcement she would like to make. Please give her your full attention.” Ruthie’s teacher stepped aside to give the school’s wide – girthed principal the floor. The form rose and waited. Miss Burns was silent for a moment as she surveyed the students, her lips pursed and her stern eyebrows pinched together.
“You may be seated,” she said distractedly. “I am afraid I have some bad news, children,” she began. “As you must all be aware, we have been having air raid drills here for the past few months in case the school was attacked. Last night’s air raid gave you a taste of what could happen during school hours, and I do not doubt that many of you were frightened. In any emergency situation, some unfortunate things can happen, and I regret to inform you that such a thing happened during last night’s raid.”
The class was confused. While many of them had been frightened during the air raid, it was over now. What after effects could have a part in their lives?
Several buildings were destroyed by the bombs that fell, one of them being the flats on Wannamaker Street. The Henderson family was a resident of this building.”
There were a few soft gasps as the class turned to stare at Jimmy’s empty desk. A heaviness seemed to fall over the room as the principal’s words sunk in.
“What happened to them, Miss Burns?” a girl named Evelyn asked softly. It was a mark of the seriousness of the situation that Miss Burns did not reprimand Evelyn for neglecting to raise her hand.
“I regret to say that, though Mr. and Mrs. Henderson and their youngest child were found unharmed, the authorities were unable to located James and his brother Arthur.”
“But they’re just… I don’t know, lost of something, right?” said a boy named Roger. “Maybe they ran to get help and couldn’t find their way home.”
Miss Burns’ mouth grew tight. “We can only hope that is the case, Mr. Jennings. There are people looking for the boys as well as a few others, and you can be sure that if they are indeed still alive, they will be found.” And with that, Miss Burns nodded to Miss Whittaker and left the room. But she did not take with her the grim silence that had fallen over the students as soon as she said the words “still alive”. Ruthie glanced again at Jimmy’s empty eat. She couldn’t seem to wrap her mind around the idea that someone she knew might really be gone forever. Could it be that this boy, this noisy, wise – cracking fourteen year old, had already reached the end of his life the night before? Was his body lying in wait of the search party? Or might he be gone completely, never to be found by anyone at all?
Ruthie shook her head, trying to rid it of these thought. Jimmy could take care of himself, she was sure of that. They would find him. By next week, she told herself, he’d be sitting next to her again, folding up paper airplanes in his lap and grinning that sideways smile of his. He would be, because Ruthie couldn’t accept anything else.