Dry medical details become far more fascinating when they’re consequential to a character. In my novel Harvest, my hospitalized heroine has a 16-gauge IV inserted in her arm. The gauge of the IV seems irrelevant to the reader—until Abby yanks out the IV to make her escape, and the hole left by the big-bore IV dribbles a trail of blood as she flees. Suddenly, that detail becomes relevant—and disturbing.
Powerful emotions can propel readers through even the most technical details of a story. In my novel Gravity, a medical thriller set aboard the International Space Station, I needed to explain the complex protocol an astronaut needs to complete before going on a space walk (otherwise known as an EVA, an acronym for “extravehicular activity).” It’s not a matter of simply donning a pressurized suit and popping out of a hatch. It requires a daylong period of depressurization, followed by an hour’s prebreathe of pure oxygen. Only then can the astronaut exit the hatch and float into unpressurized space. These details were crucial to the plot, but I ran the risk of boring readers with all the technical information. How could I make it more palatable?
I did it by giving it emotional context. While my astronaut heroine, Emma, is going through her EVA checklist, she’s also thinking about what goes wrong if she doesn’t adhere to the protocol. She thinks about what it would be like to die of decompression in the vacuum of space. She thinks of the first symptoms when nitrogen bubbles form in your bloodstream: Your chest aches. Your eardrums burst. Your lungs explode from expanding gases. Your blood boils and, in the next instant, it freezes solid. It’s a horrifyingly agonizing way to die, and that fate is on her mind as she prepares for her EVA. Suddenly the “boring” details become far more interesting because the reader understands the terrible consequences of making a mistake.
In writing Gravity, I had another tough decision regarding technical language. All my characters were NASA personnel, so there was no handy everyman who could help readers understand the acronyms and aerospace jargon. I had to choose between making my characters understandable to readers and making them speak like real astronauts. Should Emma say: “I’ve put on my space suit and I’m ready for my space walk”? Or should she say “I’ve donned my EMU and am ready for EVA”? I opted to keep the dialogue as authentic as possible and have my astronauts speak like astronauts. To help readers with the NASA lingo, I added a glossary at the end of the book. It’s not the best solution. It’s challenging for readers to absorb all the new vocabulary, and some found it too intimidating, but it was the only way to thoroughly immerse them in the experience of orbital space.
Be careful not to go overboard with technical details if they’re not vital to the plot. You may think that including all that esoteric information makes you look brilliant, but you risk overwhelming readers and losing sight of the story. Doctor-novelists seem especially prone to this mistake, perhaps because we’re trained to educate patients and, darn it, we want to explain things. But in a novel, too much explanation leads to the dreaded crime of telling, not showing. Don’t do this. Technical details should serve only to enhance the plot, not overshadow it.
Whether or not you’re a medical professional, you’ll need to keep a few basic reference books handy. Invest in a comprehensive medical dictionary (such as Stedman’s) as well as an illustrated atlas of human anatomy. New medical textbooks can be pricey, but used copies will serve your purpose just as well, as long as they’re not too far out of date. Your story may also call for more specialized information. If your character is a pathologist, you’ll need a pathology textbook; if she’s a general surgeon, consult a surgical textbook. Used booksellers are a fantastic resource for finding obscure medical references. While hunting for reference materials for my historical medical thriller The Bone Garden, I found an 1812 surgical textbook available for sale online. The book laid out, in chillingly matter-of-fact detail, how to cut off an arm without anesthesia. It was the same edition that Civil War surgeons referenced when they performed battlefield operations, and that book added gruesome authenticity to my amputation scene, right down to how to immobilize a screaming patient while you’re sawing off his arm. I didn’t need to embellish the gore; just having my character watch over the surgeon’s shoulder and hear the rasp of the bone saw was horrifying enough.
Doctors and nurses are witnesses to the beginning of life and the end of it. In matters of life and death they serve on the front lines, and this inherent drama makes the medical thriller an enduringly popular genre. If you’re not a medical professional, these stories may seem challenging to write. You’ll need research skills, a few vital textbooks, and a source who’s willing to tell you what you need to know. But most of all, you’ll need what every writer needs, whatever the genre: a sense of the dramatic. All the research in the world can’t fix a thriller that’s not thrilling.
GIGI PANDIAN
Don’t compare your writing and publishing journey to anyone else’s. In this strange and wonderful profession, there’s no straight line to success. “Success” doesn’t even mean the same thing from one author to the next. You can define it for yourself.
Researching the Spy Thriller
Or: Why can’t I just make it all up?
GAYLE LYNDS
Whether you’re an intelligence-community veteran or a civilian who’s never set foot inside any of the alphabet agencies, you’ve no doubt discovered as you plan and write your novels that there are things you don’t know—or maybe you think you know, but you’re not sure.
So you Google whatever you’re wondering about, or you check your files, or perhaps you make some phone calls. If you’re allergic to the word “research,” you probably wouldn’t use it to describe what you’ve just done. Maybe you’d call it “looking stuff up.”
Why Research?
As you no doubt know, there are writers who say they hate research, and yet they want to create page-turning espionage novels. To accomplish that worthy goal, their work must contain authentic spycraft, memorable characters from low and high places, and plots and subplots that are, at the very least, plausible.
In other words, don’t put a manhole in the middle of Fifth Avenue in New York City with a Belarusian spy arising silently out of it at midnight to head west to break into the high-security United Nations building. Just don’t. What’s wrong with the scene? The direction the spy is heading; the fact that the writer hasn’t checked to make certain a usable manhole is located there or at least could be; and that even the much-maligned Belarusians mustn’t be portrayed as dumb, not if the novel’s characters and plot are to be taken seriously. Besides, there are much better ways to get inside the UN, even at midnight.
Over the years, readers and interviewers often asked Robert Ludlum where he’d worked for the CIA. Surely he’d been undercover? His standard answer was allegedly given with a conspiratorial smile: “No, I was never a spy. But I have friends… and an imagination.”
Bob’s second novel, The Osterman Weekend, is the story of a clandestine CIA operation to uncover Soviet assets, a humdinger of a covert-action tale. But there was a problem: Bob set the story in New Jersey. This alarmed Bob’s editor and publisher because it was illegal for the CIA to work domestically, and they were concerned about bad fallout: reviewers might jeer, Bob could disenchant his audience, and maybe the feds would come after him (and the publisher).
Bob fought back and refused to change the plot, and the hardcover was published in March 1972. Unsurprisingly, the book was a hit. And then, three years later, in 1975, Bob was vindicated. During the Church Committee congressional hearings, James Jesus Angleton, who’d been chief of CIA counterintelligence, admitted to a shocked nation that he’d directed “a widespread program of domestic spying and surveillance by U.S. intelligence agents” (as summarized by the Los Angeles Times in his obituary on May 13, 1987).
Of course, inquiring thriller minds want to know how Bob had found out what the CIA was secretly doing here at home. One of Bob’s contemporaries recounted all of this to me with personal touches an
d great gusto, but he hadn’t been able to pin Bob down about how Bob had known—or guessed. So most likely either one of Bob’s sources had let it slip, or Bob had deduced it from what he’d read or heard.
Either way, his research paid off.
How Does One Use Research?
More than any other field of fiction, spy thrillers tend to have revelatory or predictive qualities. Why? It’s not by magic or accident. Notice how important research becomes in the next example, too, and how it can lead to an exciting and surprising conclusion.
Sometime around 1999 I began to wonder whether there was a highly placed mole in the FBI. As an espionage novelist, I was of course keeping up with the news and analyses about CIA moles as they were uncovered throughout the decade. In particular there was a lot of heat about Aldrich (“Rick”) Ames.
But why were there so many in the CIA and none in the FBI? Statistically, it didn’t make sense. And it didn’t make sense politically—U.S. secrets were high-value targets for Russia even back in the early post–Cold War era. Also, there were a lot of Russians in the United States. In fact, more ex-KGB officers lived in the Washington, DC, area than anywhere else except Moscow, and the Russian embassy and consulates housed undercover agents specifically to recruit, bribe, blackmail, or steal U.S. technical and political information. To a Russian spy, controlling an FBI special agent would be gold.
Maybe there really was a major mole in the agency, I thought.
I focused my research, which included written material as well as chats with men and women active or retired in the intelligence field who were generous with their insights and observations. Everything I gathered was in the public domain.
I learned about blown NOCs (spies with nonofficial cover), deeply buried American assets overseas who had vanished or been executed, and foreign operations that had fallen apart. Some of the incidents couldn’t be explained away by what Rick Ames and other CIA officers had revealed to the Russians, and before them to the Soviets. In fact, the CIA hadn’t had all of the information that seemed to lead to some of the clandestine tragedies and deaths. But what the CIA hadn’t known, the FBI could have.
None of this information was in one place or from one source. Over several months I put together bits and pieces, hints and facts. I wasn’t certain, but it seemed to me I had enough that it was worth taking a chance…
A rule for writers: Something doesn’t have to be probable, but it should be plausible. Research can help you decide.
The result was that I created a highly placed FBI mole I called Robert (“Bobby”) Kelsey for Mesmerized, the spy thriller on which I was working. Then in February 2001, while the manuscript was at the printer, Special Agent Robert Hanssen was arrested. In headlines around the globe, the FBI man was being called the most damaging traitor in U.S. history.
I was gobsmacked. My deductions about an FBI mole had been right. Later I learned I’d even accurately postulated some of the clues and steps that had led to his unmasking. Thank you, research.
As for my naming my FBI mole Robert, that wasn’t because I knew it was also Hanssen’s given name… it was just dumb luck.
Research + Creativity
I often use words similar to Bob Ludlum’s when I deny having been a spy. “I know people, and I have an imagination.” And then I smile, because research and one’s imagination not only work together, they drive and feed each other. We love our imaginations and our inventions, whether characters, plot twists, or a particularly clever way to kill. Research can make our writing lives better, our books better, and our nights more fully slept.
On the other hand, if you have to force yourself to do necessary research, you might ask yourself whether you’re really interested in what you’re writing. Sometimes the secret to a writer’s wanting to do research is to find a situation, a character, or a subject that intrigues you. If you’re fascinated, you have a greater chance not only of fascinating your reader, but also of motivating yourself to dig deep and productively into research that will help bring your book to fire-breathing life.
Here’s an example of a classic espionage thriller set in World War II whose bones I find compelling, and so did millions of readers: What if a Nazi spy discovered that the airfields in England being secretly prepared for a Pas-de-Calais landing were really filled with plywood airplanes and tanks, and the actual Allied invasion was to be at Normandy (Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett)? You as the writer must’ve already done some research to know about this real-life situation, or perhaps you remember reading about it in a history class.
Here’s another fiction classic, this one set in 1960s Europe: What if disgruntled French military officers hired a professional assassin to kill President Charles de Gaulle (Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth)? You as the spy writer are already familiar with intelligence agencies, so you decide that in your novel, all the spy shops are going to be ignorant of your killer. He’s not in their files. They’ve never heard of him and have no way to identify him. You’re delighted, because this limitation will enhance the suspense of your novel. Then you research de Gaulle and discover an interesting fact—he’s the world’s most heavily guarded man. You are inspired! He’s going to be nearly impossible to kill, which will increase suspense even more.
Now that you’ve made those two creative decisions about the anonymity of the Jackal and the difficulty of assassinating de Gaulle, you realize you get to figure out the steps the anonymous assassin must take to pull off the job and what the heroes can do to find and stop him. You have exciting research ahead, and you’re well on your way to writing a riveting book.
What Is Research? How Do I Know Whether Something Is Research?
Most of us do research every day. We look into the refrigerator to assess its barrenness, a particular issue when on deadline. We stand in the driveway or the alley asking our neighbor about her trip to San Francisco, or Kiev, or the Yucatán Peninsula. We study our checkbook to see whether we have funds to get through the month. We go to our child’s (or grandchild’s) school for the holiday concert of songs from around the globe. All of that is research, often part of our everyday lives and pleasurable or at least tolerable—and sometimes very useful to a writer.
For instance, there’s mold on the oranges in the refrigerator—what kind of mold? Can it be used to create an antibiotic—or an epidemic? In the checkbook we find what looks like an error… hmm, could an accountant see something similar and suspect money laundering? And those songs from different cultures… an education in themselves. If one or more are from countries in your new novel, jot down the songs’ names and make a note to yourself describing them. It’s research.
The spy novel on which I’m working is set largely in Moscow, and I’m already fascinated by the culture, the beauty, the depravity, the generosity. I want to research that and more. Sights, odors, colors. People. Spassky Gate. The bridges illuminated by twinkling lights. Busy Komsomol Square, where three rail terminals converge and a tall statue of Lenin stands nearby, watching, holding the lapel of his coat with one hand while the other reaches for a back pocket. Lenin appears to have just realized his wallet has been swiped. That’s Komsomol Square. It’s reality. It’s powerful.
Here are research samples I particularly like and find useful:
History: “… parades in the Soviet Union were not something you watched, they were something you participated in. The only observers were the members of the ruling Politburo atop Lenin and Stalin’s tomb in Red Square and a few invited members of the diplomatic corps in the bleachers alongside.” —Loren R. Graham, Moscow Stories
Traffic: “I soon learned that an ambulance stopping to pick up a fare in Moscow wasn’t unusual. Every vehicle was a potential taxi. Private cars, dump trucks, police cruisers—everyone was so desperate for money that any and all would take fares.” —Bill Browder, Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice
Vladimir Putin in 2005: “… Putin pulled a pack of 3-by-5 cards f
rom his inside jacket pocket—the Americans called them his ‘grievance cards’—and began lecturing [President George W.] Bush about… well, about how fed up he was being lectured to by the Americans.” —Angus Roxburgh, The Strongman: Vladimir Putin and the Struggle for Russia
Oligarchs at a swank nightclub: “New arrivals were greeted by women who were beautiful on a surreal level. The interior design was out of Somerset Maugham, all dark woods and lazy ceiling fans. Here a man could sip Johnnie Walker Blue, light a Cuban cigar, sip a brandy, unwind, and make more money.” —Martin Cruz Smith, “Moscow Never Sleeps” in National Geographic
Could you have made up any of the above excerpts? I couldn’t. I’m thrilled my research turned up such vivid illustrations of life in Russia in various eras. Do I steal and pretend I wrote what I found? Of course not. Instead, I sit back, close my eyes, and allow the words to create moving pictures in my mind. Soon the pictures and thoughts meld into other research, and my imagination kicks in. A scene begins to form. Characters arrive. I must write now. I want to create moving, vivid pictures for readers.
General Research Advice
There are many ways to discover the kind of rich detail that brings a novel to life and in which the reader is so deeply immersed that they have entered your world to experience and believe. And there are caveats, too.…
How to Write a Mystery Page 7