Hands-on research is a great way to add those details and senses to your story, but sometimes hands-on research isn't practical or possible. Fortunately, there's YouTube. Author Melissa Jagears provides some tips for using YouTube videos for your research. -- Sandy
Melissa: How do you write about something you’ve never experienced,
like milking a cow, shooting a Gatling gun, skinning a rabbit, jumping from an
airplane, sitting on a beach in Hawaii? Of course, the best way to authentically
write about such things is to do them yourself, but a writer’s time is limited!
You could ask an expert or read a book, but these
instructions often aren’t given with the fiction writer in mind. These
resources may leave out interesting sensory details: the visual, the audio, and
perhaps even the tactile you might glean from watching the process. Also,
they’re unlikely to volunteer the nuances of how an excited, anxious, angry,
unsure, annoyed, etc. character might interact with the props and go through
the procedures that you as a writer would cue in on if you watched or did these
things yourself.
So what is the next best thing to scheduling a trip to Hawaii
and putting your toes in the sand yourself? YouTube. This is one source I think
writers often overlook.
There are many videos on YouTube that can help you write
about things you may never have seen or done AND to check your assumptions. You
may have an idea of how animals are skinned, maybe you’ve even skinned an
animal yourself, but if you’ve never skinned a rabbit, are you sure it’s the
process you think it is? (You know there are readers who’ll call you out on being
wrong!)
But don’t look up just one video! Follow good research
advice and verify with multiple. There is more than one way to skin a cat! (Um,
I don’t recommend looking up those YouTube Videos!!!!) You can learn from
several experts on YouTube often in less time than you could travel to your
nearest one.
I recommend typing “how to” or “tutorial” in your YouTube searches.
Tutorials not only let you watch an activity, but the expert explains what they
are doing as well.
YouTube videos also make great pins for your book on Pinterest.
The
Pinterest board for my novella (Entitled Love by the Letter which came out free a few days ago) includes YouTube
pins on how to tat (the heroine’s sister’s hobby) and a video of a man playing
a Jew’s Harp (my hero plays this instrument). For
my debut novel’s Pinterest board (Entitled A
Bride for Keeps), I included YouTube videos on how to strain milk and
make dogbane cord, both of these activities are mentioned in the novel. These
YouTube pins provide interested readers with bonus sensory material.
And for those interested in the experiences I listed above
for fun: Milk a cow by
hand, Hear a Gatling
Gun, Skin a rabbit,
Paratroopers preparing to
jump (Shout out to the 82nd Airborne Division; my husband was 82nd
and did countless of these jumps!), Beach sounds in Hawaii.
Have you used any YouTube Videos for your writing research? What is the most unique place/thing you've researched using YouTube?
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Melissa Jagears, an ESL teacher by trade, is a stay-at-home
mother to two small children on a tiny Kansas farm with a fixer-upper house.
She's a member of ACFW and CROWN fiction marketing, and her passion is to help
Christian believers mature in their faith and judge rightly. Her debut novel, A
Bride for Keeps, will be released Oct. 1, 2013. The novel’s prequel, Love by the Letter, is available as a
free ebook download. Learn more at www.melissajagears.com
