Introduction  Have you ever...?

Have any of you ever read the book Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles?  If you haven't, I'm going to give you a brief synopsis:  It's pretty much a standard, young-adult, boy-meets-girl plotline, although there are some twists.  For one, the lead male character is a Mexican gang-banger.  And now all of you are either thinking "Whoa, this sounds like it could be pretty awesome!" or "Oh, dear God, this is probably a really dumb book."  Well, it depends on your taste.  Anywho, finishing this summary, the male protagonist falls for a preppy white (Caucasian) girl and he has to protect her from the gang because she's the most precious thing he has, blah, blah, blah.  You get the idea.  All in all, I didn't think it was too awful as a simple read.

This brings me to something that I hate about published authors: They publish a book and it makes a lot of money.  Initially, they hadn't planned to make a sequel or series out of it.  So, after they see how much money is in their bank account after the book sells, they start preparing a sequel.  The sequel is not out of love for the characters or original story's plot.  It's simply for their own monetary gain.  And that just bothers me.  Because the sequel usually turns out to be a bunch of crap that we wasted a forest to print.

That's what happened with the sequel to Perfect Chemistry.  Honestly, the only reason I really liked it was because the author did her research.  You could tell.  She'd tell you, too; she mentions in her thank-yous the names of people and organizations that told her about gangs and how they work and everything.  It was all fine and dandy.  And then she comes out with the sequel to Perfect Chemistry, Rules of Attraction.  Seriously, I should have been tipped off by the fact that the story was about the guy from Perfect Chemistry's brother and not the original male protagonist.  But, hey, that's what I get.  I get that and a crappy sequel I spent $20 on.  It was as if the author completely forgot to do her research.  She completely left out details about how the gang works, probably because she assumed it was obvious if you've read the first book, but I think mostly it wasn't even in her head when she thought of how much money she was going to make.  I understand that authors have deadlines, but really?  That doesn't give them the right to compensate the quality of their story.

This big story was to help explain the next section of this step-by-step guide to becoming a better writer.  And here it is.

Lesson

Research.  I would debate that it's the most important thing in writing any kind of story--a fan-fiction, a novel, a short story, take your pick.  I've posted this a million times in my blog.  If you want to be a better writer, start with research.  I could talk for hours about the things I've Googled when researching things for my story.  But that's not what this is about.  This is about making you a better writer, .

First thing's first.  Last section, we talked about writing down the basis of your plot, characters, everything.  Get that sheet of paper out, bring up the document (though I prefer you use paper because you can travel with it).  You should have the basic points of your plot written down.  To remind you, this is the example from last section:

...you were inspired by a creaky floorboard in your house.  Maybe your protagonist will encounter
the same one in your story.  Maybe the floorboard turns into more than a pesky problem when the
protagonist finds a collection of letters hidden under it and a jar full of ink.  Perhaps the letters are
aged and the protagonist wants to find out who wrote them and what they were doing under their
floor.   

Okay, so what we're learning in this section is the importance of research.  And the basic plot we have is that a mysterious collection of letters was found under a creaky floorboard.  What's the first think you want to know?  Hmm...what about "Why was the board creaking in the first place?"  Google the subject and find the causes of creaky floorboards.  I did and here's the results that I got (from homeandgardenideas.com):

There are multiple causes for creaky floorboards, some include:

• The age of the house.  The article said that creaky boards in old houses is very common.
• Dry air in the house.  Dry air causes the floorboards to lose moisture and can cause them to contract.
• Seasonal change over a long period of time.  The air in the house will be more moist in warmer seasons (which causes expansion of the boards) and drier in the colder ones.  Over time, the dry-to-moist, contraction-to-expansion can cause the boards to warp and change.  When they touch together and rub against each other, they cause noise.
• Incorrect installation of the flooring (this is for new houses).

See?  Nothing to be afraid of, right?  Not only did you learn why the floorboards in your house creak, but also why the creaking occurs in the character's house.  Here's a couple tips when researching: Don't go only with the first answer you find. Write down why something happens.  For instance, don't just write this in your notebook:

Research:
Creaky Floorboards
Causes: Old house.

Write down why the age of the house is important to why the floorboards make noise.  And be sure to include differences like I did above.  Everything but the last point was for older houses.  And since the letters the character is discovering are aged, it would be probable that the house is older, so the last reason is not necessary to include in your notes.

• Incorrect installation of the flooring

There.  Now you've expanded your story a little bit in terms of the setting.  The setting is the time(s) and place(s) when and where your story takes place.  By simply researching this little bit of information, we now know that the character lives in an old house and we know why their floorboards creak.  (Those little pieces can be details later!)  But we still need to find out a lot more about our topic.

Google what the letters would look like.  You'll be doing a lot with the letters, so you want to make sure you're accurately describing them.  I couldn't find anything that directly answered my question when I Googled it, but I did find a question someone asked about how to make a letter look old for a history project.  I took some of the tips from that and drew conclusions about how old letters look from that:

You can also try creating old letters of your own.  Not only is it a fun activity, you can get a 3D view of the object you're going to be describing.  It makes being descriptive fun and interactive on a different level.

There are a lot more things you could (and should!) research.  Even if you know what something smells or tastes like, researching it can't hurt.  Especially research the things you don't know.  I've seen so many writers make the mistake of making up things instead of researching it; when a person that actually knows the subject reads it, it becomes apparent that the writer had no understanding of the topic whatsoever.

And I don't know about you, but I get really turned off when authors give themselves the freedom to completely make up even small parts of their story.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, research is so, so, so important in good writing.  It can make or break your story.  Simple as that.