Tips and tricks to start researching your novel. Perfect if you're looking to write a story with a historic epic or incident at its centre. Perfect if you want to write the next GoT! About Devi Yesodharan: Devi Yesodharan was a speech-writer for Infosys chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy. Now, when she isn’t obsessively reading up on the Cholas, she works as a co-founder on Trendlyne, a financial investing platform. Empire is her first novel. About Empire: An Indian empire at the peak of its power. A great port heaped with spices, silks, jewellery, perfumes, weapons. Everyone wants a share of the riches of Nagapattinam. When a Greek pirate ship sails in to loot the wealth of the Cholas, it is brutally defeated by the navy and forced to pay a compensation. A payment that includes a twelve-year-old girl, Aremis. Aremis grows up to be a skilled warrior, a great asset to the Cholas. But she is a foreigner among her captors, even though the emperor trusts her to guard his person. Anantha, the man who took her captive, the supreme commander of the empire’s armies, is a wily strategist. But he no longer has the stomach for war. The emperor’s ambitions weary him. Rajendra Chola has conquered Lanka, now he wants to rule the Indian Ocean. Their future is set: a dangerous journey across the seas and a bloody, brutal war they cannot survive undamaged.

1. Getting research right:
ten tips for your book
Devi Yesodharan

2. TOC
Does research matter?
Ten tips, in a row

3. Does research matter?
Short answer: Yes, regardless of the book you are writing.
Long answer: Yes, good art is built on good research. Music, painting, writing: in all of
this, the best work has many grunt hours put in, that is visible in the quality of the final
work.
Research helps uncover topical details in the area you are interested in, that you
wouldn’t have come across otherwise. It’s both a spark plug for ideas and a source of
additional color.

4. Research helps push the writer outside set patterns, thinking

5. Tip #1: Look for what surprises you
My example: Female bodyguards.
Whether you are writing a horror novel about women
spirits in an abandoned haveli, or a satire on high
school students in Delhi, or a science-fiction novel
based in India: research always helps.
You don’t know what you don’t know. Research adds
non-cliche elements to narratives, else you only know
what everybody else does.
Magic Island, W B Seabrook (1929)

6. Tip #2: JSTOR is not just for the nerds
Journal Storage, or JSTOR has become a lot more
accessible in the recent past.
Their digital library has a massive collection, and
their free account allows you to read three articles
at a time.
https://www.jstor.org/

7. Tip #3: access content repositories online
archive.org
academia.edu
Google Books (preview
versions)
https://journalarchives.jisc.a
c.uk/
UC Press Ebooks collection
Yale OpenCourses,
Coursera.org open courses

8. Tip #4: Find specific digital and print content in your domain
A bit of hunting can yield treasures. For example a big find for me for Sangam
poetry was the following link.
https://sangamtranslationsbyvaidehi.com/
That and the Puranuru translations, 400 songs of war and wisdom were among my
major sources for understanding the people and the places about which I was
writing.

9. Tip #5: Find your experts
There are specialists in every space, in mine one
of these was Vidya Dehejia, Professor of Indian
and South Asian Art at Columbia University.
https://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/audio-video/
video/mellon2-2016.html
Look for youtube lectures and available essays.
Many of these will be accessible via the sources
cited in tips #2 and #3

10. Tip #6: research style, approaches
One of the big challenges for writers is to write from a fresh perspective. Researching on
style is helpful here. It is for one, very inspirational. I highly recommend these: The Art of Memoir,
Mary Karr; Reading like a Writer, Francine Prose; The Situation and the Story, Vivian Gornick

11. Tip #7: ‘tangential’ research
One advice given to writers is to read a huge amount, which I strongly agree with. Also
important is to read outside the genre that you are writing.
Less commonly heard, but something I find very helpful: expand your research beyond
written content.
For example, I think someone writing a horror story would find a Haneke film like
Funny Games very useful, simply because he doesn’t do linear storytelling in his films,
and offers great ideas for all kinds of narrative:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPbrXIgU55A

12. Tip #8: (Some) fieldwork makes a difference
I always recommend visiting the places you base your stories
in. However:
1) Use Google Maps and Google Earth to find out specific
places you would like to visit, before actually making
plans. This minimizes some effort when you are actually
there.
2) Also use Flickr, Alamy and similar online image tools to
do image-based research before you get there. In my case
for example, I looked at online photograph resources on
the Brihadeeswara Temple, and the GangaiChola palace.
You get to see a lot of closeups of sculptures and
architecture, so you go there knowing what to look for.

13. Tip #9: Tap into your network for intros
Nothing beats original sources. And a good percentage of people love
helping out with unusual projects. Build allies and mentors.

14. Tip #10: Verify
Research via Wikipedia and similar sources can be
dangerous, because articles may not be properly
cited.
Track down reliable research, even for a work of
fiction. Cross-check facts that sound especially
outrageous, so as a writer you don’t end up
pushing a bunkum theory.

15. Summarizing!
#1 Look for what surprises you
#2 JSTOR
#3 Online repositories
#4 Digital and print content
#5 Find your people
#6 Research approach and style
#7 Tangential research
#8 Fieldwork
#9 Use your network
#10 Verify