I had the honor of lobstering this summer with a friend who hauls 120 traps a day, six days a week. I met him at the harbor at 3:30 in the morning, and we returned at 4:30 in the afternoon, after he sold his lobsters to his co-op, gassed up for the next day, and loaded new bait on board. To say that he is hardworking is an understatement.

A fellow lobster boat

I asked to go out with him because Book Four, Downeast Blue, in my Midcoast Maine Mystery series specifically involves a lobster boat. While I didn’t need to know every step involved for the story, I felt that being out on a genuine lobster boat with an authentic lobsterman would lead to new discoveries.

I was right, but in a way I hadn’t expected.

My main story remained the same, but my killer changed.

In a murder mystery, that is obviously huge.

The day out on the water got me thinking: How else can research change a fictional story? It may seem silly to research something a writer is making up, but accurate information adds believability and keeps the reader engaged.

I recently read a bestseller from a big publishing house that had a great character and storyline but made simple mistakes, such as the character losing her home’s electricity because of one missed bill payment (wouldn’t CMP love it if it were that easy?) and misinformation about jump-starting a car. I caught several others throughout the book and wondered why an editor hadn’t caught them.

I don’t pretend to be perfect with information myself, but I try. In Arctic Green, I asked snowmobiling experts about the kill switch and the brake even though I ride my own machine. Thankfully, I’ve never been in an emergency situation with it, and it was important to the story to get it right. In my upcoming Lobster Red, I spoke to an award-winning archer to make sure I had the terminology, hand placement, and even the sound right.

The next time you think you know enough about what you’re writing, dig a little deeper or find an expert to ask. What you learn may strengthen, and possibly change, your story.

It might change your plot. What you learn may blow up your method, a character’s alibi, your timeline, or an escape route. You might discover an obscure law, geographic limitation, or local custom that sends the story in a new direction.

It might change your culprit. As in my case, research may reveal that another character has better access, opportunity, or motivation.

It might change your characters. Learning what someone’s work, or life, really involves can change how that character behaves, talks, thinks, or reacts.

It might change the boundaries of your story. Research can show you how long something realistically takes, how far someone could travel, or how heavy a lobster trap really is when it comes up from the ocean. The author who shut off her protagonist’s electricity after thirty days needed the shutoff as a plot device. She didn’t need to lose the plot device—she just needed an older bill.

It might give you one tiny detail that makes everything else ring true. Sometimes it’s the sound of a piece of equipment, the way someone uses a tool, the smell of a workplace, or the thing an expert does automatically that an outsider would never think to ask about.

Research might surprise you. Sometimes it isn’t the question it answers, but the questions it creates—the ones you hadn’t thought to ask.

The only question I have now is why I didn’t drive around Maine eating lobster rolls as research for Lobster Red.

What a missed opportunity!

Sunrise and the light from another lobster boat

***

Allison Keeton writes the Midcoast Maine Mystery series. For more information, please visit www.akeetonbooks.com

The most recent book in the Midcoast Maine Mystery series