Why Not Compare?

My favorite part about the 1989 film Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure is the motley crew of historical figures the boys pick up for their final presentation.

Incongruously, amongst the excellent comments and air guitar riffs, are Sigmund Freud, Beethoven, Joan of Arc, Genghis Khan, Billy the Kid, Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon, and So-crates, pronounced just so.

The screenplay was written by two stand-up comedians, based on a college routine they’d performed, but they had to at least dip into history to present our famous folk. I wouldn’t count on much being true, but enough was — they sketched out these figures and plopped them in, all so that Bill and Ted could save the day, earn extra-credit, and get the girls in the end.

This is a time travel (future and past) film using historical figures and settings, though mostly, we think of it as an iconic but ridiculous (and funny) movie that launched Keanu Reeves.

In my forthcoming novel, The Play is the Thing, I considered basically the same ground that Bill and Ted’s screenwriters had to. My main character goes into the past (1598 London)and meets up with an historical figure, William Shakespeare. She has to work hard to “save the day,” and then has to confront some time travel anomalies and make sure that all is well.

In order to lend accuracy to the story, I had to research like crazy to make sure I was presenting Shakespeare and his world accurately — as much as I could — and I also had to read not only his work, work written about him, but other novels where he appears as a character — and there are some. A lot, actually. I suddenly felt not much of a genius, but it was good to see how other writers had taken on the topics I was. These novels came at Shakespeare quite differently, and it was fantastic to see all the approaches. But at the core of each? Shakespeare.

Also, as I focus on one of his plays specifically in my story — the play is the thing, after all — it was reassuring to see that other writers had done the same.

Some writers don’t read books similar to theirs while writing, though they do when researching. When this research happens depends on the writer. Jodi Picoult, for instance, is famous for the intensity of her research before writing a word.

Some writers come up for research air after they are done with a first draft and then dive in. There are many ways to research, but the point is that if you do it well, your readers won’t even notice your hours, days, weeks, and maybe years of research. All things will fit smoothly. Your characters, setting, and dialogue will be seamless.

Not only is it important to see what other recent work is out there on your topic or subjects to help you write, but it is important to connect your work to the great river of literature before it, to note what themes, tropes, and work you are following. Doing so allows you to think about the place of your work in the overall world of books.

For instance, let’s consider Homer. Yes, why not? Homer’s great stories The Iliad and The Odyssey are based on ancient Greek mythology. Without these older stories, Homer’s tale of travel to, time in, and escape from Troy would be barren. Furthermore, he brings us mythological figures and gives them voice.

For one, we see Odysseus travel to the underworld (a descent myth). There he follows Circe’s instructions and is able to attract the dead and learn quite a bit about the Trojan war and his future (if he follows Tiresias’ directions). But most importantly, he meets up with Achilles. We learn of Achilles’ desire to die a hero than live an ordinary life; now he knows he would rather be alive as a slave than king of the dead. Oh, how the mighty fall.

But this myth of descent in Homer’s tale is one of a pattern, one that Inanna, Ishtar, Tammuz, and Jesus undertook in their myths. Many tales from the Australian continent present a similar journey, part of the shaman’s journey. Dante does a bit of a Bill and Ted with Virgil in Inferno during his ghastly sojourn to hell.

If I were writing a book on hell, I’d been reading the stories of Persephone, Orpheus, Psyche, The Iliad, as well as Neil Gaiman and Dante. If I were stuck in hell, I’d stick to the Inferno, but I would take a look at some modern visions of hell as well.

There are a couple more practical reasons to do your research on your topic, story, and themes, looking to the past and the present. As most of us novelists do want to be published, we have to fully know our work in order to entice others to read it.

From your query letter (my novel Hell is Other People is similar to Damned by Chuck Palahniuk, Paradise Lost by John Milton, and Kiss and Hell by Dakota Cassidy) that enraptures your brand new agent to the detailed and thorough marketing list you present to the PR people at your new publishing company, you have to know where you fit in historically and well as right now.

Little did I know when I sold my novel The Play’s the Thing that Maggie O’Farrell’s new novel Hamnet was covering some of the ground I do. I didn’t know when I wrote my query letter, but I know now (as I do about The Heavens, a time-travel Shakespeare novel), so I use this information to talk about my story.

The fact that there are at least three stories out there covering some of the same material is a good thing. There’s energy and interest, a swirl of focus on our shared thematic and subject ground.

The topic is the thing, too.