by Ane Mulligan @AneMulligan
Whether you write contemporary or historical fiction, you will need to do research. Otherwise, you could find yourself fifty-thousand words into a manuscript and discover you've written your characters into a conundrum without a way out. I know from experience.
Now some writers do all their research before they start writing, taking trips to near and faraway places before they begin internet searches. For those of us who are more seat-of-the-pants writers, that's not always an option. We might have the location in mind and could do a road trip, but we don't always know WHAT we need to research.
