Although people often say to "write what you know", now and then you may find yourself writing about something you don't know. When that happens, in order to sound like you know what you're writing, you need to research it.
I know horses, dogs, and cats. I even know unicorns and dragons. What I don't know that well, is elephants. So, when my husband and I decided to take a trip to the library today, I found a nice stack of elephant books to read. Sadly my library card is still new, so I won't be able to take all of these home with me today.
But why elephants, you ask?
Well, in my last post, I mentioned that the new story I started is loosely based off my daughter's favorite stuffed animal, pictured below.
Ever since I got pregnant with Evie, I've been obsessed with elephants. So when she was given this stuffed elephant for her first Christmas (she was only 4 months old at the time), it was perfect.
The name Ellie became the most natural name for her stuffed friend, and they now sleep together every night and every nap. Sometimes when Evie is upset about something she'll hold onto Ellie while she cries.
One day, my husband was playing with Evie and Ellie, and started referring to Ellie as Ellie the Elegant Elephant. He then says to me, "That would be a great title for a story! You should write that!"
That was MONTHS ago. Now I'm finally writing it. Ellie the Elegant Elephant will actually be the series title, while the first story, the one I'm writing now, is called "Ellie Finds a Friend". By the end of my unofficial participation in Write Club, I should have 8 full stories to start off the Ellie the Elegant Elephant series.
There's one problem, though. I don't know a whole lot about elephants. And Ellie doesn't speak at all in the stories, so I need to learn about elephant body language, sounds they make, the foods they eat (especially in captivity since Ellie is a zoo elephant). Hence, the necessary research.
And I'm actually learning a lot, so this is fun! I mean, did you know that elephants grow new teeth on a regular basis that push out the old, worn out teeth? Did you know they can actually grieve, and cry real tears over the death of a loved one? Or that, in the wild, the herd is made up of only females and young males, and all of the females help to raise the young elephants? And did you also know that elephants have a life-span of 60-70 years?
A lot of what I'm learning likely won't ever show up in my stories, but I'm enjoying all the new information.
So, don't be afraid or discouraged if you find yourself needing to do some research for your stories! You might learn something fun in the process!
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