Monday, July 03, 2006

BOM: The Research



The first thing I had to research in writing THE IMMORTAL was the legend of the Wandering Jew. So I bought several books on that topic (and yes, there ARE several books on that topic). Next, I had to come up with logical "antichrist candidates" for every generation, particularly for the last couple of centuries. Interesting!

Then I had to research the end times--that was easy, because I'd written three novels with Grant Jeffrey on the subject, plus I'd ghostwritten several prophecy books (I don't do that any more, BTW). Finally, I had to research Rome. I really wanted to go there, but wasn't able to fit the time into my schedule. Rats!

Oh, yes--and one of the most fascinating things I had to research was body language. I am happy to say that I can now loook at a smiling person and tell whether or not that smile is genuine. (VBG) I'm also pretty good at picking up the tells of a lie, but since I'm not around people who lie all that often, I don't get as much practice with that one.

Tidbit: when I learned all the tells, etc., I've learned to use them in my writing. For instance, when a woman flips her hair, it's a sexually suggestive sign. So often I'll have a woman flip her hair when she meets an interesting male character. I don't explain it of course, but it makes sense.

Obviously, a person with crossed/folded arms is literally erecting a "wall" between themselves and others. They're feeling defensive, so when I write defensive characters . . . you guessed it, I write them with folded arms. One arm down, one arm folded, is a sign of uncertainty. (Isn't this stuff useful?)

So--those were my main areas of research. Lots of fun!

Tomorrow: the writing

~~Angie

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I can see how the body language stuff would come in helpful with character development. That's one of the things I found fascinating about this book - how Claudia was so used to being able to read people and Asher seemed genuine, but it was so implausible to her. Her inner struggle was fun to watch.