Sunday, May 03, 2009

BOM: Research


The research for "The Note 2" mainly required going back through my notes for "The Note" and reviewing everything I'd learned about a newspaper columnist's schedule. In the movie, Peyton pretty much worries about writing ONE column, but in real life, a full-time newspaper columnist would write between three-four columns every week, with a new column due every other day. That's a pretty brisk schedule.

So I had to come up with a way to keep the novel in sync with the movie, so I created a special anniversary column for Peyton to fret over throughout the book, while she was still turning out less significant columns every other day.

Movies are streamlined, of course, so in the novel I also had to "fill in" Peyton's day with the ordinary stuff of newspaper employment--staff meetings, inter-office chatter, and cubicle prairie-dogging. As I mentioned, I'd done all this research back in 1999 when I wrote "The Note," so I had to refresh my memory. Thank heaven I saved all my notes and character cards!

Tomorrow: the writing!

~~Angie

3 comments:

Mocha with Linda said...

Wow, your files must be a treasure trove! I'll take an Angela Hunt Library over a Presidential Library any day!

SmilingSally said...

Organization is the key!

Sue said...

I have so much to learn about all the research that goes into writing. Thanks for sharing glimpses of your process. It helps so much more than the few pages in my course curriculum!