Researching for A Novel

A challenge for me is squaring the Montauk of my imagination with the “real” place on Long Island. In my novel, for instance, I’ve situated two of my characters in a house on Fort Pond Bay in an area of the coast that doesn’t quite exist. Meanwhile, the two children in my novel, Max and Jonah, go wandering in Hither Woods and are presumed lost. (In fact, they are holed up in a bunker in nearby Eddie Ecker County Park.) I’ve spent hours exploring on foot to better describe this event, and have walked their route several times to make sure that it is something two twelve-year-old boys could manage.

My research for this novel has been extensive, but in creating fiction I need to rely most on my imagination. I need to know enough for verisimilitude but not so much that the flow of creativity shuts down. I don’t want inaccuracies in my work, but I chafe at being overly bound to facts. For me, for the fiction to feel vital, my mind needs to simply wander into whatever avenues seem right for the story I’m making up. I don’t know if others work this way, especially those who write true historical fiction, but for me it’s a strange and peculiar balance.