Crucial Reference Works

From Jerry Jenkins' blog:


Crucial Reference Works


Almanacs and atlases are wonderful, inexpensive investments. A world almanac is a must for any serious writer, and if you can find one you like on disk, so much the better; you’ll be relieved of the tiny print in the paperback versions, and you’ll decrease look-up time.

World almanacs list about anything you could ever want for basic research. I use them even for character names. When naming a foreign character, I’ll look up his country of origin, scan the current government leaders for a last name, combine that with the first name from the country’s history (say, a war hero), and bingo, I have a legitimate, ethnically accurate name.

I use a world atlas, primarily because my characters travel the globe, and to be believable, I have to know time zones, current country names, monetary units, populations, average temperatures, and the like.

Atlases provide detailed maps, and Internet atlases even offer street maps — crucial to realistic action scenes. But almanacs also give the gross national product, offer tourism tidbits, and list major industries and resources. In the Left Behind series, I set some scenes in Greece, a country I hadn’t visited (until last year). The almanac told me one of Greece’s natural resources is lignite. A couple of more keystrokes in Google, and I discover that lignite is a type of coal used to generate electricity. I needed an occupation for a wealthy Greek. So he became a lignite magnate.

Almanacs also show which countries are on the metric system, so when my character is racing through a metrics-using country in a rental car, he’ll buy fuel in liters. Getting minuscule details right makes for a more entertaining read. And when you get them wrong, suddenly they’re no longer minuscule.

You can find free almanacs, dictionaries, and encyclopedias online. Simply Google almanac or dictionary and investigate your options. Some sites require a subscription, but before you pay, make sure you’ll actually use the product.

I use an electronic thesaurus, which is a good aid but also merits a caution: Never let it be obvious you’ve consulted a thesaurus.

Novice writers tend to seek the most exotic word, when the best use of a thesaurus is to remind yourself of alternative ordinary words. Avoid the obtuse and find the ordinary one that best conveys your meaning.

Believe me, readers can tell when you’ve fallen into a rut and overused a favorite word. They’ll let you know.