Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A Is it worth reading book to learn more about topic of my story

Absolutely. I've read lots of books as research for writing stories, and I'm not even a compulsive researcher the way that some writers are. However, there's an obvious limit on how much effort yo...

posted 11y ago by JSBձոգչ‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T02:41:12Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/7091
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar JSBձոգչ‭ · 2019-12-08T02:41:12Z (over 4 years ago)
Absolutely. I've read _lots_ of books as research for writing stories, and I'm not even a compulsive researcher the way that some writers are.

However, there's an obvious limit on how much effort you can put into a short story. Perhaps reading a 300-page book is too much effort, or perhaps only a portion of the book would be relevant to you. In that case, I have one word for you: _skim_. Look at chapter and heading titles. Read the sections that are most relevant or interesting to you. Glance lightly over the rest. It's possible to get the most important bits of a very large book in a short space of time this way, and that may be just what you need in this case.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2013-01-19T20:41:53Z (over 11 years ago)
Original score: 5