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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 12y ago by JSBձոգչ‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T02:41:12Z (almost 5 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 (almost 5 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 (almost 12 years ago)
Original score: 5