Putting aside whether I want to run up a new credit card bill right now, and allowing that "research for a novel" is just an excuse anyhow; this would be a tourist trip and is worth whatever that is worth. Putting aside all that, I'm wondering if having a first-hand experience of the "look and feel" of the settings I will be using will improve the book...or make it worse.
***
So far the two people who I know actually read the last book told me there's "too much stuff." Said accusingly, in fact going out of their way to tell me there's too much.
How, exactly, is this helpful? What stuff? They say it like it is obvious, like there are words that clearly shouldn't be there. That there are words I went around adding in, like a cook suddenly gone crazy with the pepper mill.
No, it isn't obvious. I know the text is dense. I know because I've spent my entire writing life trying to decompress, trying to write less dense. But I don't even know if I'm decompressing the parts that need decompressing! Was there too much dialog? Too much description? Too much action? Too much movement? Too many concepts? Too many new words? Too many explanations? Or maybe not enough?
I feel "not enough explanation" figures in there somewhere, balancing with "too many concepts." The other advice I've heard often enough to be annoying is "You know all this stuff, and you have to understand the reader doesn't."
Like fuck I do. I've forgotten most of my research already. When I go back and re-read, and yes I do re-read, I am reading with a clear mind and little to no pre-knowledge. I know this because I'm finding typos and missing words and unclear phrasing and if I already knew exactly what I expected to find, I'd never see any of that, either.
The sole advantage I have is I know what stuff is plot-important and what is set dressing. I know what I can afford to skim through where a first-time reader doesn't.
So which things are "too much" and which things are better replacements? Because it is easy to say you have too much description, too much action, too much dialog...but you are also required to have a book that is at least 70,000 words and if those words aren't any of the above what they hell are they?
So I'm theorizing into a vacuum. Maybe if I was in the place, the setting would insinuate itself with simple, direct language, I wouldn't get caught up in all the "details you keep adding, shame on you" and I could knock out the text (also, without having to spend all that time strolling through Google Street View and so forth trying to get a sense of the places).
But maybe it is description that people are complaining about and if I saw the actual Highgate Cemetery I might end up putting too many of whatever those wrong words are in there, and have another crap book nobody wants to read. Maybe it is better to shut down Chrome and stop finding out anything because then it might accidentally make it into the book. Oh, no, I gave the actual name of a Tube Station! The book is unreadable! Too many notes, Herr Mozart!
***
I roughed out an itinerary. I know some well-meaning person is going to go, "Things never quite go as planned when you travel." So, what, you don't plan at all? Nonsense. I've travelled enough to have a realistic idea of how much to strive for and to build in lots of slack and cut-outs.
Looking at a week. Would like to do more but I don't have a lot of vacation hours saved up. Airfare and hotel is about a thousand dollars. A little more and that gives you one hot a day -- which got me through the last trip I made to London.
Turns out Field School isn't on, not this time of year. Would still like to do a day trip out to Bradgate Park. Two hours by bus, each way. So I wouldn't really be able to make a full day of the British Museum, but I can probably hit that, the Imperial War Museum London, the Globe, take another stroll through the old pedestrian tunnel, visit Highgate, pass through Trafalgar (not strictly necessary), take a gander at Battersea Power Station and the Vauxhall neighborhood across the Thames. And make sure to hit at least one pub, and have some proper fish and chips. And if I can find one, the Full Breakfast.
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