I’ve seen those terms mostly applied to plotting. (I’m a planner, btw.) Maybe you automatically have a world built in your mind but don’t know the plot. That works. However, if a book is set in an inconsistent world, I’m going to throw it across the room, or deep six it if it is a contest entry. That affects the reader. How you get to a plot doesn’t.
I can imagine it would be frustrating when you’re trying to hit a moving target. Even though my book is an alternate world sort of speculative thing, the longer I take to publish it, the more it looks like an allusion to recent events in the US/Israel/Palestine, because it’s about autocracy and colonization and fascism and violent revolution (and love!) It doesn’t help that my conlang sounds Middle Eastern to readers. So I’m going to have to put in some disclaimer or something.
In truth, the idea behind one of the central nations in the conflict, Levia, was partly inspired by colonization and genocide in Latin America, particularly in the sense of mass rape and a sort of caste system developing based on ethnic origin. Only in this case, the oppressed overthrew their oppressors so it’s the biracial folks who are discriminated against in their own country. Decades later, the whole state is at war with the nation (not the original colonizers) that annexed them. And it’s just… stuff. It just happened. I don’t know. I might start with the germination of an idea from an actual thing that happened but by the time I’m done with it, it becomes something else.
And then with my MC Fel, the oppressed ethnic minority, there’s something of the resentment Black soldiers or individuals had toward the idea that they should be fighting for their country and being patriotic about a nation that was oppressing them. These aren’t concepts special to Latin America or African American history any more than war is special to Israel/Palestine. I don’t feel a need to recreate history. But these dynamics, the social politics that arise out of war and oppression, interest me a lot.
My argument isn’t that you don’t need a consistent world, it’s that there are many paths to a consistent world, and micromanaging every detail in advance is optional, as long as you have a general idea and you’re willing to do the required revisions.
Also, in my view, the plot also supports the story. They usually come together but story is more important to me than plot. I write romance. It is a deeply interior mode of writing. What’s going on in characters’ heads is everything. During this most recent overhaul, I actually had to make a choice about whether to make this a nail-biting action thing or a complex relationship thing, because it couldn’t be both. I chose to lean into what I do best, which is relationships. Write what you know and all that. Yes, there’s an action plot, but it’s not really what the book is about.
I’m glad I made the choice because everyone who has read the new version says it’s ready to go. I’m over the moon to have finally gotten it right after years of toil and dissatisfaction. I feel good about this one. Finally.
I still have to go through and do the continuity edits and make sure it all makes sense, really run through it with a fine-toothed comb, map out the timeline, map out the geography, think a bit more deeply about the world to make sure it’s all consistent, and then I’m going to start querying.
Although about television writing, I think this documentary about doing necessary research says something important on this topic.
I have read some books by Stephen King that show a definite lack of research, especially when technology is involved.
He seems to have at least some amount of success as a writer, so I guess careful research isn’t always necessary. 
I think the important thing is telling a good story. Personally I think doing a certain amount of research is necessary, because blatant errors in things like basic physics or how a computer works can pull the reader completely out of the story. But while doing research and getting all the facts straight is important, it always comes second to the story.
The story has to be good. That is the number one priority.
One of my favorite children’s books–Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware–has a hilarious and devastating aside in an earlier chapter. The author goes off on people who visit some far-off exotic land on a week-long vacation and come back wearing the local clothes and decide that between that visit and a copy of Fodor’s they’re cultural experts who are fully equipped to write a novel set in that land.
The author, he assures us, isn’t going to make that mistake. No, he’s never even set foot in Delaware. He once drove through a turnpike without paying the toll, but that’s as close as he’s come. He’s read nothing about the place, talked to nobody from the state, and is absolutely ignorant about every aspect of Delaware’s culture, nature, or government. And if you object, you can write to him c/o [the Governor of Delaware’s address].
The novel then goes on to be set mostly in Delaware, with its pterodactyls and Viking ships and transportation systems consisting of catapults set on rooftops. It’s thoroughly delightful, and a proud declaration of what you can do if you’re willing to forgo research.
I love that! I may even check out the book.
Some of the best stories are grounded in complete nonsense. Like Star Trek. Reroute emergency power to deflector array - WTF does that mean? How do dermal regenerators work? Replicators? Nobody cares. Fans just take it for granted that this is how things work in this world, because they love the stories and the ideas. Some people can’t stand not understanding every little thing about a world, and there are authors who write to their tastes, but I could never satisfy those readers. It’s a lot about knowing who your target audience is and what they want to read.
My Marine friend is sometimes het up about how I wrote my fantasy military, because it’s not how the US Military works. But the military I’m writing is an ad-hoc revolutionary one just trying to get their shit sorted. The leader is a charismatic populist. While he’s benched, he’s writing miliary policy. Before I finish the second book, which goes more deeply into the structure and mechanics of the organization, I want to read a little about actual populist regimes, and how they started and organized themselves. (My Marine writer friend is a military historian, and is invaluable for stuff like this. He’s also helpfully demonstrated to me many a combat technique. For another friend’s novel, he busted out the miniatures to help her set up a helicopter scene. Everyone should have a veteran writer friend.) But with the kind of stories I write, the war, the military, is the context, almost like a setting. It’s not the story.
The best advice I can give is write about stuff you actually want to learn more about. The more you pour yourself into those passion points, the more it will distract from whatever you got wrong (and you will, no matter how hard you try, get something wrong.)
I believe that Lee Child has said that he doesn’t have an overall plot in mind when he starts a Reacher novel? I don’t have the exact quote to hand, and wonder if he was being just a little disingenuous…
I must say as a reader that if it’s a science fiction book, I want any real science in it to be right. It really annoys me when one is suddenly jarred off the plot by something that makes you say: hang on, that’s wrong, it wouldn’t really work.
Lee Child is a good example of someone who has written compelling novels with insufficient research. I can’t speak to his knowledge of things military, but there have been gaffes with respect to modes of highway travel and climate.
Dick Francis’ novels were great, largely because of evident careful research into matters outside his immediate area of expertise in horse racing. Readers got an insight into fields like rare jewels, banking, wine-selling etc., making his characters and story lines more believable and interesting than if they only involved jockeys, horse trainers and bookies.
Sci-fi would seem at first to be an area where research is less important, but even there, knowledge gives you a solid foundation to build on.
Yeah, I would have actually thought the opposite – but I guess there’s “soft” and “hard” sci-fi. (Not my casual reading genre.) I have about a dozen friends who have published fiction novels, and from asking them about writing and inspiration, the only conclusion I’ve come to is that the story is the most important thing, and that they all have different ways of doing it. Some outline; some don’t. Some just start writing without a defined end in site and let their characters “live” and tell them where to take the story. Some bookend by writing the start and beginning and working through the middle. Some reasearch heavily (my historical fiction friends). Others write mostly on variations of things that have happened to them and people they have met. What research is required for that? One writes stories more of a magical realist bent and allows for all sorts of fantastic goings-on that require little research. I’m sure most of them look something up somewhere to help move the story along or gain inspiration, but I don’t believe all of them do. It all depends on what you’re writing. The idea that there’s a general path to take to write a novel feels strange to me. Creative processes manifest in many forms.
Yes, I have caught him in gaffes about scientific matters too.
It depends on where in the spectrum you are working. If it’s really fantasy with SF window dressing, like Star Wars, sure. But if you’re going for ‘hard’ SF (which is what I prefer), you better get anything that relies on known science right! You’re allowed one or two mcguffins about speculative future discoveries, but they better not contradict any well established facts…
This will take me out of a storyline very quickly, whether in a book or on the screen. It’s always immediately obvious to me that someone - author or actor - has no idea WTF they’re talking about or doing.
The only hard sci Fi I really enjoyed was The Martian. I could see if you were really knowledgeable about science and physics you would be taken right out of a story. But I’m not very knowledgeable, so I’m fine with the veneer of science. Same with guns and the military and police and stuff people nitpick about. I have a friend who writes hardboiled PI, and he kept getting the same mistake over and over - I think the character kept putting a certain gun in his pocket - so one day my veteran friend just brought in the exact model of gun, and said, “Does that look like it will fit into a pocket?”
I love my writers group. A great writers group is like lightning striking. We’ve been together for ten years.
It’s interesting because what took me out of the first Reacher novel was the over the top ridiculousness of the villain. But that’s sort of a feature of these big thrillers, I guess.
I’m not the sort of person who gets bogged down in details when I’m reading. Even if I know something doesn’t work that way it doesn’t bother me unless it shows up repeatedly. What takes me out is bad prose, bad dialog, and poorly written women.
I would agree with the consistency part. And with fictional novels set in real-world times and places, part of that consistency is making sure you get the real world stuff correct. I mean, you can’t say that it took your person two hours to drive between Houston and Dallas, no matter whether it’s a fictional book or not, without introducing a lot of hand-waving to explain that.
So there’s a degree of research involved just to ensure that sort of consistency.
There’s also the sort of prep that ensures that you’re internally consistent- with your magic system’s rules, with roughly how much weight a horse can carry, a man can walk in a day, and so forth. That requires some minimal research as well.
Now if your story doesn’t really deal with time in any meaningful way, then it’s fine to just say “He came back from Houston on Friday afternoon” without really referencing it at all.
I’ve never been involved with a writers group.
But my songwriting has become a lot more productive since I started collaborating with some old musician friends a few years ago.
It’s tough to do everything yourself. Makes you really respect poor Brian Wilson who had very little help!
Especially when you hit those low points, those “I was stupid to think I could ever be successful at this” points. It’s really helpful to have people to pick you up and carry you through until you find your feet again.
With songwriting, it can be a case where you feel you have a really strong start, there’s definitely a seed of a good song here. But then you sometimes ‘stick’… there isn’t quite enough for a whole song, and what the deuce can come next?
Throw it over the wall, and if you have good creative collaborators, sometimes a bit comes back that makes you say: YES, that works perfectly! NOW I see how it will all fit together…
Oh, yeah, definitely have those moments as a writer. A lot actually. After obsessing over something for weeks, I’ll call up my friend and say, “I’m trying to do this, and it’s not working, and I can’t figure out why.”
And he’ll say, “Try it this way.”
And that will be the thing.
And sometimes they’ll tell me that what I did already works, and I can let it go.
Of course whenever I submit something I’ll have like four questions about things that I don’t think work, and I’m worried aren’t coming through, and they’ll be like, “No, those things are fine. What you should have been worried about is this other thing you weren’t even aware of.”
Sigh.
But I’d rather hear it from them than a thousand scathing Amazon reviews.
When he wrote Congo, author Michael CRichton said that he deliberately avoided doing any research about where it takes place.
It shows.