Some authors spend more time researching their worldbuilding than they do building the words of the stories themselves, and some just sit down with a vague idea and let their characters take the wheel; both are valid, but there are tradeoffs we might not always consider when we're eager to get a story from the brain to the page.

For example, plenty of fiction (both written word and film) treats waking from a coma like waking from a nap; that's simply not the reality, even if it can be a handy plot device. Research can help immensely with suspension of disbelief, especially if the reader is more familiar with the particulars of some scenario you're writing; even if the exact details aren't spelled out in black and white, their implications still matter to those who know enough to look for them.

I'm writing a scene in which a man who had all four limbs broken in a previous chapter gets the casts off; there was no chance of surgical repair and the underequipped doctor has done his best, but the reality of four weeks of complete immobility and scarce food is not a pretty one. Even if the injured man were airlifted out of my story directly to the best rehabilitation facility in the world it would take days to regain most of the movement in the joints, weeks to walk without help, and months of intensive therapy to recover enough strength to call it good enough; the fellow will likely never be as strong, quick, or full of stamina as he was before.

If I were a reader and had never known anyone who was seriously injured, I wouldn't care. I'd be fine with him fighting his way out of the building, outrunning anyone searching for him, or climbing a fence to escape. But having known someone who was bedridden for weeks and took months to bounce back, that would take me right out of the story and add it to my DNF pile on the bottom shelf.

What fraction of potential readers are you willing to turn off to keep from having to do some homework? If you're doing a series, how many sequel sales would it take for you to feel like the extra time is worth it?

Here are the first two (short) chapters of my latest project. It's a weekly serial designed with bite-sized chapters in mind so that readers can fit it into a few spare minutes. These chapters introduce the two POV characters as well as the settings and point toward the overall plot, but don't spoil the "meat" of the story. I'd love to hear what people think of the characters, whether they're distinct enough from each other and whether you think they'll bounce off each other well once they meet.

Here's the blurb:

> Karla Kosciusko is a misfit twentysomething estranged from a large and close-knit extended family with a notable number of bachelor uncles. For some reason these uncles keep leaving her weird inheritances which are more trouble than they're worth—a flock of geese, a disassembled vintage tractor, and a large collection of argyle socks are notable highlights. But when her black-sheep Uncle Buzz passes in a freak accident, she gets a little more than she bargained for.

And here's the text:

Chapter 1: The Letter

5 May 2006

Cheryl

Working as a legal secretary in a small town is a pretty sweet gig if you don't know what else to do with your life; what I didn't realize when I signed up for that paralegal course at the local ATU extension campus is that I'd get all of the county's juiciest gossip, but I can't tell a soul about any of it. For example, when that weird middle-aged guy who looks like a bum accidentally electrocuted himself working on his clothes dryer, nobody outside of the office had any idea he was rich as Croesus, at least by local standards. Now I get to do all the grunt work of tracking down assets and filling in form letters and tracking down the heir's last known address while Nick just signs whatever I hand him, like usual, but I can't even tell Connie about it. Frustrating. At least there's only one named heir, which cuts down on the paperwork; hopefully she'll make things easy for me by taking the inheritance, so I don't have to go tracking down more next of kin.

--------------------------------

Nicholas C. Moss

872 Franklin Street

Russellville, AR 72801

(505) 555-1983

nmoss@yarbermosslaw.net

5/5/2006

Karla M. Kosciusko

2469 Centerline Road

Lot 55

Swansboro, NC 28584

Subject: Notice of Estate Administration Regarding Thadeus James "Buzz" Bryniarski

Dear Ms. Kosciusko,

I am writing to officially inform you that Thadeus James "Buzz" Bryniarski, who passed away on 15 March 2006, named you as a beneficiary in their Last Will and Testament. Their last known address was 3441 Gristmill Road, Lost Corner, Arkansas.

I have been appointed as the executor for the estate by the Pope County Probate Court. The formal probate process has now begun under case number 58DE-06-437.

Next Steps and Information:

Review Documents: You have a right to review relevant probate and estate filings. You may request copies of the will or estate documents by contacting me directly.

Claims or Questions: If you have any questions regarding the administration of the estate, or if you hold any outstanding claims or debts owed by the deceased, please submit them to me in writing at the address above.

Acknowledge Receipt: Please sign and return the enclosed Acknowledgment of Receipt to confirm you have received this notification.

Please note that this letter is simply to notify you of the ongoing probate proceedings and does not represent an immediate final distribution of assets. As the estate is processed and debts or taxes are settled, I will provide further updates regarding your inheritance.

Sincerely,

N----M----

_______________

Nicholas C. Moss, Esq.

Estate Executor / Administrator

--------------------------------

There. Nice and tidy and no typos. "Nick!"

"What now Cher, you know I'm about to go shooting with the mayor."

"Just sign this beneficiary notification for the Bryniarski estate, won't take you thirty seconds and I need to get it to the post office before they close. And I've told you a million times to stop calling me that, do I look like a cheesy pop singer to you?"

"Yeah yeah, sorry Cheryl, give it here." He takes the clipboard with the single laser-printed page and scrawls his name without even looking it over. "Is that all? I need to get down to the gravel pit to meet Frank and I haven't even been to Ted's shop to buy ammo yet."

"Yeah, that's it, have fun, and try not to get Dick Cheneyed." Nick just rolls his eyes and sighs, like usual, before ducking out the door. The other downside about being a legal secretary in a small town, besides the gossip ban and the thankless work and the lack of higher prospects, is that everything always goes on like usual.

Chapter 2: Record Scratch

13 May 2006

Karla

Maybe moving halfway across the country to be a one-woman dive bar band in an obscure tourist trap town wasn't the best idea, but it wasn't the worst I've ever had either. No, my worst idea was trying to come out to my parents a few weeks before my eighteenth birthday. That's how I wound up spending that summer "camping" after they kicked me out and drained my savings account, which was my own money I'd been piling up since I was twelve, and transferred my college fund into my sister's account. And my mother (who still deadnames me on Gossbook) wonders why I never call.

The only people from back home I haven't either cut off or been cut off by are my dwindling collection of bachelor "uncles" who may or may not technically be uncles, or second cousins, or third cousins once removed, but even that has its headaches. There seems to be a running gag in the family to stick me with inheritances that are more trouble than they're worth. Three funerals in a row have left me holding the booby prize.

Uncle Paul (who was the ex husband of third cousin Maude, but stuck around family gatherings for decades after they split) left me several brown paper grocery bags of argyle socks in his will. Uncle (technically great-uncle) Roger left me about two-thirds of an International Harvester tractor he had scattered across his barn floor. Uncle Dickie (not blood related at all, he just didn't have anyone to come home to when he and Dickie got back from Vietnam) left me seventeen fancy-feathered Sebastopol geese. Did any of them leave me the cost of shipping these white elephant legacies halfway across the country, or even gas money to drive back and deal with them?

No, they did not.

Instead I had to handle all of the paperwork by mail, getting things signed and notarized and sent back and forth for weeks, and authorizing locals I'm still on good terms with to pick everything up for me. I regifted the tractor parts to a different uncle who runs a junkyard, had the fancy geese donated to a petting zoo, but the socks? That's the prank that backfired. Worth every penny I spent having them boxed up and shipped to me. Uncle Paul always had the best wool socks, and now I have enough to last the rest of my life probably.

So how did I end up in sleepy little Swansboro, this pimple of a low-end vacation town on the wrong part of the Carolina coast?

That's a long story.

First off, I didn't really need the college fund my parents snatched away at the last minute, I had a full ride academic scholarship already, but it would have been nice to be able to afford books and supplies without getting a part-time job delivering pizzas on the weekends; I don't know what I would've done if I hadn't inherited my uncle Chuck's hideous old Corsica, or if I hadn't had the shade-tree mechanic skills to get and keep it running. Yeah, considering the hidden strings attached, they can keep it.

What really hurt was the fifteen grand they disappeared out of my savings account, piled up over years of odd jobs for neighbors and buying random estate auction lots to flip through the perpetual yard sale I helped my grandma with on weekends. I'd known since I first saw that one episode of Jerry Springer when I was home with the flu in seventh grade that I needed to transition, and I'd known since the next summer when I rode my bike to the library and looked up "transsexual" in the card catalog that it would be expensive, so I'd been socking away money like nobody's business to try to afford it. Going from having most of what I needed to the sixty bucks in my wallet hurt, in a way I don't think I'll ever forgive. But the bank says minors have to have an adult on the account, and my parents pulled it all out the day before the birthday they kicked me to the curb, so legally there was nothing I could do.

So what do you do when you're suddenly on the outs with your whole family, with nowhere to go and only whatever stuff of yours that you can fit in a compact sedan?

You make sure to grab your Boy Scout camping gear and a map of state parks, that's what.

Anyways, enough of that sob story for now. I gotta grab the mail and head down to the bar, and see if I can make enough tips to pay my bills on time for the first time this off-season.

Memorial Day weekend can't get here soon enough, so I can go back to waitressing at the Crab Bucket on weekdays; maybe I can even save up enough to coast through next off-season on. I hop in my grumpy old Corsica (yes I still have it) and coast over to the Peletier Mobile Home Park office, where the mailboxes are, and leave it running while I hop out to check mine.

Bill.

Bill.

Final notice.

Lawyer's office? Looks serious, better open that one.

Not again!