Everything is Southern Gothic
or why browsing Zillow counts as working on my embryo-stage thriller novel
How much fun is pre-draft research? If you’re me, it’s the most fun! (If fun is something you zealously immerse yourself in because you’re afraid of what comes next: Starting. That. Draft. But that’s a topic for another time.)
Thriller writers have infinite things we can research, from the effects of certain poisons to the exact elevation of a certain cliff, and all the put-me-on-a-list web searches in between. These days, however, I find that most of my research hours (and the most pleasurable ones) are dedicated to learning about the place at the heart of the story I’m writing, be that place a mountain, a town, or a single house.
I’m becoming increasingly obsessed with the function of setting within a thriller novel, and so, I’m here to attempt a retroactive justification of that obsession with this: my mini-treatise on the Southern Gothic and a tour of my favorite research tools.
Time for Theory!
The Southern Gothic literary subgenre grew out of the American ante-bellum period in the late 19th century and continued developing from there. It depicts characters who are struggling under and corrupted by the societal evils of slavery and other machines of oppression. In Southern Gothic works, characters experience societal hardship, perpetuate it, inflict it on others, keep its secrets, and these acts make humans into monsters. Individuals, families, and towns present a respectable public face while festering inwardly. They toil away in the very places where evil was enacted in the past, and while the original perpetrators may be dead, the effects of that evil linger on in the living who seek to repress or ignore until it bubbles up in unspeakable ways. (Shout out to Dr. Heidi Kunz who taught me American Lit in college! Apologies if I got any of the details wrong. It’s been...a while, let’s say.)
Classic examples of Southern Gothic writers include William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and Toni Morrison, but the genre has had a lasting impact, especially among thriller and horror writers (e.g. Gillian Flynn and Grady Hendrix), and I have a guess about why. The fundamental premise of the Southern Gothic, that oppression perverts society and the people who live in it, is also a foundational element of good thrillers. The evil impulse that drives novel villains to lie, cheat, kidnap, and murder does not appear in a vacuum; it’s the natural outcome of a society built on suffering. Grim, I know! But, like most grim things in life, it’s the thriller writer’s bread and butter.
This is all to say that, when it comes to setting, I want to have a strong grounding in the history and geography of the place, how money (or drugs) move through the area, and what daily life looks like there. Learning that place is my first step to learning the people, what they’ve suffered in the past, and how that suffering may have bred the secrets they keep today. I want to know what societal forces might be exerting themselves on my characters, forces that might lead them to do desperate things.
Here for you today is my “quick” research guide to some of my favorite place-based rabbit holes.*
Research your characters’ lives! Research yourself! Count it as writing time!
*Most of the resources I have below are US-based, as that is my main area of exploration, but parallel, if not better, resources exist for other places in the globe. The world of data is wide and wonderful!
PART ONE: The Place**
In the ground: visit the US Geological Survey’s interactive map to see what lies beneath your character’s feet.
In the sky: the Cornell Lab can tell you what birds your character hears singing.
In the past: pour a cup of tea and lose yourself in pastmaps.com where you can see what was (or wasn’t) there when your character’s grandparents moved to the area.
In the present: go for a “drive” down your character’s street with oldie-but-goodie Google Earth.
In the weather: if you want to know if it was a particularly bad winter the year your character was born, try the National Weather Service climate map. Click on a region and go to town!
** At this point, you might be saying, “Are you serious with this, Lauren? Are you really asking me to put all this into my story?” Well, it depends! Our job here is to create a profile of the place the same way we would create a profile of a major character. (It’s the old New-York-is-the-fifth-character bit all over again.)
Some of that profile might end up in the story itself, and some of it might just quietly influence the story’s creation. For example, as an author, I want to know when the interstate was built to cut through the middle of my character’s hometown and how that might have influenced the local economy and my character’s grandfather’s job at the rivet factory, but does my reader need to know that information?
Only if it serves the story!
PART TWO: The People--Who are they? How did they get there? How are they doing?**
Native Lands: learn about the indigenous peoples who have moved across the western hemisphere with native-land.ca’s beautiful constellation map.
Historical Census Data: the National Archives are always a good time.
Generational Trauma: what scars might your character’s family bear? Did their ancestors experience, enslavement, internment camps, residential schools, or orphan trains? How did the family fare during the Great Depression, the Great Influenza, or the COVID-19 pandemic? Did anyone in the family go to war? (Wow, yes, I know all of this is a huge bummer, but good stories are all about conflict!)
Redlining: Mapping Inequality, illustrates how red lining practices shaped (and continue to shape) neighborhoods and families’ lives.
Contemporary Census Data: with census.gov, learn about the demographics and economic circumstances of your character’s hometown, including the projected impacts of different disaster scenarios.
Work: the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics can tell you what your character’s employment prospects are in their hometown, and what they’re likely to be earning at their job.
What the Kids Are Up To: many of you may remember filling out the Youth Risk Behavior Survey when you were in high school. Well, the data is in! Find out how risk factors related to youth health and safety might vary between locations.
Life Expectancy: learn about average life expectancy in your character’s community and what factors might be impacting them.
Public Health Data: want to see drug overdose data or info about leading cause of death in your character’s town? NORC has some excellent interactive maps to let you see potential connections between health and economic or geographical factors.
Don’t forget your local library! Go to your local library website to find out what research databases they can offer you (probably more than you think!). They can also give free access to current and historical newspapers, genealogical research tools, and opportunities to speak with a research librarian.
** My go-to public health scientist and long-time collaborator Aneliese Apala Flaherty kindly reminds me that we should beware of over-interpreting data. No matter how authoritative, interesting, or beautifully organized the data seems to be, we must still ask when and how it was collected, what might have been left out, and what biases, intentional or otherwise, may be represented in the numbers or their presentation. Yet another reason I’m grateful for people who work with sociological data for real, positive purposes, while I use it to make fictional people miserable. Thank you, Aneliese, for your help finding maps and databases!
PART THREE: The House AKA Where Does Your Character Lay Their Head?
At long last, we come to the promised real estate surfing portion of the research. Head over to your preferred property search website and let’s begin!
Now I love to drool / laugh / sigh over houses as much as the next person (more?) but if you’re researching real estate for a book project, here are a few things to focus on:
Find Comp Homes in Your Character’s Budget: armed with salary info (see above), look at houses or apartments similar to where your character might live. Would they live with family, roommates, or alone? Are they still in the house they grew up in?
Explore the Neighborhood: house listings often describe (sometimes in overly optimistic terms) what it’s like to live in the area. You can learn about what your character’s day-to-day life might look like by referring to “walkability” scores, property tax numbers, or proximity to grocery stores.
Don’t Skip the Foreclosures: these listings are less likely to be staged to look polished, and the houses may be more likely to have original features that will help you see what homes in the area looked like historically.
Woof! All this research makes me tired—way too tired to start my draft! But here’s a final thought for today: we often talk about setting as an important aspect of a story. It provides atmosphere and texture (think Alma Katsu’s Fervor) or presents unique challenges for the characters (think Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express). But if you factor in the way that geography, family history, and economics affect a person’s life and choices, maybe setting isn’t part of the story; it is the story.
Holy MOLY there are a lot of incredible resources in here Lauren!!! How long did it take you to compile this list?
This post is a gold mine of research ideas and links. Thank you so much, Lauren!