Tom Swift Writer’s Notebook

Question: How did you complete the research for this book?

Answer: Like a turtle completes a triathlon.

The running. I wanted as much of the book as possible to come from the observations of those who wrote about and talked to Charles Bender daily. That meant the most important sources were found in reels of microfilm of historical newspapers from Philadelphia and elsewhere. Thankfully, more and more old newspapers are being digitized every day. And I was able to view some, in particular New York and Boston newspapers, online. But, my luck, none of the most important — the Philly papers — were as yet electronically accessible. So I learned to appreciate interlibrary loan and developed a close personal relationship with a microfilm reader.

The swimming. The book is about more than baseball but, of course, there is a lot of baseball. I write about many games over various seasons. I also delve into other aspects of the sport — such as Bender’s possible invention of the slider. Readers may not think pages reflect this, but all that writing about the game came much easier than, say, writing about Bender’s boarding school experience.

As I engaged the waves of material I had a foundation of baseball knowledge and, where my understanding left off, experts to turn to. There are several terrific resources about American Indian boarding schools and I profited by reading them — but I didn’t begin with a similar underpinning.

The bicycling. Turtles don’t peddle and going in I had the same background writing manuscripts. In between bouts of research, I wrote, started, stopped, started again, and struggled — at times mightily — with what to do next. People often comment about the amount of research required. There was plenty and, to be sure, I am not an expert researcher. But perhaps as great a challenge was learning how to transact a book.

If in the off chance you are interested in additional details about the process I recommend reading the bibliographical essay in the back of the book. Though not if you need to remain awake.

This post was added on Friday, April 18, 2008 by Tom Swift at 09:56 and is filed under Albert, FAQs.