Someone recently asked me to name some of my favorite moments as a writer. One that immediately sprang to mind was my phone conversation with a local fire chief about the feasibility of murdering someone by combining ammonia and bleach.

It took several minutes of fast talking on my part to convince him I was, indeed, doing research for a book. I don’t know that I ever fully convinced him, but we did wind up having a delightfully surreal conversation on the different ways that one might accomplish such a murder and avoid being implicated.

Hee hee. Bet you didn’t see that one coming, did you?

That moment remains one of my favorites, I think, because first, I love surprising people, and second, it was the true beginning of my love affair with research.

Uhh…come again?

You heard me. I love to research. Maybe it comes from my family’s teaching gene (my mother and I were both teachers) or maybe I’m just weird (guilty as charged, but that’s another phone conversation entirely), but I love conducting research almost as much as I love writing.

Research is important for all writing, not just for nonfiction. Research brings realism: it helps readers relate to characters and facilitates their willful suspension of disbelief.

When I wrote my first draft of Widow Woman, I initially set it in the present, but from a dramatic standpoint, that just wasn’t working. When my editor suggested a change of era, I knew that was the right thing to do, but doing so entailed a complete rewrite—and a great deal of research.

From small details—Did peanut M&Ms exist in 1962? How were they packaged?—to critical plot points—Was ambulance service available to that small town in 1962? What life support technology existed?—I needed to make sure that the integration of plot and era happened smoothly, without any irritating anachronisms to break the spell (like the first draft of my rewrite, when Audrey, the main character, threw her cell phone across the room. In 1962. I’m pretty sure cell phones did not exist for personal use at that time and that if they did, Audrey would’ve needed a crane just to lift one). Good research keeps those types of breakdowns from happening (and I honestly loved learning all about Minnesota in the early 1960s).

Some of the most treasured feedback I’ve received from Widow Woman readers has been about how realistic it is, particularly the hospital scenes (No spoiler am I—you’ll have to read them for yourself, if you haven’t already). Readers have been expressing a general sense of disbelief that I’ve never personally experienced those particular events. Sometimes the questions are pointed:

“Is this really your mom?”

“How do you know so much about marital infidelity?”

“Were you craving cigarettes the whole time you were writing this?” (Answer: yes.)

Sorry to continue to disappoint everyone, but while this book was inspired by some real people, the characters and events therein are complete and total works of fiction, brought to more vivid life because of my bizarre affection for conducting hours of research.

Freaking out unsuspecting fire chiefs is just a bonus.