testing a premise

The premise of the novel I'm working on revolves around a group of homeless people who try to buy some land to camp on. To test if that was reasonable, one thing I did was visit some banks.

In one bank, even though I told them I was writing a story, and not actually asking for a loan, I was not made to feel welcome. In their defense perhaps they felt I was tying up their time with non banking matters.

Another sent me to their PR office (online) and they didn't get back to me. I didn't know banks have PR services, but if they did, wouldn't they want to leave a favorable impression?

I actually had good luck at a credit union where I was told to form a co-op so they could look at all the bits of verifiable income the people made could be concidered as one lump sum.

That's a lot of specific material for a couple hours work. Research needn't be hours and hours of reading in the library, if that not your thing. I wrote four different scenes- maybe 20-25 pages from a couple of hours visiting. Even the null results were information. Of course I could play it up since my character would have the added problem of needing a shower, and having self esteem problems, like not being able to look people in the eye.

This is meant by writing what you know. Don't be afraid to give yourself an experience if you haven't got any. You can't write about traveling around the world if you haven't done it, so go do something.

Don't assume people will 'get' what you want to say. Try to figure out details that will make it real to them. When I describe homeless people endlessly walking, I give them motive, and put description of what's in their heads so the reader's feet will hurt when they're done reading. Only enough description of the area to let the reader know whether the area is familiar to the character or not. That the way homeless people think. Where to go next.

A quest story would be different. The area is NOT familiar and would require extensive description to put the reader on heightened alert right along with the characters. If anyone wants to share stories of how they get ideas, this is the place.