Screenwriting : Is there such a thing as too much research? by Alex Winck

Of course I understand that doing your homework on the themes of the screenplay, novel, graphic novel, whatever you´re writing is crucial, but sometimes it feels like the research becomes a bit of a writing crutch. I often feel like that reading certain novels or watching something like a procedural show. It´s like the writer doesn´t know what to do with the plot and characters, or has done a ton of research and wants to put it all in the book, or screenplay, or whatever, or the editor demanded at least 400 pages and the story ends easily at 250, whatever. But as you read and you watch it, you can almost hear the writer saying, "look how thoroughly I researched it all, looking for every minute detail, who cares if it adds nothing relevant for the story?". Now, of course it´s impressive when a writer gives you something surprisingly detailed, especially in a novel, when the writer is everything, the set designer, the wardrobe designer, etc., but often times I feel like it ends up distracting me from what I really bought it for, that is, the story, the characters. If you´re gonna take two pages of your book to describe a house, I feel like you´d better have a very good story reason to do it, otherwise a couple paragraphs is more than enough. And of course that´s even moreso for a screenplay, where you do have a set designer, a wardrobe department and everything, and you shouldn´t be trying to do their job. Now, is too much research better than too little, than stuff that just relies on clichés and stereotypes and vague notions that turn out to be highly inaccurate? Maybe, but I´d say just as important as doing your research is keeping it focused. You can go on all tangents as you´re researching, you never know when you´re gonna step on something really interesting for your story, but when you sit down to write it, to know what to throw away is just as important as what to include. What you guys think?