Take going to the beach for example. You now know what the sand and ocean not only looks but how it sounds, how it smells and what it feels like. Now if you write a story about a beach or a boat on the sea, you can more accurately describe it. However, the more research you do, the more you can draw your readers in. If you know what you're writing about, you can make it seem as though you were there, seeing it happen.
If you were writing about a boat on the ocean, for example, you would want to learn all you could about boats, and, after deciding which boat is right for your story, all you can about that sort of boat. You need to be able to say how many people are on board, what they all do, and how the boat looks and works.If you are writing about a person, you speak to those who knew them and read anything else you can find about them. Historical fiction means reading books about, and if possible, from the time. Even if you're writing about another world which has no plants or animals close to ours, you still need to do research.
For that last one, you would read up on plants and animals as much as you can. This way none of your fantasy animals will have impossibilities. This may not seem to matter to you, but if a reader were to pick up your book, and they knew enough about animals and plants they would pick this up. If you were reading a book that seemed just Palin silly (and it's clearly not meant to be funny), would you keep reading? Would you leave a good review? Would you recommend it to your friends and family?
This is why research is so important. Even when I decide to write my novel about Wolf Tribe I started off learning as much as I could. I read about all different sorts of wolves. Now I have grey wolves, timber wolves, and arctic wolves. If I hadn't kept up the research I would have ended up with maned wolves, which aren't real wolves at all. I decided that they would live in a part of my fantasy world that looked like Northern Europe, so I researched plants, and animals I might find, and they might hunt. I also researched their body language, which is somewhat different from dogs'.So research as much as you can both before, and during the writing process (I still look up plants as I go). Then comes the fun part.
You've probably also learnt plenty about grammar for your type of writing too. You know all those rules. through your research, you will have added many more. Now, unless your work is completely non-fiction in which case most rules need to be followed wherever possible, you've probably noticed not all rules agree with one another, and others don't fit with your story. Now you need to decide when to break the rules.
For historical fiction, you may want to use some real people, and events, but as long as you keep the main facts the same, you can make up whatever other characters you want. Then play around with their daily lives. How much you want to change things is entirely up to you though.
For me, not all wolves would usually live in the same place. They wouldn't get along with, or understand humans either, but that wouldn't fit in with my story.
You also don't have to follow every rule about grammar. For one thing, they sometimes contradict each other, so you need to decide which ones apply to your work. Also, correct grammar would tell you to say "To whom are you speaking?" Who talks like that. Characters can just say "Who did you talk to then?" It's terrible grammar, but perfectly acceptable for a character to say. You can even add clipped words like somethin'.
I mentioned the grammar and other rules that apply to your work. Part of this would be your own decision, but it also helps to read similar books. This includes ones in the same genre and style. Say a short fantasy would require reading plenty of short stories in the fantasy genre.
Remember, you can break the rules, but only AFTER you learn them.
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