i tend to research everything anyway, given my undying love for history - particularly napoleonic era history, and great war era also. Sometimes I'll strike on something while I'm working and then have to think about it - I especially always notice inaccuracies and extreme vagueness when it comes to firearms. Handwaving doesn't cut it for anyone who's even remotely familiar with guns, and so a lot of times I will get frustrated when something is unlikely or down right incorrect. Some things should be let go, I agree, but I don't think that research will ever hurt a piece
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I have a similar need to research perhaps brought on by too many fics in which vagueness predominated (and because I love doing research for the sheer joy of it; look, books!).
Your comments about guns and pipes are particularly interesting for me because they don't seem to suggest the sort of research that entails searching through libraries for the right book, but rather practical experience. How would you suggest a writer research firearms or smoking?
Practical experience is always essential if you wish to write about a subject in detail. The guns I began to learn about as part of my study of WW1, and then I came to learn more about them through associates. I have several friends who own rifles, shotguns, and even a past military associate who had several handguns, all of which I have been allowed to fire - at a range for the handguns, and I tried my hand at shooting trap once (I was pretty miserable at it). But there are many fantastic ways to research firearms without knowing someone who owns an arsenal. For example, R. Lee Ermey does some fantastic shows on history channel where he answers all manner of firearm related questions, and goes into the history and development of guns - like how the machine gun developed. You can learn quite a bit about firearms from a book, too, but there's no substitute for hands on in that case
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I like doing research on my fanfiction, but sometimes I admit it gets away from me. Most of the time I do research on little things, details that are important for me to get right, but may or may not be noticed by other people.
For example: I wanted to references prehistoric cave paintings, the kind that Watson might have seen on vacation. Lascaux was the first to come to mind, but it wasn't uncovered until 1940, so I took some time to look up other caves in southern France until I found the Cave of Niaux, which has been a tourist sight since the 17th century. It takes up barely a paragraph, but I wanted it to be right.
Other times, when I know I'm going to muck things up, I tend to avoid them - like guns, and pipe smoking. At most I'll write about it in ACD's style, which is to say "I grabbed my old service revolver", 'cause he wasn't too specific on those details all the time.
I find it fascinating how often Doyle - a doctor! - passed over medical detail. I guess perhaps he did not want to offend delicate sensibilities or bore his readers?
The amount of research I do depends on what kind of story I'm writing. For a simple PWP that takes place in Baker Street maybe not so much is needed (I'm already well-grounded in the Canon) but when I wrote a series of fics about the Oscar Wilde trials, oh yes. I even printed out contemporary newspaper accounts of the trials which were fascinating to read, because the reporters gave blow-by-blow accounts of what happened in the courtroom, giving me a feeling like I was there.
I try as hard as I can to get things right, but that's just me. I'm just glad for the internet because it makes research soooooo much easier than it used to be. The trick, of course, is not to waste valuable writing time bogged down in interesting websites. :-)
I happen to be writing a fic about Oscar Wilde, though not about the trials. I don't think I've ever read your fics. Would you mind linking me? I'd like to be sure that I'm not just rehashing something that's already been written.
Most of my research currently is about Oscar Wilde's sex life because that's what's relevant to the fic (really!); I'm using Neil McKenna's The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde. Did you find any more general books or websites about the period that you felt were particularly Wilde-relevant?
I really love using books for research, instead of the internet, because, to me, it feels so serious and literary. It's also something of a novelty, I suppose. I do the same thing with wasting time on interesting books!
This is a great book on Wilde -- less literary but more focused on what it was like to be a gay man (or a Uranian) in the 1880's-1890's. It's also wonderful for fashions, popular culture, names of clubs and restaurants, and how people ate, played, worked, etc. in that time -- and especially how they had sex -- often in detail!
Just click on through the following entries. You'll find the case of the Solitary Cyclist happens right in the middle of all of it because, well, it did. ;-)
I haven't read Secret Life, but the book Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellmann should be useful to you. It covers his relationships as well, in an open and honest way. It's a well-done, well-researched biography. It's too bad I didn't have a copy on hand when I wrote my work about him because it would have saved me a lot of trouble!
I research primarily to make certain that when working outside, or just to the side of canon, that I'm doing it with all the scope of realism that I can manage. Recently I've been doing the whole 'meaning of flowers' thing, taking it so far as to download pdf's of books published in the 1870s-1890s to be sure of the flowers current meanings, and then finding the modern names for the flowers referenced in the books, making visual aids, etc. Also, delving into the social side of doctoring in the same period. (which is fascinating. Poor Watson was a social pariah in the military!)
I like to have what I can research covered; I don't want to jolt people out of the story unnecessarily. Besides, I find a lot of things interesting and sometimes new details can inspire me. But blind spots are frustrating -- things I don't even know to research because I hadn't even noticed that they would have been different, words that might have insinuations or implications I would have missed, and so on.
One danger is becoming so enamored of the interesting things I find that I throw everything into the story and bog it down. I'm often trying to hit a sweet spot where people who know more about the subject aren't appalled, but people who don't care to know about the subject aren't bored.
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Your comments about guns and pipes are particularly interesting for me because they don't seem to suggest the sort of research that entails searching through libraries for the right book, but rather practical experience. How would you suggest a writer research firearms or smoking?
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For example: I wanted to references prehistoric cave paintings, the kind that Watson might have seen on vacation. Lascaux was the first to come to mind, but it wasn't uncovered until 1940, so I took some time to look up other caves in southern France until I found the Cave of Niaux, which has been a tourist sight since the 17th century.
It takes up barely a paragraph, but I wanted it to be right.
Other times, when I know I'm going to muck things up, I tend to avoid them - like guns, and pipe smoking. At most I'll write about it in ACD's style, which is to say "I grabbed my old service revolver", 'cause he wasn't too specific on those details all the time.
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I try as hard as I can to get things right, but that's just me. I'm just glad for the internet because it makes research soooooo much easier than it used to be. The trick, of course, is not to waste valuable writing time bogged down in interesting websites. :-)
Reply
Most of my research currently is about Oscar Wilde's sex life because that's what's relevant to the fic (really!); I'm using Neil McKenna's The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde. Did you find any more general books or websites about the period that you felt were particularly Wilde-relevant?
I really love using books for research, instead of the internet, because, to me, it feels so serious and literary. It's also something of a novelty, I suppose. I do the same thing with wasting time on interesting books!
Reply
focused on what it was like to be a gay man (or a Uranian)
in the 1880's-1890's. It's also wonderful for fashions,
popular culture, names of clubs and restaurants, and
how people ate, played, worked, etc. in that time --
and especially how they had sex -- often in detail!
Reply
http://love-bug-54.livejournal.com/4238.html
Just click on through the following entries. You'll find the case of the Solitary Cyclist happens right in the middle of all of it because, well, it did. ;-)
I haven't read Secret Life, but the book Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellmann should be useful to you. It covers his relationships as well, in an open and honest way. It's a well-done, well-researched biography. It's too bad I didn't have a copy on hand when I wrote my work about him because it would have saved me a lot of trouble!
Reply
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One danger is becoming so enamored of the interesting things I find that I throw everything into the story and bog it down. I'm often trying to hit a sweet spot where people who know more about the subject aren't appalled, but people who don't care to know about the subject aren't bored.
Reply
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