From author Robin Storey:
Most novels require some sort of research. If you’re writing a novel set in a different historical period, obviously you need to do a lot of research. But regardless of what genre of novel you’re writing, things come up that you need to investigate (with perhaps the exception of fantasy, because you can make everything up).
. . . .
For example, your protagonist may be making a soufflé, so you need to find out how to make one so it sounds authentic, or you’ve decided that one of your characters will be a snake milker, and as you know very little about how to milk snakes (yes, there is such a profession) you google ‘snake milking.’
From there, you find an interesting article on the history of snake milking and the story of Sam the Snake Milker who’s been bitten thousands of times while milking snakes and has the scars to prove it. This then leads to an article about which drugs are made from snake venom, which then directs you to a story about a farmer who was rushed to hospital by helicopter after being bitten by a snake, and was saved in the nick of time by an injection of anti-venom.
All very fascinating and will no doubt make you a hit at your next dinner party, but you probably only need a quarter of that information to write your character convincingly. We writers call it going down the research rabbit-hole.
Link to the rest at Robin Storey
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So do newspaper Articles, when you get right down to it.
For example, A story in the Washington post claiming that the Russians were planning to hack The US electricity grid Which was proven completely false.
Most novels require some sort of research.
So do blog posts, as we can see from the following example:
…a story about a farmer who was rushed to hospital by helicopter after being bitten by a snake, and was saved in the nick of time by an injection of anti-venom.
No. The injection was of anti-venin, not anti-venom.
And, as an aside, one type of snake that they don’t milk is milk snakes.
RE antivenom/antivenin–both are acceptable, and it’s not hyphenated. See: http://www.reptilegardens.com/scales-and-tales/2016/06/antivenin-vs-antivenom/
Nope. Fantasy writers have to do research, too. My WIP (currently with my second reader) is set in the Bronze Age of my North-lands, and my protagonist oversees the flow of tin and copper from the mines through the forges of the citadel where he lives, ensuring that no metal is stolen and that the weapons and armor forged from it are of high quality.
I had to do a ton of research on Bronze Age mining, smelting, sword forging techniques, the creation of bronze scale mail, the composition of the support forces (cooks, repair workmen, quartermasters, etc.) for ancient armies, and so on.
Things always come up – even in fantasy.
There was an article in Dragon Magazine back in the late 70s or early 80s about everything wrong in poorly researched fantasy. The main point I remember is how many writers treat horses as hairy sports cars. They aren’t.
Indeed, they are not.
When I was writing Fate’s Door, I found Writing Horses by Judith Tarr to be extraordinarily helpful when my protagonist needed to make an overland journey on horseback. Of course, I also had to research horse sandals, because horseshoes were not invented until roughly the year 500, and Fate’s Door takes place between 352 and 329 BC (in a fantasy Mediterranean, where the gods and goddesses of old shape history).
http://jmney-grimm.com/2015/07/horse-sandals-and-the-4th-century-bc/
I recommended Tarr’s Writing Horses to my critique group. I haven’t finished reading it but the parts I have read were so useful I couldn’t resist sharing.
I used imperial Rome for my own story. I have an entire shelf (and would have more if I had a larger bookcase). I have books and articles on: the general time period, every day life, the military, their attitudes on magic, translations of ancient spellbooks, how they built their houses, ran their farms, made their clothes, what they used for household items, how their silver mines worked … I’ll stop there. I have a couple of spreadsheets where I work out what certain goods cost, from houses to bread.
I did make up whether or not a hydra could beat a group of manticores in a fight. And I have a character snark about whether or not hydras live in the desert (duh, of course not. Hydra = water. So, no). Lionel Casson, I think, said horses weren’t good for carriages back then because the horse collar didn’t exist. But no one should dispute me using juvenile dragons to pull the emperor’s carriage …
No research? Oh my goodness. Someone should have done research before making that comment.
@Gordon — Phyllis Eisenstein warned our class that sci-fi and fantasy fans will write letters if you get details wrong (like the hairy sports car fallacy). I believed her 🙂
Okay, now you have to give us the title! Snarking about hydras, research into silver mines (I did that research, too 😉 ), and dragons pulling the emperor’s carriage… I have to “Look Inside”!
It’s not up yet. It’s the first book in the trilogy, and I had planned for it to be up in November. However, the third book is not as finished as I want it to be (and November brought too large a personal upheaval that’s still thrown me off track). I’m determined to get back on track very shortly though 🙂
Really sorry to hear about the upheaval. I hope you find your balance soon.
“The Tough Guide to Fantasy Land.” Read it, studied it, use it faithfully because it applies to other fictions as well as fantasy.
Oh yes on the research. There are rabbit holes and there are “source for critical details that make the world come alive for readers.” Reading about the fine sand of Galicia (now Ukraine) and how it fouled weapons in WWI may have been a rabbit track, but it makes that scene far more effective in the book. (Alt-history “A Carpathian Campaign”)
Unfortunately they one side effect of researching things is it absolutely ruins Hollywood movies for you forever!
For instance, somewhere on Youtube (and elsewhere I’m sure) a guy shows you just how long it takes to run out of ammo with an assault rifle fired on full auto.
Poor Rambo….
Hank Reinhardt’s Book of Knives: not just on how to hold the blade, your stance, the psychology of fighting, the emotions, the timing, but tons of “So one Saturday night in the park…” or “I was tending bar when…” real-life examples, and brief descriptions. And even notes on how authors can use it, as well as people who might end up in a knife fight.
I haven’t yet started on his book of swords, because I was doing science fiction. But the next fantasy, I know what I’m going to be reading.
Yes, even in fantasy some research is helpful. I quit reading a story once when the protagonist acquired a special weapon that was an alloy of steel and obsidian. Obsidian is glass…
If the writer of this article really thinks that fantasy writers don’t have to research anything because they can “just make everything up,” I’ve got news for her….
I quit reading right there.