# What research are you doing for your WIP?  Talk about it here!



## Llyralen (Sep 18, 2021)

For those of us who research, It sounds like it is common for only a part of our research to actually make it into our books, but our books and lives are so much the richer for it!
I'd love to hear about the research you are doing for your WIP!   Please share it all, don't hold back because it is just too cool that all this stuff exists.

For my current WIP I researched:
--The Vietnam War (especially the American medic, doctor and nurse experience), drafting, battles, American politics of the time, etc.  Also some Vietnamese history, culture and politics.
--Japanese Internment Camps and the 442nd Japanese-American Regimen (amazing stuff) during WW2.
--1972 Manhatten, particularly Czechloslovak Yorkville (1972 restuarants, churches, National Bohemian Hall, sokols, etc.), Columbia and Barnard Universities in 1972
--The Guggenheim, even what exhibits were going on in March 1972 and Central Park.  The New York City skyline from my MC's appartment. 
--Ozark music, folklore, folk magic, food (especially fermenting), sports, and general culture and language (accent and phrases).
--The history of tranditional Appalachian and Ozark songs in America, song collecting in America and the databases and recordings of Ozark songs.
--Logging jargon and methods (they don't go by the term lumberjack from what I understand)--- this is the only one I'm nervous about.  There is so much to know and I only got my feet wet and I still feel a bit shaky about it.
--Some rando stuff:  unfretted banjos and guitars, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, movies in the early 70's, cicada years and sound, coon hunting and coon hounds (particularly redbones), drug stores in the 1970s, most popular names and most played radio songs from 1950's to 1972.
--Time Travel and 4th dimension theories put together by Neil Degrass Tyson, Brian Cox and Carl Sagan


----------



## Lawless (Sep 18, 2021)

I like to write SF because then I won't have to do any (or much) research.

Nevertheless, for my current SF WIP, I had to research:
1) military ranks, believable size of military units, which officer could plausibly command one or another type of unit, which rank should an officer's ADC have;
2) which weapons would be believable, considering which weapons have already been invented.

I have an idea for an alternative history novel. For that, I'll have to do a lot of research, including obscenities in a language I don't speak.


----------



## Llyralen (Sep 18, 2021)

Lawless said:


> I like to write SF because then I won't have to do any (or much) research.
> 
> Nevertheless, for my current SF WIP, I had to research:
> 1) military ranks, believable size of military units, which officer could plausibly command one or another type of unit, which rank should an officer's ADC have;
> ...


See, it's so cool writing!  We learn so much!  All the military ranks, I don't know that stuff. 
I notice it's true that SF and Fantasy don't require as much research usually and it means I write a lot faster.  Otherwise I stop and take 3 days reading about Aurocks which I've already researched but I want to get it so right!  
I think when I got most bogged down in my Viking research, I had to just take some time off and then do some fantasy and get loosened up in the actual writing and in the story craft. 
That WIP I'm talking about is leading into some alternative history stuff.   Alternative history takes a ton of research, doesn't it?


----------



## JBF (Sep 18, 2021)

I dig this thread.

In no particular order, but also by decade:

1940/50s
_The U.S. Army Air Force's disastrous B-24 raid on the oil refineries at Ploesti, Romania.  
Conventional (non-nuclear) bombing raids against the Japanese home islands once the B-29 came into service
The role of the Womens' Airforce Service Pilot (WASP) program in context of the larger war effort
The shift in stance and responsibilities of the USAAF/USAF in the immediate postwar years
The growing presence of global air travel; predominantly looking at Pan American Airways
The war in Korea in general and the contributions and experiences of the 7th Marines along the Jamestown Line in particular.  _

1960/70s
_The USAF canine handler program
The role of the 377th USAF Security Police at Tan Son Nhut airbase during the Tet Offensive
Public perceptions of the war
Contemporary social mores 
The movement of contraband between Mexico and the United States_

1980/90s
_Reagan's policies towards involvement in Latin America and how this differed from the U.S. involvement in Viet Nam
The political and social picture of major narcotics-exporting states
General social stuff for rural America
Effective use of conventional and special military units against irregular forces (counterinsurgency)
Whole bunch of medical stuff
International politics in the early post-Cold War era
Forms of international crime and contraband not pertaining to narcotics_

...and probably a lot of stuff that escapes me just now.


----------



## VRanger (Sep 18, 2021)

Not much research on my two current WIPs yet, though I did look up a resort lake in Texas for Poet Lariet. For Part-Time Pagan God, I spent a LOT of time on maps of Manaus, Brazil, and Kolkata, India ... picking out hotels and regions of the city I wanted to include. I got so involved I'd like to travel to both cities, stay in the hotels I researched, and see the sites I found out about. If I could afford the cost and the time, at least it would be tax deductible! I also read a 10-volume series to explore how to do my first-person intrigue, and spent a LOT of time reading about Greek mythology and demons for various mythologies.

Actually, for my puzzle mystery WIP, I've spread out to read more mystery authors than I have before, and read some non-fiction on writing mysteries ... none of which helped me whatsoever.


----------



## Llyralen (Sep 18, 2021)

JBF said:


> I dig this thread.
> 
> In no particular order, but also by decade:
> 
> ...


Wait, what?  Oh my gosh... so interesting!


JBF said:


> 1960/70s
> _The role of the 377th USAF Security Police at Tan Son Nhut airbase during the Tet Offensive
> Public perceptions of the war
> Contemporary social mores _


What did you think gave you the best picture of the Vietnam War? I am expanding my story and I feel like there is still so much for me to learn about the Vietnam War that I could add.  Oh, I forgot to mention this, but my character (fictional) was in the VVAW, so I researched them and their efforts to protest the war. I would like to find more accounts from people in the VVAW.  I loved Ken Burn's documentary for a good overview.

I read _The Things They Carried_ -Tim O'Brien, which was really helpful.  I can't remember whose story or what account it was, but a sergeant wrote about his group stuck/trudging through rice fields for 3 days (mud up to thighs) when rain came in they all nearly drowned. I was very moved by the tender way he wrote about one of the 18 year old boys who died that night in the mud. Right when I was reading that, I met a gentleman in our hospital who couldn't feel his feet due to trudging through swamps with agent orange and no other reason.  If I hadn't been reading that, I wouldn't have understood what was going on for him.

I already love this thread!


----------



## Llyralen (Sep 18, 2021)

vranger said:


> Not much research on my two current WIPs yet, thought I did look up a resort lake in Texas for Poet Lariet. For Part-Time Pagan God, I spent a LOT of time on maps of Manaus, Brazil, and Kolkata, India ... picking out hotels and regions of the city I wanted to include. I got so involved I'd like to travel to both cities, stay in the hotels I researched, and see the sites I found out about. If I could afford the cost and the time, at least it would be tax deductible! I also read a 10-volume series to explore how to do my first-person intrigue, and spent a LOT of time reading about Greek mythology and demons for various mythologies.
> 
> Actually, for my puzzle mystery WIP, I've spread out to read more mystery authors than I have before, and read some non-fiction on writing mysteries ... none of which helped me whatsoever.


This here!  It would add so much to my stories to travel to the places I'm talking about!    I hope to....especially Greenland.   I almost feel like I will mess up and shouldn't be allowed to publish the book until I get to go there myself  But... it's not written yet anyway  lol. 
What was the 10-volume series?  Was the author just really good at writing first-person intrigue?


----------



## VRanger (Sep 18, 2021)

Llyralen said:


> What was the 10-volume series?  Was the author just really good at writing first-person intrigue?


The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny. Absolutely brilliant.


----------



## JBF (Sep 18, 2021)

Llyralen said:


> What did you think gave you the best picture of the Vietnam War? I am expanding my story and I feel like there is still so much for me to learn about the Vietnam War that I could add.  Oh, I forgot to mention this, but my character (fictional) was in the VVAW, so I researched them and their efforts to protest the war. I would like to find more accounts from people in the VVAW.  I loved Ken Burn's documentary for a good overview.



I think the trick to doing VN _right _is realizing that the scope of the thing means there really isn't one answer; you can trace U.S. involvement back as far as the aerial resupply of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 (USAF pilots flying US aircraft painted over with French markings) all the way up until the Saigon embassy evacuation in 1975.  The more I dig in, the more _Right _seems to hinge on _When _and _Where_.  The American presence, its mission, and its perception changed with alarming regularity, so there's not really a one-size-fits-all answer.  In fact, there's so many variables you need a fairly narrow focus to know where to even start looking.

Wolfe's father being in Saigon with the 377th for Tet, for instance, means that accounts of field grunts, air cav troopers, brown water navy sailors, Wild Weasel pilots, medical personnel, and general officers' memoirs aren't of much use.  Different men, different places...vastly different wars.  



Llyralen said:


> I read _The Things They Carried_ -Tim O'Brien which was really helpful.  I can't remember whose story it was, but a sergeant who wrote about his group nearly all  drowning walking through rice fields (swamps basically) when rain came in and I was very moved by the tender way he wrote about one of the 18 year old boys who died stuck in the mud..  Right when I was reading that, I met a gentleman in our hospital who couldn't feel his feet due to agent orange and no other reason.



Interesting that you mention that.  When I began this disaster I knew I was writing a war story.  At some point I wasn't so sure.  

By now I've comfortably settled on knowing it's a story about people in conflict - sometimes subtle, sometimes understated, sometimes outright violent - and those who get caught up in the bigger events are still people from someplace; they had a childhood, aspirations, those who were concerned for their welfare, likes, dislikes, loves, hates, and at some level most probably had an idea how their life would go, more or less.  Since their arrival they've had fear, elation, relief, disappointment, joy, and despair.  They've thrown gum to local kids and wondered if those same kids planted the bomb that took their buddy's legs.  They've felt the electric relief of finally climbing aboard that evac bird, knowing they've got a respite.  Some wonder if they've actually killed an enemy.  Some know.  Some are broken by the experience - and some feel alive like never before.  

Not everybody will have all of those experiences.  Some won't have any.  

And when you've get a handle on that...you've got characters.


----------



## JBF (Sep 18, 2021)

vranger said:


> Not much research on my two current WIPs yet, though I did look up a resort lake in Texas for Poet Lariet.



Which lake?  

Us expat tree-rats wanna know.


----------



## Lawless (Sep 18, 2021)

Llyralen said:


> Alternative history takes a ton of research, doesn't it?



Yes, I'd say it does. One has to know the actual history and one has to know what kind of alternatives make sense. If one particular event had turned out differently, how would it have changed the subsequent events.


----------



## Llyralen (Sep 18, 2021)

JBF said:


> I think the trick to doing VN _right _is realizing that the scope of the thing means there really isn't one answer; you can trace U.S. involvement back as far as the aerial resupply of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 (USAF pilots flying US aircraft painted over with French markings) all the way up until the Saigon embassy evacuation in 1975.  The more I dig in, the more _Right _seems to hinge on _When _and _Where_.  The American presence, its mission, and its perception changed with alarming regularity, so there's not really a one-size-fits-all answer.  In fact, there's so many variables you need a fairly narrow focus to know where to even start looking.
> 
> Wolfe's father being in Saigon with the 377th for Tet, for instance, means that accounts of field grunts, air cav troopers, brown water navy sailors, Wild Weasel pilots, medical personnel, and general officers' memoirs aren't of much use.  Different men, different places...vastly different wars.


Vietnam was a different animal at the beginning, but I hadn't realized how much we were involved alongside the French already from what you're saying. That would be interesting for me to look into.  "The Indochina War", right?  

My best friend is American Vietnamese. Her upper-crust Northern family (who were all educated in Paris) was persecuted by the Communists with some of them being killed horrifically and demonstrably and so they fled if they could, I think before the French were really fully out.  Her mother became a refugee in Hawaii, and it sounded like they were all split up at first, but then the surviving siblings ended up in California.  My friend was born in California but Vietnamese is her first language.  Her family's experience was not that of the majority.  She's a poly-sci major and helps me understand some of the complexity of what was going on for the Vietnamese-- although there is really so much to know!  I'm not even sure talking to her about it helps me since the Vietnamese POV is layered and complex and depends on demographic region and social strata and education. And for the USA POV, as you say, it's almost about picking your years and battles.

The different officers in charge personalities and where they were stationed seemed to make a huge difference on the amount of war crimes committed (did you find that to be true?),  I think it means that a lot of the returning soldiers had a hard time relating to each other and a hard time finding a common narrative about their time of duty. They all seemed to have such different experiences.  My character goes out as a medic in 1962 and then back for his doctor's tour in 1972 and it is such a different war by then and being a doctor means a whole different way to experience the war as well.  They usually were safer at the hospitals except for a few months they would stick them in the jungle, somewhere rough.  I feel bad that I can't remember the exact battle, but his first was the first battle that they took them in with helicopters and it was the first really bad loss, I believe in 1962 or 3.  I'd have to consult one of my drafts. 



JBF said:


> Interesting that you mention that.  When I began this disaster I knew I was writing a war story.  At some point I wasn't so sure.
> 
> By now I've comfortably settled on knowing it's a story about people in conflict - sometimes subtle, sometimes understated, sometimes outright violent - and those who get caught up in the bigger events are still people from someplace; they had a childhood, aspirations, those who were concerned for their welfare, likes, dislikes, loves, hates, and at some level most probably had an idea how their life would go, more or less.  Since their arrival they've had fear, elation, relief, disappointment, joy, and despair.  They've thrown gum to local kids and wondered if those same kids planted the bomb that took their buddy's legs.  They've felt the electric relief of finally climbing aboard that evac bird, knowing they've got a respite.  Some wonder if they've actually killed an enemy.  Some know.  Some are broken by the experience - and some feel alive like never before.
> 
> ...



^Meaningful writing, JBF.  

I based the first tour loosely on multiple accounts of medics I read.  My character covers a soldier he was treating with his body--- I read that so often, that they did that.  It seemed like there was hardly anything that would keep these medics from flying into danger to save their buddies.  His legs get shot up and he gets flown to a hospital where he survives sepsis and then back in the states it takes him months to be able to walk again.  In between tours he gets into the VVAW, before the VVAW he finds he can't even tell his fellow protestors that he was a soldier.  He throws his metals over the fence with the VVAW.  Second tour he dies from a tripwire when he travels to villages to doctor kids.  I think the Vietnamese must have had very confusing relations with American soldiers.  I don't blame them.  What if China came to the USA, made a base in Missouri, and said they would help the South fight off the oppressive Yankee Democrats.... thanks?

I really need to expand my story.  I will and writing this strengthens my resolve.  When I was trying to get the word count down to make it into a short story, a lot that deserves to be told and with the right amount of attention got cut.


----------



## Earp (Sep 18, 2021)

Military battles which were lost by the 'good guys'. While I'm here, I'll say that Amazon Unlimited is the best $9.99 a month I've ever spent for research. A _lot_ of authors writing books about the exact subject you're seeking information about.


----------



## VRanger (Sep 18, 2021)

JBF said:


> Which lake?
> 
> Us expat tree-rats wanna know.


Texoma looked the likeliest, with their property near Denison. There are some big undeveloped tracts NW of Denison, and I have my MC with 40 acres and the singing star with 400.


----------



## Llyralen (Sep 18, 2021)

Earp said:


> Military battles which were lost by the 'good guys'. While I'm here, I'll say that Amazon Unlimited is the best $9.99 a month I've ever spent for research. A _lot_ of authors writing books about the exact subject you're seeking information about.


I never heard of that….  Hey thanks!


----------



## JBF (Sep 18, 2021)

vranger said:


> Texoma looked the likeliest, with their property near Denison. There are some big undeveloped tracts NW of Denison, and I have my MC with 40 acres and the singing star with 400.



Heh.  I went to school in southern Oklahoma.  That mile-long bridge between Willis and Sherwood Shores is something else.  

NE Texas is some pretty country.


----------



## Taylor (Sep 18, 2021)

Research was a mainstay for my now completed (yay!) manuscript. My goal was to build the story on fact as if it were biographical like _The Wolf of Wall Street. _In the first few months, one would have thought I was writing a thesis. My entire dining room table was covered with books on the underlying subject, printouts of academic papers discussing ethics and similar cases, and other articles published at the time frame of the story.

Even though I have spent a lot of time in New York City, my main setting, I have never lived there. So I spent at least a week, looking for various places, such as a Marina on the Hudson, a condo in Brooklyn, a restaurant in Tribeca, and an office on Wall Street. Having good visuals was paramount to my ability to put me into the story and write from close POV. Even such things as how long would it take to get across the Brooklyn Bridge in rush hour and would there be time to stop at a Marina in the morning before going to work. Google Maps of course is amazing for this. I put it on street view and actually drive or walk in my setting before writing, just to get into the mood.

I also researched real people to get profiles for my characters. Going onto various corporate or government sites, one can find pictures and bios of executives and committee members. There you can find their career path and education. So being careful not to use the actual person, by changing names and gender, it's a great way to start building a persona.

The research part of the writing can be slow, but well worth it. And we are so fortunate to have it right at our fingertips.


----------



## JBF (Sep 18, 2021)

Llyralen said:


> Vietnam was a different animal at the beginning, but I hadn't realized how much we were involved alongside the French already from what you're saying. That would be interesting for me to look into.  "The Indochina War", right?



Yup.  France's last colonial holdout in Southeast Asia.  



Llyralen said:


> My best friend is American Vietnamese. Her upper-crust Northern family (who were all educated in Paris) was persecuted by the Communists with some of them being killed horrifically and demonstrably and so they fled if they could, I think before the French were really fully out.  Her mother became a refugee in Hawaii, and it sounded like they were all split up at first, but then the surviving siblings ended up in California.  My friend was born in California but Vietnamese is her first language.  Her family's experience was not that of the majority.  She's a poly-sci major and helps me understand some of the complexity of what was going on for the Vietnamese-- although there is really so much to know!  I'm not even sure talking to her about it helps me since the Vietnamese POV is layered and complex and depends on demographic region and social strata and education. And for the USA POV, as you say, it's almost about picking your years and battles.



My dad worked for years with a guy who'd been a pilot with VNAF.  He got his family out before the whole thing went under in '75, but spent a couple of years in a reeducation camp before he escaped and filtered over to the U.S.  One of hallmarks of the Boat People was how well they did as a whole.  First- and second-generations owning businesses wasn't terribly uncommon, and he himself shifted over in high-tech and hung in long enough to retire.  

Another story, secondhand, comes from some friends of mine who used to do military displays and reenactments of Viet Nam.  A few years back, they went as part of a parade through the Little Saigon region of Houston.  I wouldn't have figured it (figure having to flee your own country might have been a sore spot and all) but they got a warm reception and took thousands of pictures with ex-VN nationals and their families.  Who'd have thought?  

Humanity is a complicated animal.  



Llyralen said:


> The different officers in charge personalities and where they were stationed seemed to make a huge difference on the amount of war crimes committed (did you find that to be true?),



Lots of factors at play, of which leadership is one.  The political climate at home, the unsteady nature of government, and ill-advised programs by the alleged Smartest Guys in the Room gutted any serious chance for success.  Letting the VC/NVA operate freely outside their national borders, refusal to use the most effective tools available, the admission of 100,000 unqualified candidates to the armed services, and trying to fight a war by the numbers - all things that eroded the ability to work effectively.  When you have a demoralized and poorly-led force placed into untenable situations and left unsupported, you have the makings of disaster.  In a sense, it's not odd that a My Lai happened towards the end - it's odd that it didn't happen more.  



Llyralen said:


> I think it means that a lot of the returning soldiers had a hard time relating to each other and a hard time finding a common narrative about their time of duty. They all seemed to have such different experiences.



One of the best depictions I've seen of this is a (sadly) lesser-known TV series called Tour of Duty.  It ran three seasons in the late '80s/early '90s.  Cheesy as some of it seems now, it covers just about every aspect of the war and the types of people involved, and is generally regarded by vets as one of the more accurate and even-handed depictions of Viet Nam and its aftermath.  

Unfortunately, it's very difficult to find with the original period soundtrack these days.  Still a good show, though the middle season tried to be less _infantry company in Viet Nam _and swung a little too far over into _China Beach_ territory.



Llyralen said:


> My character goes out as a medic in 1962 and then back for his doctor's tour in 1972 and it is such a different war by then and being a doctor means a whole different way to experience the war as well.



I dig.  



Llyralen said:


> I feel bad that I can't remember the exact battle, but his first was the first battle that they took them in with helicopters and it was the first really bad loss, I believe in 1962 or 3.  I'd have to consult one of my drafts.



Ia Drang?



Llyralen said:


> I really need to expand my story.  I will and writing this strengthens my resolve.  When I was trying to get the word count down to make it into a short story, a lot that deserves to be told and with the right amount of attention got cut.




When in doubt, err on the side of excess and edit later.    

I'll have to revisit this later.  Time to go to work.


----------



## Backstroke_Italics (Sep 21, 2021)

Taylor, I love the idea of taking a little trip to NYC to research locations. Maybe I should relocate my WIP to Hawaii...

As it stands, I've been doing lots of research into nineteenth century Korea, from the architecture and clothing, to food, to language (I'm familiar with modern Korean, but hopeless with old timey dialects).


----------



## Llyralen (Sep 21, 2021)

More Ozark stuff… I listened to some sermons on podcasts to get more of an idea what church is like in the Ozarks and hear the cadence and accent.  I’m still looking for some of the old-time call and response hymn-singing which I know exists and has a long American history, but it doesn’t seem readily available on YouTube and usually the collected traditionals are 1-2 singers.  I heard someone discussing it and playing examples years ago after the Cohen movie _o Brother Where Art Thou _came out… I know it’s out there, I just haven’t found the vein of gold in it yet. I will keep digging.

I also ran into the Irish tradition of _sean nos _that must be part of the basis of Appalachian and Ozark singing. I told my voice teacher I am interested in choosing a sean nos song and exploring the style myself.


----------



## Xander416 (Oct 6, 2021)

The kind that's probably making some analyst at some American alphabet agency somewhere think to himself, _"Should we be worried about this guy?"_ lol


----------



## Llyralen (Oct 7, 2021)

When I read the translations of poets like Pablo Neruda and Rilke I always wonder about how much credit I should give the translator and yesterday I probably found out.  Lol.   Warning that this might be only fascinating to me, yet I still wanted to write about it somewhere.

Yesterday I tried my hand at translating a poem from my second language (Danish) into my first language (English). Altogether it has been satisfying in that it left me with greater appetite for writing and greater longing to find the correct words for the complex things we all think and feel.  So it gave me more of me. =)

2 words that I thought might be interesting to English speakers to think about (maybe?) and that stood out to me as "missing" in English-- and yet almost certainly were a part of our Anglo-Saxon in the past, as Danish closely related to Anglo-Saxon.  *Moerket* (oe is the old old way of writing O with a slash through it and this vowel does not exist in English as far as I know . It's probably closest to the sound of the y in myrtle...you shape your mouth like a oo and try to sound e lol).
Moerket means dark.... but not just a shade of color although it can mean dark color.... it can mean confusion and when used for dark has a custard-y quality to it.  Our word "murky" is the direct cognate and DOES have all of these connotations, but we don't use murky as a noun, and in English "a murkiness" doesn't exactly do justice to the description of a woman's spirit that the poet's eye sees "as a darkness in the sky" like the poem I'm translating does. The poet had used a different term for dark that just signified a dark shade just 2 lines before so I hate using the English "darkness" twice and also having it lose such strongly knit and complex connotations. So! Frustrating! And interesting!

*lette* skygger --- This is directly "light shadows" in English... but lette means "light in weight" not "light color".  Light in color would be lysse skygger.  So they have 2 different words, one for "light" in weight and one for "light" in color or in brightness.  In English for some reason these 2 words became the same word--which is less effective!  lol.  I would love to come up with something in English that denoted the right meaning. The poet didn't mean "flimsy" and "diluted" again denotes color instead of weight.

I know if I were to translate from English to another language I'd be having the same problems as each language has finesse, ease, and attitude for expressing different things that might be clunky in the other language.  As for how much credit... I wonder if the other translators felt like me. I just want to give due honor to the original poet and I gave myself a very little margin (basically none) to use words with nuances and allusions outside of those the poet originally was striving for, yet it is hard to find words with the right associations from language to language.  Danish-English I would think is one of the easiest with many cognates with similar nuances in meaning.  For instance, my friend who speaks Spanish told me Spanish is much more visual than English and Pablo Neruda's poems lose a great deal visually in the translation was my friend's opinion. I noticed with Danish that contrasts in concepts are much quicker (spun on a pin basically) and I think they are still quick in English, but I had to add small words in all those places to get them to flip in English properly.  There are multiple one-word ways in Danish to flip them that we don't have-- more words than just "yet" "but" and "however".  I want to read more Viking poetry after this to try my hand there too.

If there are any Danes on here... and of course the odds are that a Dane will be....   Hej og mange venlige Hilsener... I know it's crazy that I haven't figured out how to get an O slash on my computer yet.  Tak fordi du kom forbi.  =)


----------



## bdcharles (Oct 7, 2021)

I am researching Greco-Roman columns at the moment, you know - Doric, Corinthian, and stuff like that, in particular the ones with the curlicued tops. And all of this so I can describe the lip of an ink bottle. No-one's gonna notice, no-one's gonna thank me, but I do get the joy of a detail well-portrayed.


----------



## Llyralen (Oct 7, 2021)

bdcharles said:


> I am researching Greco-Roman columns at the moment, you know - Doric, Corinthian, and stuff like that, in particular the ones with the curlicued tops. And all of this so I can describe the lip of an ink bottle. No-one's gonna notice, no-one's gonna thank me, but I do get the joy of a detail well-portrayed.


Love it!  I’m just nodding with a chuckle. I appreciate it!


----------



## ehbowen (Oct 7, 2021)

I've got a couple WIPs (not optimum, I know...sue me!) and I'm working on a couple of trips. In one, my Major Supporting Character, a black college professor, is recounting a trip he took from Michigan to the deep South (Lafayette, LA) during the summer of 1962 to gather material for his dissertation. That's actually the easy one; I have detailed contemporary timetables, online access to copies of _The Green Book_ (travel and hotel guide for African-American travelers in the segregated era), and numerous contemporary accounts.

The harder one is actually my MC's flight from Detroit to Singapore to catch up with his ship while returning from leave. I'm wanting to work in the plot twist of a reroute due to a closed airport in Chicago and subsequently a missed connection in San Francisco. It's actually easier to find detailed railroad timetables for 1936 than airline schedules for 1986!


----------



## Stormcat (Oct 13, 2021)

Currently trying to figure out what types of businesses to put in a 19th-century fishing village. I mean, boathouses, obviously, but what else?


----------



## JBF (Oct 14, 2021)

Apparently, I've wandered blind into vampires.  

Strange hobby, this.


----------



## ehbowen (Oct 15, 2021)

Stormcat said:


> Currently trying to figure out what types of businesses to put in a 19th-century fishing village. I mean, boathouses, obviously, but what else?


Chandlery (Ship chandler). Someone's gotta carry the ropes, marlinspikes, whale oil and miscellaneous gear.
Fish canneries and/or curing (smoking, salting, etc.) establishments. Again, someone's gotta buy the catch when the fleet comes in.
At least one bank. Maybe not of the highest repute.
A sawbones (doctor). In the 19th century that term would be literal.
Taverns and "Inns" (code for houses of ill repute).
A greengrocer or two, trading for his stock with inland farmers. (Stolen from Reader's Digest: A pizza parlor customer once observed a lady wearing a red and white striped outfit come in, drop a large red & white bag, and leave with three large pizzas. A quizzical look at the proprietor, who said, "They get tired of chicken. We get tired of pizza.")
At least one general store. If it's a very small village this may be combined with the chandlery.
Ice House is a good possibility; if early 19th storing ice harvested from ponds in winter; if late 19th in a moderately large village may be mechanized steam-powered ammonia refrigeration. If the latter there's probably a railroad depot in town as well.
Two lawyers. If just one, he'll go broke; if two, they both get rich!


----------



## Earp (Oct 15, 2021)

On a surprisingly difficult quest to find military battles in which the 'good guys' lost.


----------



## Matchu (Oct 15, 2021)

Try Saul David’s _Military_ _Blunders_ and follow the links


----------



## Lorewen (Oct 16, 2021)

Earp said:


> On a surprisingly difficult quest to find military battles in which the 'good guys' lost.


Off the top of my head, the Battle of Hastings, 1066 -- in my opinion. Also when Babylon conquered Jerusalem, 586 BC.

But the problem is that the winners write the histories, and portray themselves as the "good guys." If you can sort through all that bias to recognize when the enemies of the writers were the actual good guys, that's when you'll find what you're looking for.


----------



## Matchu (Oct 16, 2021)

Napoleon has a lot of fans - so perhaps take any of his ‘defeats’ - or - best - take your battered copy of Guy Sajer’s Forgotten Soldier - replacing each _panzer_ with the word _horse_ (my next project actually) reaping great financial rewards $$$


----------



## Llyralen (Oct 23, 2021)

Earp said:


> On a surprisingly difficult quest to find military battles in which the 'good guys' lost.


Yeah, I was going to say there is a reason for this.  “Good guys” is very rarely a real thing. The phrase is that history is written by the victor. When American Indians win a battle it is usually called a “massacre” and when European-American colonists/children of colonists win it’s called a battle.


----------



## Lawless (Oct 23, 2021)

Earp said:


> surprisingly difficult quest to find military battles in which the 'good guys' lost.


Plenty of those in World War 2.


----------



## Megan Pearson (Nov 25, 2021)

Llyralen said:


> I know it's crazy that I haven't figured out how to get an O slash on my computer yet.  Tak fordi du kom forbi.  =)



Like: ø or Ø?

On a Mac, hold the fn key + the letter for the alternate letter list. I have noticed, though, that not all possible letters are listed, but you might be able to download something or turn on a built-in languages keyboard.


----------



## Megan Pearson (Nov 25, 2021)

Llyralen said:


> For those of us who research, It sounds like it is common for only a part of our research to actually make it into our books, but our books and lives are so much the richer for it!
> I'd love to hear about the research you are doing for your WIP!   Please share it all, don't hold back because it is just too cool that all this stuff exists.



Nobody's mentioned Wikipedia? C'mon, even I use Wikipedia. I can't 'use' it in the sense of being able to cite from it, but it is useful for leading me to who the most common or major authorities on a topic are. If I don't already have a lead, I go to W. & scroll to the works cited list, then it's off to Google Scholar or my library for the associated journal articles, and from there I again scan through the bibliographies to pinpoint who is being cited/engaged with most frequently. It's a great resource for beginning a research project.

Most community libraries have some access to online scholarly article databases, such as JSTOR. Usually just takes a library membership for free access to some of those databases. Your alma mater, should you have one, should also grant you free alumna/alumnus access to some library held accounts.

Again, even with books, I always check out the bibliographies at the end. Doublecheck to see what the citation being used is for and, if it sounds useful for your project, you might even find the source material on kindle or as a pdf. I've been led to some happy discoveries following bibliography trails.

I have to do a lot of research right now anyway, something I should be doing instead of doing this, so when I write my fiction I'm finding I'm reluctant to step into doing _any_ research. Which is really strange, because I absolutely love finishing a research project.

For less formal research projects, I find it frustrating that so many news sites restrict article views to only so many a month. In that case, I keep a notepad entry for things that spark an idea that I want to look up because, surely, someone else has written on it somewhere else.

I keep my writing research articles in a separate folder on my laptop. Again, if it pertains to a story idea--and generally I'm interested in conceptual stuff--I'll make a note of it in my notepad and save it for a later lookup. I think I have stuff saved on psychology, workplace management, time management (ok, that one's not story related!) science, time and quantum mechanics and other metaphysical things, & so-on & so-forth. I also have saved articles on odd but curiously fascinating things of interest in science, kind of a scientific cultural myths topic generator, in hopes of it being useful for story ideas in the future.

That all sounds very well organized, but it's not. One of my life's goals in the next six months is to organize the blossoming library of pdf's I've been accumulating over the years. Some of it pertains to story research, but as most it is related to the professional accumulation of scholarly articles I really do need to sift it. So I would add having a sensible way of organizing and retrieving your research files to the 'must have' research resource list. Currently, I'm eyeing the Name-PublicationDate-Title format: Doe2011_Research_Tips. I might also think of adding folders & cross-referencing where this stuff gets filed--because I really will need to retrieve most of it someday. But if you're not consistent (I'm not consistent) this stuff can get hard to retrieve. 

This semester I started actually putting Scrivener to good use in organizing my research notes & it's going well for me. I like that I can save entire articles on a text card, do my highlighting, citation information, and I have a place right there for making notes to myself--all in one spot. (Every semester I try this but it's finally actually working as a research hub. Guess I'm a late bloomer!) I usually do write my fiction in Scrivener, but only lately am I starting to use it to its better advantage. Technology has not been not my strong suit. There is free citation software out there, too, in case you need it.

Reaching out to experts is another avenue I don't see here. I'm not even talking about scholarly experts--think of your college extension agency or a military history museum. We used to take visiting family to an air museum and the volunteer staff there was exuberant to share their wealth of first-hand experience of 'what it was like' with us. 

Just some ideas. Hope they're helpful!


----------



## Llyralen (Nov 25, 2021)

@Megan Pearson 

I agree Wikipedia is often a good place to start.  What area of research are you doing for your book? And you said when you’re writing you have a hard time researching?

Actually, I have a problem with doing too much research compared to a small amount of fiction writing… so right now I’m trying to just pull from what I already know  from years of previous research and get as addicted to the writing as I am to the research.   What about you?


Im really glad you mentioned JSTOR, thank goodness for  JSTOR.


----------



## Megan Pearson (Nov 25, 2021)

Llyralen said:


> I agree Wikipedia is often a good place to start.  What area of research are you doing for your book?


Right now my fiction is on hold, as I'm finishing an MA in Phil. But I pull the fiction out on weekends & holidays, just to stay sane. (Actually, I do love what I'm learning, it's just it's near the end of the semester & I could use a break, which is why I'm here on WF, taking a break.)

I am a 'many frying pans in the fire' sort of person. So, I have several projects in varying states of disarray, the main ones being: an SF saga (for fun, but also deals with the nature of time and morality), a hard-SF dealing with the nature of existence, and a FAN (a coming-of-age story). And this summer I sketched out a whimsical 'what-if' that is, shockingly, a romantic comedy. (Where'd that come from???)

So, I am always reading about story structure. Craft is probably my single, greatest research concern. But so far as content goes, the hard-SF is a genuine research project. I sketched out the storyline in 2012 or thereabouts and now, after I'm about finished with my Phil degree, I am amazed I was willing to tackle it without the educational background. I'm still scratching my head about some things, but at least I now know where to go in forming my arguments. I hope it will be thoughtfully entertaining. If I can pull it off, it will only be because I will have put a lot of work into making some pretty high-level concepts layperson accessible. Right now I think of myself as being in data-collection-mode with this story and frequently save popular articles on Space-X's program and other recent aerospace developments, as well as take note of potential philosophical turns to consider incorporating. For this story, I have also done some research into modular Martian living environments that self-deploy, payload concerns on rockets, new designs in batteries, how the ionosphere works and why it's missing (depleted) on Mars (not a Mars story but the modeled after it in some ways). Also, extinction-level event scenarios and other sciency odds-n-ends that attract my interest. I should mention, this is real-life stuff I'm looking into, not science fiction.

The, ah, romantic comedy thing, that's completely on a lark. But it turns out, if I pursue it, I will need to do some legal research on inheritance law and dog training. Hmm, sounds fun! A similarly themed romantic drama I worked on but abandoned years ago ground to a halt because the internet didn't exist back then (not like it does today). I love that we have access to so much from home without having to manually scrounge through the local college's dusty stacks to find the right sort of journal articles.



Llyralen said:


> And you said when you’re writing you have a hard time researching?


Well, that would only be this current research paper that's due in two weeks. It's not done. I hate procrastinating. And, I hate being stuck. (I may have picked too narrow of a topic.) It's hard to research because 1.) I'm working off an unpublished manuscript where I am the first person to offer an evaluatory response to this particular work and 2.) I am in new territory with my topic, and 3.) I asked the manuscript's author for a review & comment of my paper in exchange for my writing a professional review of his book upon publication. He's at the top of his field. If I do a good job, it could help advance my career. Pressure, anyone??? But it's all good. I just need to get going on it.



Llyralen said:


> Actually, I have a problem with doing too much research compared to a small amount of fiction writing… so right now I’m trying to just pull from what I already know  from years of previous research and get as addicted to the writing as I am to the research.   What about you?


Honestly, as with any story, I think keeping in mind first and foremost that's it's the story that is crucial to its writing and reader enjoyment. If we don't get the details right, all the time, then I think most fiction readers are forgiving so long as the characters and plot advance an entertaining story. Most of my fiction projects can be 'winged' without too much research because I focus on story. The research just helps make it believable and, perhaps, easier to write too. (My SF Saga & FAN are examples of that.)



Llyralen said:


> Im really glad you mentioned JSTOR, thank goodness for  JSTOR.


You know, there really is so much source material out there, literally at our fingertips. If someone's not getting what they need from the local library (a problem I used to run into), then their local community college will have a resident's account they can sign into to use JSTOR, Ebsco, etc. It's instant access to a world of first-rate, quality source material for research. 

What about you? How does research make a difference in what you write and where do you go for your source material?


----------



## Llyralen (Nov 25, 2021)

@Megan Pearson
For my historical fiction books I look for primary source material, if possible. I know people care about the story and wouldn’t even know if I was “off” or “wrong” or took liberties with my facts, but addiction is the only word for it.  I am absolutely addicted to research.  I am working to flip some of the addiction into writing.  I definitely need to write in order for me to use the research. I am noticing that the most interesting historians today are also writers.  Writers actually care to figure out what was going on. We ask questions and put things together by putting our characters there.

Things I’m researching right now:

1. Greenland 1341-1420.  Both Inuit culture and Norse culture. 

For the Inuit we’ve got archeology, DNA analysis and the stories documented by anthropologists taken down in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. The film taken even up into the 1980’s in circumpolar areas is very helpful to me. These stories read like a piece of ice in your mouth when you’re parched without a beverage in the summer. There is something very refreshing about the Inuit’s stories of hunting and their games their way of seeing things and way of life. Things are so tough with the suicides now in Greenland and understanding that has been something precious to me too. I also enjoy listening to current-day Inuit shamans. I hope for more contact with people there and I look forward at some point to looking for a sensitivity reader.

For the Norse we have their archeology, we have a lot of medevil records from Iceland and some from Norway and England from the time. We have a bit of their runic writing, a poem _The Lay of Attli _probably written by Greenlanders, and we have Icelandic sagas discussing Greenland and Vinland. This all piggy backs on the research I’ve already done on Viking archeology and sagas and poetry over the years.  The very best writer/researcher about the Greenland Norse, in my opinion and years of searching, is Kirsten Seaver with her books _The Frozen Echo _and _The Last Viking. _My story will probably bleed into Canada at that time a bit as well. The Greenland Norse went pretty much each year to get lumber. Really well done archeology assessments have been done lately on the Greenland Norse due to interest in why the Greenland Norse colonies died out after 500 years of living there. We still don’t have any real conclusions, although people sometimes like to think they can just jump to something like the Little Ice Age, which is way too simplistic for this group. I’m also heavily researching the Black Plague. There is an awesome lecture series about the Black Plague, I particularly like part on Scandinavia and it is done by a researcher who thinks like a writer which makes a big difference. Dorsey is also an Arthurian expert. 
2. The Saxon Wars (actually genocide), the main perpetrator being Charlemagne. It’s on the cusp of pre-history, at least on the Saxon side.  We have the Carolingian record and a Netherlands record and then legend like is written in sagas or Saxo Gramaticus’ Gesta Danorum. There is enough that I haven’t looked at German archeology as much.  I love pre-history, though and will be double-checking with archeology soon.  The Gesta Danorum is what Shakespeare read to find Hamlet by the way. There is a lot of what reads like freaky ghost stories instead of history in it. The Vikings loved horror, ghosts and zombies, along with the witches and sorcerers that were lucrative  professions and all of that would have also been present in Saxony prior to Charlemagne.


----------



## Megan Pearson (Nov 26, 2021)

Llyralen said:


> ... I definitely need to write in order for me to use the research. I am noticing that the most interesting historians today are also writers.  Writers actually care to figure out what was going on. We ask questions and put things together by putting our characters there.


I'm not a history buff, but a well-written story about history? I couldn't put down The Lost City of Z! Many of the books on my reading list are by journalists on semi-current or historical events.



Llyralen said:


> Things I’m researching right now:
> 1. Greenland 1341-1420.  Both Inuit culture and Norse culture...


Not sure if you'd be interested in this, but two things come to mind. Both are indirect but might help. First, the Griffith Observatory in L.A. had this fantastic holographic light show that played--I think it was--the Norse mythology as it related to the seasons and the stars. Very fun & wonder-filled. It provided a sort of imaginative, immersive experience that helped the viewer connect with the culture. I know this isn't 'hard' research, but it does go a long way toward learning what it might have been like to walk in their shoes. Second, what came to mind about Greenland was this amazing Nat Geo video I saw several years back on the underwater structures surrounding the coastline. Never before seen sort of stuff with canyons & rare fish. Spectacular photography. Probably not what you're looking for, but hey, maybe it could add something to your research?



Llyralen said:


> For the Inuit we’ve got archeology, DNA analysis and the stories documented by anthropologists taken down in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. The film taken even up into the 1980’s in circumpolar areas is very helpful to me. These stories read like a piece of ice in your mouth when you’re parched without a beverage in the summer. There is something very refreshing about the Inuit’s stories of hunting and their games their way of seeing things and way of life. Things are so tough with the suicides now in Greenland and understanding that has been something precious to me too. I also enjoy listening to current-day Inuit shamans. I hope for more contact with people there and I look forward at some point to looking for a sensitivity reader.


So ethnographic studies are of great interest to you. I've read quite a bit on the value surviving stories have in the oral history of a people and the kernal of truth archeology sometimes can uncover about them and their actual events. Western culture tends to dismiss the historicity of such oral tales, something I'm sure you've run into in your research. Because of that, I'm not sure that what you're looking for is a sensitivity reader but someone familiar with the customs from a cross-cultural perspective who can take what you're writing and understand it from both an Inuit and a modern reader's perspective. Sensitivity readers are...I would say more main-stream politically oriented... but if I'm understanding your interests, you need someone knowledgeable and sympathetic to the native cultures you're writing about. When you get to that point, you might want to think about contacting a cultural museum in Greenland or a university that specializes in that cultural area. That sort of reader might also be of help to you as you seek to bridge their past cultural identity to the present.



Llyralen said:


> For the Norse we have their archeology, we have a lot of medevil records from Iceland and some from Norway and England from the time. We have a bit of their runic writing, a poem _The Lay of Attli _probably written by Greenlanders, and we have Icelandic sagas discussing Greenland and Vinland. This all piggy backs on the research I’ve already done on Viking archeology and sagas and poetry over the years.  The very best writer/researcher about the Greenland Norse, in my opinion and years of searching, is Kirsten Seaver with her books _The Frozen Echo _and _The Last Viking. _My story will probably bleed into Canada at that time a bit as well. The Greenland Norse went pretty much each year to get lumber. Really well done archeology assessments have been done lately on the Greenland Norse due to interest in why the Greenland Norse colonies died out after 500 years of living there. We still don’t have any real conclusions, although people sometimes like to think they can just jump to something like the Little Ice Age, which is way too simplistic for this group. I’m also heavily researching the Black Plague. There is an awesome lecture series about the Black Plague, I particularly like part on Scandinavia and it is done by a researcher who thinks like a writer which makes a big difference. Dorsey is also an Arthurian expert.


Another plague to hit your research timeframe was The Dancing Plague, or the St. Vitus Dancers. I discovered it while reading Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy and had to look it up. Some people think it was a psychological form of mass mania, inspired by the Black Plague and famine, others link it to religious experience, and still yet others say it was from the bite of a tarantula. Whatever it was, it was widespread and outbreaks of it were reported over a several hundred year period. Might be something worth looking into, especially as they would have relied on trade. 

I haven't run into claims yet of a Little Ice Age. I know the weather patterns in Europe changed for something like a full generation causing colder winters and drought conditions in summer, and contributed to the conditions surrounding the Black Plague. But I agree with you, that by itself wouldn't cause a long-established colony to perish. Plus, what were the local conditions near the colonies? In case you're interested, I think I first read about the change in weather patterns in A Forest Journey, but I've run into it elsewhere too. You might like A Forest Journey as the author connects the success of a people by their care for the land. Also, as I'm sure you're familiar with this, how the Black Death changed the political and economic climate of Europe. All of these changes combined could have really affected the trade routes. Just an idea I thought I'd toss out there.



Llyralen said:


> 2. The Saxon Wars (actually genocide), the main perpetrator being Charlemagne. It’s on the cusp of pre-history, at least on the Saxon side.  We have the Carolingian record and a Netherlands record and then legend like is written in sagas or Saxo Gramaticus’ Gesta Danorum. There is enough that I haven’t looked at German archeology as much.  I love pre-history, though and will be double-checking with archeology soon.  The Gesta Danorum is what Shakespeare read to find Hamlet by the way. There is a lot of what reads like freaky ghost stories instead of history in it. The Vikings loved horror, ghosts and zombies, along with the witches and sorcerers that were lucrative  professions and all of that would have also been present in Saxony prior to Charlemagne.


With your interest in prehistory, do you also look at music and dance? Those sorts of ethnological studies might be helpful as well. I don't know much about the Saxons, except this curious phone call we got from my husband's niece. That side of the family is mostly English, so when her DNA genealogy test came back she was surprised about wherever this Saxon ancestry came from. Clearly not a history buff, we had to break the news to her that they probably weren't welcomed guests! 

Message me sometime -- I'd love to hear more about what you're working on.


----------



## Llyralen (Nov 26, 2021)

Megan Pearson said:


> I'm not a history buff, but a well-written story about history? I couldn't put down The Lost City of Z! Many of the books on my reading list are by journalists on semi-current or historical events.


I really admire great journalism, the kind of writing they do.


Megan Pearson said:


> L.A. had this fantastic holographic light show that played--I think it was--the Norse mythology as it related to the seasons and the stars.  I know this isn't 'hard' research, but it does go a long way toward learning what it might have been like to walk in their shoes.



I'm glad it was a good experience for you.  Helping people get into the mindset of people who believed and practiced Norse religion is part of my goal.


Megan Pearson said:


> Second, what came to mind about Greenland was this amazing Nat Geo video I saw several years back on the underwater structures surrounding the coastline. Never before seen sort of stuff with canyons & rare fish. Spectacular photography. Probably not what you're looking for, but hey, maybe it could add something to your research?


Sounds interesting!  I've definitely been looking at the flora and fauna and geography. It sucks that I am currently not able to go.  It feels like my biggest barrier. I watch pretty much every show I can get my hands on to feel like I'm there.  Last week my husband bought a VR headset and I went exploring Greenland.  It was so nice to be able to turn around and see all around me so that I could get an idea of where everything was situated at the farm sites I've chosen.


Megan Pearson said:


> So ethnographic studies are of great interest to you. I've read quite a bit on the value surviving stories have in the oral history of a people and the kernal of truth archeology sometimes can uncover about them and their actual events. Western culture tends to dismiss the historicity of such oral tales, something I'm sure you've run into in your research.


Yes.  This is basically what I do constantly is put together archeology with what was either written down or handed down orally.


Megan Pearson said:


> Because of that, I'm not sure that what you're looking for is a sensitivity reader but someone familiar with the customs from a cross-cultural perspective who can take what you're writing and understand it from both an Inuit and a modern reader's perspective. Sensitivity readers are...I would say more main-stream politically oriented... but if I'm understanding your interests, you need someone knowledgeable and sympathetic to the native cultures you're writing about. When you get to that point, you might want to think about contacting a cultural museum in Greenland or a university that specializes in that cultural area. That sort of reader might also be of help to you as you seek to bridge their past cultural identity to the present.


I already have contacted some people at a cultural museum in Greenland.  Um... every time I think I understand what a sensitivity reader does, someone shows me that I got the wrong idea.  I thought this is what a sensitivity reader would DO in this area is to come from that culture and understand their way of seeing the story so that they could flag me if what I write is troubling or incorrect from the culture's stand-point.


Megan Pearson said:


> Another plague to hit your research timeframe was The Dancing Plague, or the St. Vitus Dancers. I discovered it while reading Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy and had to look it up. Some people think it was a psychological form of mass mania, inspired by the Black Plague and famine, others link it to religious experience, and still yet others say it was from the bite of a tarantula. Whatever it was, it was widespread and outbreaks of it were reported over a several hundred year period. Might be something worth looking into, especially as they would have relied on trade.


Effecting trade is why the Black Plague is relevant to 1300-1400s Greenland. Also characters coming over to Greenland from Iceland and Norway experienced the Plague and one loves to tell gruesome tales about it.  =) Norway was very hard-hit in 1348-9.  60-75% of people in the biggest Norwegian towns died and actually Norway never recovered the same population through the whole Middle Ages and yes this had a huge affect on trade. It's pretty fascinating, in my opinion. I have researched The Dancing Plague in the past and I agree it's super interesting.


Megan Pearson said:


> I haven't run into claims yet of a Little Ice Age. I know the weather patterns in Europe changed for something like a full generation causing colder winters and drought conditions in summer, and contributed to the conditions surrounding the Black Plague. But I agree with you, that by itself wouldn't cause a long-established colony to perish. Plus, what were the local conditions near the colonies? In case you're interested, I think I first read about the change in weather patterns in A Forest Journey, but I've run into it elsewhere too. You might like A Forest Journey as the author connects the success of a people by their care for the land. Also, as I'm sure you're familiar with this, how the Black Death changed the political and economic climate of Europe. All of these changes combined could have really affected the trade routes. Just an idea I thought I'd toss out there.


There are good sources on all of this if you're interested yourself.  The Little Ice Age was recent. . It's why there was Ice on the Deleware in the painting of George Washington.  The ocean used to freeze in between Denmark and Sweden just 200 years ago.  You'd find a lot if you looked into it.


Megan Pearson said:


> With your interest in prehistory, do you also look at music and dance? Those sorts of ethnological studies might be helpful as well.


I do. Extensively, actually.  I myself am a singer and my stories circulate around some of the most famous bards/scalds of the Viking age using some of the versus to songs or poems written down from the time. Poems are what we actually have for history from pre-historical times. The poem rhyming and alliteration were so tight that they really can't be changed, so we even have archaic words in them being passed down for hundreds of years.  The first songs we have written down with notes are from the 1100s, but we have instruments from before then.  For dance we just have art from the pre-history times, but in Europe in the 1100 to quite late (and now, actually, if you're from the Faroe Islands) then people all across Europe were engaged in singing and dancing to ballads at pretty much any get-together, this was the thing to do. These ballads are often an oral tradition of legendary figures.


Megan Pearson said:


> I don't know much about the Saxons, except this curious phone call we got from my husband's niece. That side of the family is mostly English, so when her DNA genealogy test came back she was surprised about wherever this Saxon ancestry came from. Clearly not a history buff, we had to break the news to her that they probably weren't welcomed guests!



Well, this should tell you more about your DNA and the language we are writing in and this is another reason why I should write this story.

Saxony is an area in northern Germany.  Angleland (which is where the word England comes from) was in southern Denmark, right next to Saxony before the 5th century.   In the 5th century when the Romans left England, then Anglo-Saxons invaded England.  Some Saxons stayed behind in Germany. Almost all the Angles went to England, which is why they gave their old homeland's name to England. Denmark was flooding at the time and the old Angleland was left uninhabited for a while. What the DNA test said by saying "Saxon" is basically "English". Although the Anglo-Saxons did mix heavily with the British who were already there in England first and so today's English blood (there was a huge DNA test a few years ago) is that today's English are mostly Celtic (Britain) but with about a quarter Anglo-Saxon and some Norse blood, a bit more depending on if your people came from Eastern England where there was more invasion from Scandinavia through the centuries. Western England is a tad higher in Celtic (British) blood.  The Angles and the Saxons spoke almost the same language and were "cousins" with mostly shared history (Jutes and Frisians were also cousin groups and some of them also came to England).

The Anglo-Saxons in England were converted to Christianity through the 500-700s AD.  The Saxons who stayed in Saxony were still pagans who worshiped Woden in the 700-800's and Charlemagne was expanding his Holy Roman Empire and burned down their world tree and temples and places of worship, imported priests and missionaries from England (who still spoke very close to the same language as the "Old Saxons" as many called them) and basically started a "Get baptized or die." Christian War, where a lot of people died.  The name of the war is "The Saxon Wars"

In England many people (especially on the Eastern side of the country) spoke Anglo-Saxon until the Norman invasion (1066 AD) which added a French flare but the bare-bones of our current language is Anglo-Saxon and the closest language to English is Frisian, which is from the area close to Saxony, mostly in the Netherlands. Frisian was also considered a "cousin" group by the Saxons and they all said they spoke the same language until the Norman Invasion.


----------



## CyberWar (Nov 26, 2021)

My current research focuses mainly on different American dialects, and how to portray them in written form.

My current WIP, which should appear on WF Workshop within the coming weeks, features a near-future United States fragmented by a Second American Civil War. The severely-weakened US government struggles in a losing battle against both domestic extremist groups from both sides of the political spectrum and a foreign intervention by the Eurasian Confederacy and their Chinese allies.

The protagonists are a diverse group of four "average Americans" with their own beliefs and goals, who struggle to survive in an apocalyptic world of a global war, extreme climate change and unprecedented civil strife. Their different backgrounds and political sympathies aren't meant to "meet diversity quotas", but rather to showcase the extreme political and ethnic division of contemporary America by highlighting their differences along with their shared interests.

The main protagonist I have left ambiguous, specifying neither his/her background nor gender, so that especially my American readers might picture themselves in this individual's shoes. The protagonist is accompanied by Miguel, a second-generation Cuban immigrant, Mr. Burton, a Black schoolteacher from somewhere in the South, and Maggie, an edgy Southern teenager looking to join one of the right-wing militias involved in the civil war. Each of them, as well as the characters they encounter along the way (the story taking place in a diner presumably somewhere in Southern US) ought to have their own distinct speech.

Therefore, any help regarding various American dialects will be much appreciated.


----------



## Llyralen (Nov 27, 2021)

Hey @CyberWar a protagonist with an unknown gender is a very interesting idea.  I don't think I've ever seen that done.
This next question is for my own interests-- how are you going to portray the Climate Change?  Flooding? Heat? Loss of O2?  I'm keen to discuss this. I think maybe I'll make a thread.
And here is something that might help.  When I was studying the Ozark dialects I also listened to podcasts from Ozark preachers, I also looked up phrases from the area.  After you know what specific dialects you want, then you can go deeper into exploring that dialect by doing more specific research.  Anyway, these videos here might give you some brief ideas and then you can go deeper.  Along with accent, though, there is always history and you might want to capture that history to add depth to your story. Mormon pioneers, Cajun people, Gollah, Indian Reservation dialects, etc, there's always deep history with an accent.


----------



## Taylor (Nov 27, 2021)

For my current WIP, _Skyline_, I'm researching the banking crisis that occurred in 2008.   I already have a good foundation from past experience.   At the time, all the banking regulators were tasked with ensuring that capital requirement regulations were more robust to prevent further crises.   I was yanked from my comfy position in charge of training at the tax department to Training Manager at the Financial Institution Commission.  Yes, governments can do that.  It's called an operational need.

At any rate, they had just hired 20 new banking supervisors.  Those are the guys who make sure banks are following the rules and being risk-averse.   The superintendent gave me the official _Financial Crisis Inquiry Report_ produced by the Inquiry Commission assembled by the U.S. government.  It is 663 pages long!  Turns out it was just before I left for my annual vacation.  I took it with me to read as I lay by the pool. (Seriously.) I thought it would be dry and boring.  Not So!  Shadow banking, systemic risk, the fall of Bear Stearns, the bankruptcy of Lehman, and the bailout of AIG...it read better than a suspense novel.  There's even a chapter called, "Before Our Very Eyes", one called, "The Madness", and another called, "The Bust."  So I'm re-reading it along with a multitude of other non-fiction books about the thirty years that led up to the subprime mortgage catastrophe.

The goal is to block out a series of real-life banking and real-estate activities that took place from 2005 to 2008.  _That_ will be the framework for my 1st plotline. My second plotline will be rooted in the fashion and retail industry of which I have intricate knowledge, from working as a fashion designer for 25 years, (yes, I know, a crazy career change) and the research will be mostly based on my memory of the period, with a few touchups.  What was mostly happening in that period was the conglomeration of major brands and the high-priced market, moving downstream into low-priced disposable fashions sold in supermarkets and other non-apparel stores.

This one is going to be fun!


----------



## Deleted member 66445 (Nov 27, 2021)

oh, man, my stuff isn't as heady as y'all's.  
I'm digging into Western Scotland right now, from towns to roads to universities ...  Druidry is part of the current story, so that's an area of research. 
I know an awful lot about nursing, so that is an area of strength  
I have gotten some additional sources for information on druidry from the forums/groups I have joined since I started seriously writing, and just last night, a friend of mine at work was telling me that her daughter just graduated school and is in prosthetics/orthotics, which is a fairly big thing that I want to develop more than "He had an aritifical leg..."
For my next piece I will need to do some more in depth research on the Dutch resistance, I have the POV of my mother, and her writing, but I want/need to know more to expand the story outside of my family's circle.  
And @Llyralen posted some edification on why a woman would have pain during her first sexual experience. I thought that was pretty epic, myself


----------



## neophyte (Nov 27, 2021)

One of my characters has fire powers, so I'm 'researching' the hottest types of fire, hottest temperature possible (and what happens when you reach it), etc. Fun. Not as fun - reading about thermal burns.


----------



## Stormcat (Nov 27, 2021)

neophyte said:


> One of my characters has fire powers, so I'm 'researching' the hottest types of fire, hottest temperature possible (and what happens when you reach it), etc. Fun. Not as fun - reading about thermal burns.



Sounds kinda like my research. The characters have energy manipulation powers, and sometimes it can be used to ignite flames.


----------



## VRanger (Nov 27, 2021)

Yesterday I tried to figure out how an antagonistic neighbor could attempt to overturn a property sale in the UK. I found "proprietary estoppel", which essentially covers word-of-mouth agreements in personal matters. Such a verbal agreement would carry little weight in the USA ("Get it in writing"), but in the UK is given serious consideration in court and in Parliament. So if I can give the neighbor a reason to claim he was promised consideration in the property, I might pull it off.


----------



## Taylor (Nov 27, 2021)

VRanger said:


> Yesterday I tried to figure out how an antagonistic neighbor could attempt to overturn a property sale in the UK. I found "proprietary estoppel", which essentially covers word-of-mouth agreements in personal matters. Such a verbal agreement would carry little weight in the USA ("Get it in writing"), but in the UK is given serious consideration in court and in Parliament. So if I can give the neighbor a reason to claim he was promised consideration in the property, I might pull it off.


Could be tricky!  Is it required for your plot that the neighbour is trying to get consideration from the sale or prove they had an interest in the property?  Because if not, other things that come to mind with respect to property sales are easements, leases, and farm management agreements.  They must be disclosed.


----------



## CyberWar (Nov 27, 2021)

Llyralen said:


> Hey @CyberWar a protagonist with an unknown gender is a very interesting idea.  I don't think I've ever seen that done.
> This next question is for my own interests-- how are you going to portray the Climate Change?  Flooding? Heat? Loss of O2?  I'm keen to discuss this. I think maybe I'll make a thread.
> And here is something that might help.  When I was studying the Ozark dialects I also listened to podcasts from Ozark preachers, I also looked up phrases from the area.  After you know what specific dialects you want, then you can go deeper into exploring that dialect by doing more specific research.  Anyway, these videos here might give you some brief ideas and then you can go deeper.  Along with accent, though, there is always history and you might want to capture that history to add depth to your story. Mormon pioneers, Cajun people, Gollah, Indian Reservation dialects, etc, there's always deep history with an accent.



Many thanks, I will give these videos a thorough look.

Writing a protagonist of unspecified gender has so far actually been easier than I thought it would be. I write this story in the first person, from the perspective of the unnamed protagonist, and avoid writing interactions and dialogues that would refer to the protagonist by name or gender pronouns. Whenever the characters interact with the protagonist, they speak to him/her directly. I still get the feeling that most would assume the protagonist to be a man from the way some characters interact with him(?), but I've certainly been avoiding any obvious suggestions in regards to the protagonist's gender or background.

The effects of the climate change as well as other world events in the story are revealed in a television newscast that the small community centered around the diner assemble to watch every evening. This assembly around the TV, the only functional one in a large area, itself is meant to showcase how far things have deteriorated in the future America. The news speak of a ruined Miami being evacuated by the city's "people's revolutionary council" after large parts of the city are permanently inundated by a Category-Six hurricane (reported to be only the third of its kind in recorded history). The news also mention a pro-Confederate India failing to commit any forces to the Confederate intervention in the US over having to suppress genocidal ethnic clashes near the border as tens of millions of climate refugees flee the low-lying Bangladesh, which is compared to the state of Florida and is predicted to become completely uninhabitable within the next decade. The same report also mentions that India is further having problems with domestic climate refugees, with parts of southern India effectively becoming uninhabitable from extreme heat during the dry season. Mr. Burton is implied to hail from somewhere around New Orleans, when he comments that the same thing already happened in his parts a few years back, suggesting that New Orleans has been destroyed by flooding.

Climate change is also referenced in the context of people striving against it, such as a Confederate propaganda channel showing the unveiling ceremony of a massive sea wall on the coast of Southeastern England. The same report also mentions that heated debates are still ongoing within the Confederate government about the construction of a grand North Sea Barrier that would protect the coastlines of the entire Western Europe at the expense of extreme ecological disruption. The reporter speculates that were such project initiated, it could be completed within 15 years.

In addition to extreme weather and rising seas, there are also man-made disasters mentioned. Much of Arizona and New Mexico are mentioned having been rendered uninhabitable by a nuclear meltdown in the Palo Verde nuclear plant, with dangerous fallout reaching as far as Oklahoma City. The destruction is allegedly caused by damage sustained during a battle between the government forces and the Mexican Cartels according to the news. The characters speculate that the US military might be to blame, an old veteran of the Afghanistan war claiming that they likely tried to disable the power plant with a controlled meltdown to prevent the Cartels from stealing nuclear materials within, but the effort backfired spectacularly. Tactical nuclear strikes by both Confederate and US forces are also reported outside embattled New York and Philadelphia, likely leaving the local residents to contend with radioactive fallout. A Confederate news report also mentions a new kind of disaster - large man-made objects falling from space - as it details the Confederacy's ongoing military campaign on the Moon, where Confed space troops struggle to capture an American lunar colony with its mass drivers out of fear that the Americans might attempt to use them as weapons of mass destruction against Confederate cities. The report references an earlier incident where a misfired payload from a Confederate lunar colony impacted near Chelyabinsk, Russia, causing massive damage.

In short, it's an apocalyptic world replete with deadly hazards both from the environment and one's fellow man. Storms, floods, heat waves, rising seas, nuclear fallout, falling space junk, and obviously, your friendly neighborhood militias out to murder anyone they disagree with.


----------



## VRanger (Nov 27, 2021)

Taylor said:


> Could be tricky!  Is it required for your plot that the neighbour is trying to get consideration from the sale or prove they had an interest in the property?  Because if not, other things that come to mind with respect to property sales are easements, leases, and farm management agreements.  They must be disclosed.


It's not required, and I don't want to have anything factually wrong with the sale. The idea is the snooty neighbor doesn't like the rich Texan buying the traditional English estate next door. It's a subplot which may or may not fly. Since this book may be more episodic (almost soap opera) than romance, I'm just looking for issues to throw into the mix.


----------



## Taylor (Nov 27, 2021)

VRanger said:


> It's not required, and I don't want to have anything factually wrong with the sale. The idea is the snooty neighbor doesn't like the rich Texan buying the traditional English estate next door. It's a subplot which may or may not fly. Since this book may be more episodic (almost soap opera) than romance, I'm just looking for issues to throw into the mix.


Oh, I see.  I was thinking he actually had a claim.  But by this description, it sounds more like the snooty neighbour is fabricating the verbal agreement.  For a soap opera that might fly.   I'm wondering what kind of evidence he would fake. A false witness perhaps?


----------



## VRanger (Nov 27, 2021)

Taylor said:


> Oh, I see.  I was thinking he actually had a claim.  But by this description, it sounds more like the snooty neighbour is fabricating the verbal agreement.  For a soap opera that might fly.   I'm wondering what kind of evidence he would fake. A false witness perhaps?


False witness sounds very good, since the entire area of law is based on word-of-mouth.


----------



## Llyralen (Nov 27, 2021)

@VRanger  I don't know if this would work or help. It's outside of the box, though. =-) We had a neighbor growing up who poured over property tax maps.  He would claim bits of land all through the town and around people's places and build fences on these weird little areas saying that per his research nobody was paying taxes in that area and he could claim it.  So weird.  We woke up one morning to him moving the fence between our yards to 8 feet into our yard, claiming the irrigation ditch (irrigation ditches were important where I was from growing up) including raspberries and a pecan and an apple tree.  My dad called the police.  Our neighbor claimed that he was paying taxes on our yard.  Supposedly he was paying some (I guess? Should I believe my parents on that?) and we were also paying, of course, so there was some double-paying?  In order to just "be nice" and not have to deal with his scariness for years, they split the 8 feet and he got our irrigation ditch.  If this guy was outside, I was told to stay inside.

He also seduced and married widow after widow and made grabs for their money before they divorced him-- devastating the finances of at least 8 ladies who we personally knew.  I remember my mom saying to one of our 80 year old neighbors "You know Mark. Did you know Mark married Beulah and took all her money?" Sharon said "Yeah, I married him too for a year before Beulah, it's why I live in this place instead of up the hill." He also poisoned two of our cats.... Use this guy if you'd like!  He is long gone!  Name of Mark Gardener.  =)  IF it fits, of course!  =)  Writer's Revenge...... wahahahaha!


----------

