![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Let's talk about research for fic
I once had a teleplay writing class in which we each had to write a script for Law and Order. You had to research, not only your crime, but odd details dealing with biology or David Bowie or NYC. Up 'til then, I'd never really researched for a story. Right after that class I had a creative writing class in which we had to write a fiction short story based on a subject we researched. I noticed the research stories were significantly better than the stories we wrote first, which were non-researched based.
So, I'd learned my lesson. Research, even when you don't use it, can be felt. The weight of it can be there, making your story feel more real and you as an author more knowledgeable and thus, trustworthy. (The downside of it is research can be over-used, and the paragraphs about how chariots work feel like, "look I did research!". Or misused: spotty research on some stuff - good writing + sensational best seller techniques - making sense = Dan Brown.)
But apparently, I had not yet learned research = good for ALL writing. My first Jossverse fic was set in NYC, and although I did some spot-checking type research, my research wasn't thorough enough to make sense to . . . say, someone who'd actually been to NYC (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
alleynyc pointed that out and helped, and a2zmom still is). I've found since I've started researching for fic, though, that the research is almost as fun as the writing. Doing the canon research necessary just brings back my love for the shows, and doing other kinds of research makes me feel all smart and know-y. So I figure hey, maybe other people feel the same way. Or not.
I. Canon research. Return to canon, by watching eps, reading transcripts, and looking at various web sites about canon (such as the Buffy Dialogue Database and the Buffy Trivia Guide).
A. Refresher course. If I'm doing something like reworking a scene I always go reread the scene to remember what happened.
B. Dialogue snatching. Sometimes I use dialogue directly from canon. (I try to credit the episode when I do this).
C. Detail scoping. For times when you need a book on demonology or a pair of shoes Buffy owns. (This is when something like a trivia guide comes in handy).
D. Voice research. I almost always read transcripts right before I write dialogue so a character's voice is fresh in my mind. Sometimes I make note of how things are phrased (Faith uses a lot of cliches) or words that often get used (a lot of Willow's insults/ pet names feel out of the fifties) etc.
II. Misc. fact research. All the details you might or might not need to write a good story.
A. Voice research. Sometimes writing a character's voice requires knowing how they talk where they're from (for Faith I researched Boston-talk), their profession/passion (for Fred I'd look up some physics, Xander some comics), their style of speech (for Dru I read both the Bible and nursery rhymes).spiralleds had a cool post about researching pop culture references (for characters in Buffyverse. You can't write a good Buffy or Xander or Cordelia without pop culture references. Which is why Cordy's, "Who's Colin Farrell?" line is the MOST TRAGIC LINE IN THE HISTORY OF TV.)
B. Location research. Everything from where what buildings are (a2zmom continually beats me over the head on this one) to the flora and fauna in a city I don't live in. Then, if anything takes place in buildings I've never been in, like a jail or monastery or NYC's Macy's, I research those too (or get a2zmom to do on-site research ;o)
C. Translations. Latin, German, Spanish, Klignon. I can't speak 'em so I go elsewhere to find 'em.
D. Plot-level research. If a story hinges on something technical or medical, or a specific time period or place, I make sure to read up. This is the most obvious form of research, something that a lot of people do, I think. (Has anyone found out about Angeusl and Spike and the opium and CORSETS? kthx.)
E. Itty bitty detail research. Because sometimes you just need to know the average length of a penis (har har, itty bitty detail) or the tensile strength of a human hair. Once, I spent two hours searching for what restaurant plates are made of--you know those resaurant plates, the kind that feel both ceramic but the really cheap kind of ceramic? I wanted a technical word, a word that would pop! out at you, and "ceramic" wasn't doing it for me. (I never found a poppier word, though.)
III. Style research.
(all of these are mostly the same thing.)
A. Inspiration. For instance, I read this book where all the words felt new and really seemed to stand out, and I wondered how the author did it. I noticed that instead of just saying something like "fabric" or "cotton" he'd use a specific, almost technical word, like "faille". I thought it'd be interesting to try, so I spent hours looking for a more specific word for ceramic.
B. Instruction. If I were to write a piece with a lot of dialogue or meaning beneath the words I'd read Vonnegut's Long Walk to Forever or Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants to see how they did it.
B. Emulation. Sometimes I wonder if this is cheating. It's a more direct stealing then the two above. When I am writing a letter to someone important I want to sound official, but also dry, witty, and fun--so I go read Jane Austen and try to bring as much as her tone as I can into my own writing. To me this isn't any kind of plagarism, as her voice naturally becomes my own when I steal it for myself, as long as I don't take exact words and phrases.
[Poll #700205]
I'd love to hear more from you all. For instance, if you do what I'm calling "style research", what have you read to "get in the mood," and in order to write what? (For instance, in Bodiless Within the Bodies, I wanted the Tibet part to have long sentences, in a flowing style, with something distinctly Eastern in tone, so I picked up Hesse's Siddartha again and read a few pages. I don't think I was successful in capturing the tone I wanted, but I definitely think Hesse helped.) And what sites do you normally go to for canon research, besides Buffyworld and the ones listed above? What about translations, maps, details, pop culture, et al? Furthermore, how do you organize all these links? Do you keep them forever, create temp folders for the stories you're writing, or just flit through the sites and hope you'll never have to see them again?
Any crazy research story about spending hours trying to find what a restaurant plate might be made of? Any stories about how someone in fandom took you aside and said, "look kid, research?" Any stories about how much you love/loathe/fear research, and why?
That's it. Discuss.
So, I'd learned my lesson. Research, even when you don't use it, can be felt. The weight of it can be there, making your story feel more real and you as an author more knowledgeable and thus, trustworthy. (The downside of it is research can be over-used, and the paragraphs about how chariots work feel like, "look I did research!". Or misused: spotty research on some stuff - good writing + sensational best seller techniques - making sense = Dan Brown.)
But apparently, I had not yet learned research = good for ALL writing. My first Jossverse fic was set in NYC, and although I did some spot-checking type research, my research wasn't thorough enough to make sense to . . . say, someone who'd actually been to NYC (
alleynyc pointed that out and helped, and a2zmom still is). I've found since I've started researching for fic, though, that the research is almost as fun as the writing. Doing the canon research necessary just brings back my love for the shows, and doing other kinds of research makes me feel all smart and know-y. So I figure hey, maybe other people feel the same way. Or not.I. Canon research. Return to canon, by watching eps, reading transcripts, and looking at various web sites about canon (such as the Buffy Dialogue Database and the Buffy Trivia Guide).
A. Refresher course. If I'm doing something like reworking a scene I always go reread the scene to remember what happened.
B. Dialogue snatching. Sometimes I use dialogue directly from canon. (I try to credit the episode when I do this).
C. Detail scoping. For times when you need a book on demonology or a pair of shoes Buffy owns. (This is when something like a trivia guide comes in handy).
D. Voice research. I almost always read transcripts right before I write dialogue so a character's voice is fresh in my mind. Sometimes I make note of how things are phrased (Faith uses a lot of cliches) or words that often get used (a lot of Willow's insults/ pet names feel out of the fifties) etc.
II. Misc. fact research. All the details you might or might not need to write a good story.
A. Voice research. Sometimes writing a character's voice requires knowing how they talk where they're from (for Faith I researched Boston-talk), their profession/passion (for Fred I'd look up some physics, Xander some comics), their style of speech (for Dru I read both the Bible and nursery rhymes).
spiralleds had a cool post about researching pop culture references (for characters in Buffyverse. You can't write a good Buffy or Xander or Cordelia without pop culture references. Which is why Cordy's, "Who's Colin Farrell?" line is the MOST TRAGIC LINE IN THE HISTORY OF TV.)B. Location research. Everything from where what buildings are (
a2zmom continually beats me over the head on this one) to the flora and fauna in a city I don't live in. Then, if anything takes place in buildings I've never been in, like a jail or monastery or NYC's Macy's, I research those too (or get a2zmom to do on-site research ;o)C. Translations. Latin, German, Spanish, Klignon. I can't speak 'em so I go elsewhere to find 'em.
D. Plot-level research. If a story hinges on something technical or medical, or a specific time period or place, I make sure to read up. This is the most obvious form of research, something that a lot of people do, I think. (Has anyone found out about Angeusl and Spike and the opium and CORSETS? kthx.)
E. Itty bitty detail research. Because sometimes you just need to know the average length of a penis (har har, itty bitty detail) or the tensile strength of a human hair. Once, I spent two hours searching for what restaurant plates are made of--you know those resaurant plates, the kind that feel both ceramic but the really cheap kind of ceramic? I wanted a technical word, a word that would pop! out at you, and "ceramic" wasn't doing it for me. (I never found a poppier word, though.)
III. Style research.
(all of these are mostly the same thing.)
A. Inspiration. For instance, I read this book where all the words felt new and really seemed to stand out, and I wondered how the author did it. I noticed that instead of just saying something like "fabric" or "cotton" he'd use a specific, almost technical word, like "faille". I thought it'd be interesting to try, so I spent hours looking for a more specific word for ceramic.
B. Instruction. If I were to write a piece with a lot of dialogue or meaning beneath the words I'd read Vonnegut's Long Walk to Forever or Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants to see how they did it.
B. Emulation. Sometimes I wonder if this is cheating. It's a more direct stealing then the two above. When I am writing a letter to someone important I want to sound official, but also dry, witty, and fun--so I go read Jane Austen and try to bring as much as her tone as I can into my own writing. To me this isn't any kind of plagarism, as her voice naturally becomes my own when I steal it for myself, as long as I don't take exact words and phrases.
[Poll #700205]
I'd love to hear more from you all. For instance, if you do what I'm calling "style research", what have you read to "get in the mood," and in order to write what? (For instance, in Bodiless Within the Bodies, I wanted the Tibet part to have long sentences, in a flowing style, with something distinctly Eastern in tone, so I picked up Hesse's Siddartha again and read a few pages. I don't think I was successful in capturing the tone I wanted, but I definitely think Hesse helped.) And what sites do you normally go to for canon research, besides Buffyworld and the ones listed above? What about translations, maps, details, pop culture, et al? Furthermore, how do you organize all these links? Do you keep them forever, create temp folders for the stories you're writing, or just flit through the sites and hope you'll never have to see them again?
Any crazy research story about spending hours trying to find what a restaurant plate might be made of? Any stories about how someone in fandom took you aside and said, "look kid, research?" Any stories about how much you love/loathe/fear research, and why?
That's it. Discuss.
no subject
About corsets. Well I don't know what the etiquette is for quoting other people's work, but two great bits of fic featuring corstes come to mind - you probably know them - there's a scene in Coquette's A Winter's Tale where Darla makes Angel lace her corset - and make sure he gets the ribbons straight; and in Julia_here's Not Just Another Irish Rose - again this is Darla - she's getting dressed in a cabin on a boat with a great deal of threatening snap and crackle. Julia describes how she drops her crinoline into place over her head and the hoops bounce upward slightly with the force of it. In both cases the writing is wonderfully precise, vivid, and indicates a great deal about the power structures in play - with underwear! And both examples work very nicely, both in a literal sense and metaphorically, to illustrate a female deployment of power. While evoking titillation in the way fancy underwear does...and now I'm thinking about long shirts and undone cuffs and trailing braces...that could be sexy...never have read a fic in which men's underwear got fetishised...
Well you know, I don't consider myself a writer, but I love the craft aspect of writing. Not because it's easy, but because I don't have emotional issues about it. One thing I find quite interesting is transfering ideas about technique from one medium to another, say moving image to writing. For instance, one of the first things you learn in moving image work is how important the pauses are. Firstly, to give the viewer a chance to notice what has actually happened, and secondly because pauses create mood, pace and meaning. Thus, conventionally, you would begin any moving image work with an establishing shot. Without this, the viewers ability to understand what happens next is compromised. It's a rule you can play with (like if you wanted to confuzzle the viewer), but you need to understand it first. Then, once the action starts, if anything significant happens you would do well to pause for a while to 1) emphasise it was significant, and 2) make sure the viewer has actually seen it. Now I want to ask you how you make this sort of emphasis in writing - I suppose the question is, how you use timing in writing, because I don't feel it's a matter of simple description of stuff happenning. Yeah. I'm thinking of a passage I wrote and I really needed it to go slower - there didn't need to be anything more happening, but there needed to be some sort of pause. So how do you deal with kind of thing?
Goddness, I've just noticed that's completely off-topic.
I'm going to continue in another comment so this doesn't get too long.
no subject
and now I'm thinking about long shirts and undone cuffs and trailing braces...that could be sexy...never have read a fic in which men's underwear got fetishised...
This was one of the things I always loved in the Jane Austen fandom/cheap historical romance novels. Back in the day, gentlemen wore suit coats and things, so it was rather risque to see a man in his shirt sleeves. So "his loosened cravat" and untucked shirt all become, uh, fetishised.
I have a whole lot of posts like this I want to do about writing, that really just open up the forum for everyone to come talk about it, and what you're saying about pacing is really interesting so I'll probably steal it and do a post about it, too. Anyway, what follows is merely my opinion, so take it or leave it at your will.
There are several ways I'd handle slowing something down (or speeding something up) in text. The main one is sentence length, punctuation, that sort of thing. The length of sentences really makes a difference in how fast your reader is reading. A period is a pause. So, a short sentence has a pause before and after, and slows do the reader. A comma is a pause, but a shorter one. So a long complex sentence with lots of clauses will make a reader read a little faster to get to the end of the sentence, which is often the point of the sentence.
But these things can do the opposite, too. A BUNCH of short sentences in a row will cause your reader to get used to the choppy pace and so she'll speed her reading back up. A bunch of long sentences in a row will slow your reader down, because a bunch of long complex sentences get tangled up and confusing after a while. Another thing to keep in mind is that, as with cinema, you have to know the rules first. It's especially important to know grammar and punctuation rules (imo) to use them to your advantage when pacing a sentence or paragraph (because you CAN do things like leave out commas where there should be commas, or add them where there shouldn't be. But it can throw many a reader out unless done in an intelligent way. imo)
There are many other things to work with as far as pacing.
(For instance, a paragraph with only one simple sentence in it gives that sentence a lot of weight, and time.) Another is repetition, especially repetition through parallelism, repetition that can list numerous things, repetition that can seem to go on and on and on, repetition that can pack a really hard punch depending on how it's used. All that (sentence length, paragraph length, repetition, etc) are really just learning to play with sentence structure and story structure, and all the tricks and tools and knowledge that go with those things is stuff I don't really know as much about as some people. Which is why I'd like to do a post on it now!
But anyway, I do think that such things come easier with writing experience (as all things in writing do).
(Btw, if you want to send me your piece or your passage to give you specifics on how I'd deal with the pacing, I'd love to). And it's funny how different images and text can be and yet how much the same they are in other respects.
no subject
Thanks so much for your offer. It's a story I did for Project Paranormal. Tell you what, if I post it in my journal, would you crit it there? Because I find post-story discussion fascinating - I always felt the discussion we had about Moths in email would have been v. interesting to have out in the open.
Fetishising men's underwear. My husband, whose the eldest of a large family, was telling me about how he and the siblings used to play dress-up in their mother's underwear. I asked him, why not in their father's underwear and he made such a face: Eeew, no thanks. Traditionally, men's underwear hasn't been particularly associated with either delicacy or freshness....
I'm having a fascinating time reading through the comments here. Bloody good post.
no subject
Sure I would. I've been meaning to read the Project Paranormal stories anyway. I like to discuss stories people have written too (but I normally don't unless someone explicitly asks. It can be so touchy, especially in public.)
I asked him, why not in their father's underwear and he made such a face: Eeew, no thanks. Traditionally, men's underwear hasn't been particularly associated with either delicacy or freshness....
Ahahaha, I know! I wonder why that is. But actually, I don't really prefer to see men in their undies. Either naked or shirtless or fully clothed. I wonder why that is?