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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
Last weekend I discovered Johnny Cash. Because, believe me, C & W isn't something I would normally listen to. But I do like folk music, some of it, anyway - I like the intensity, the laconicness (if that's a word), and the way sometimes a highly conventional form can express...something that sounds like truth. It's almost as if the meaning slips past the convention because it is too urgent to be denied. Ok, so Cash has this quality, and again, timing plays a part in this:
"Well if they freed me from this prison, if that railroad train was mine
I bet I'd move it on a little further down the line:
(beat) Far from Folsom prison - that's where I want to stay,"
That beat, that space, or hesitation, speaks volumes. And in the whole thing, the ironical, rueful, self-awareness of the lyrics clashes with the extreme simplicity/conventionality of the music, so it gets under your skin. Well, under mine. So I was trying to work out why this music was getting to me, and I think if I ever wrote a sentence with half as much economy and power as the above, I would think I'd really done something.
Stylistically, I admire terseness - I admire the skill that it takes. Do you know Tesla's writing? I really like that. I myself tend to be too...uneconomical. Too many words, much too many adjectives - as if I was throwing money at a problem. 'Just throw words at your story, that'll fix it!" Then I remind myself I'm supposedly doing this for fun so I'll do as I please.
I think style inspiration can be anything: a concept - dodyskin wrote a lovely Inuit fairytale about Angel - a picture, a film, some kind of noir or something. Stoney wrote a sort of snapshot of Drusilla and it was so very visual and cinematic I'm sure it was based on something she'd seen. I'll let you if johnny Cash inspires me, shall I? Not that it's likely. : )
no subject
Anyway, yeah, I really really like some folk music and this:
the way sometimes a highly conventional form can express...something that sounds like truth.
And in the whole thing, the ironical, rueful, self-awareness of the lyrics clashes with the extreme simplicity/conventionality of the music, so it gets under your skin.
--rings so true for me. It's why Dylan and Neil Young are great (imo), and that idea of conventionality being a vehicle for something more true is why I love the early Beatles so damn much (I love them later too, but they got more complex over time, which is another kettle of fish.)
Do you know Tesla's writing?
I've only read the S Curve, which I have yet to fb her for. I am so bad! I admire
I myself tend to be too...uneconomical. Too many words, much too many adjectives - as if I was throwing money at a problem.
I tend to be verbose as well (stating the obvious here, look at these comments!!!). One thing I've tried to do is give myself word limits, line limits, or page limits. I find that this has really helped me to find THE one way I want to say things, instead of writing around the one thing in so many circles I get tired (and hope, somehow, that the reader will stumble on into the middle of the spiral).
But also, I do believe our own verbosity can be our strength, too. I've noticed that some writers I admire for writing tersely and all Hemingwayish have difficulty writing all convolutey and twisty and Henry Jamesish. And both were great writers, imo. Although I've been trying to learn to write succinctly and with brevity as well, I've also been trying to hone my extreme talkiness into a strength. I usually do it by reading extremely long books!
But I should note--that, that's fun for me. I do agree that fanfic is and should be for fun. It makes me sad when people freak out over it--myself included!
Stoney wrote a sort of snapshot of Drusilla
Are you referring to her Crusilla piece? That was some damn fine writing.
I'll let you if johnny Cash inspires me, shall I? Not that it's likely. : )
Hee! I like the idea of Johnny Cash inspiring you. And dicussing things with you is so interesting!
damn, I'm in danger of collapsing your thread, Sorry-o.
our own verbosity can be our strength, too yeah, you're right. In fact I do also like writing with a lot of verbal flourishes and tangents...thinks about Tristram Shandy...kinda leading not indirectly to Joyce and stream-of-consciousness
Her words always feel so simple yet the spaces between say so much. I love the way you put this. The spaces between.
Gonna comment on your last answer here.
Feeling kind of anxious to say, that's not the sort of comment I'd make about anybody's work that I'd actually had any contact with online.
No, I'd go right up to them and say, You creep me out, bitch!*ahem*
Thanks for the link, I'm going to check that out.
Ritual! As well as a particular type of pen and paper, I need ABSOLUTE PRIVACY which is one reason I don't write very much. Funnily, I don't need that for artwork. Maybe writing is more personal? Or, more accessible to casual sight when it's in progress?
I've got a sort of half-formed question this post has brought up, which is to do with, who has the right to write what, bearing in mind the uses of research? What gives a writer emotional dibs on a subject? I'll get back to you when I've worked out what the question is. (Though I have a feeling it's one of those questions that blew fandom up in a previous incarnation)
Thanks for a fascinating discussion.
Re: damn, I'm in danger of collapsing your thread, Sorry-o.
thinks about Tristram Shandy...kinda leading not indirectly to Joyce and stream-of-consciousness
*polite coughing* Tristram Shandy might be taking it too far! But yeah, Joyce takes verbosity and makes the over-abundance of words itself mean something.
I need ABSOLUTE PRIVACY which is one reason I don't write very much. Funnily, I don't need that for artwork. Maybe writing is more personal? Or, more accessible to casual sight when it's in progress?
I don't need absolute privacy, but yes, I hate people looking over my shoulder or even glancing at what I've written. It's funny you don't feel that way about art--my mom does; she hates having people walk in and look at her stuff while she's doing it (actually, only with painting, not with ceramics. I wonder why?) And it's funny, because both art and writings are things you SHARE with other people. But I hate to share before I'm ready, which is one reason I have trouble handing my stuff over to my beta. By the time I'm comfortable showing it to a beta I'm comfortable showing it to the world. I realize my work is BETTER for having been beta'ed, but it still is an effort for me.
who has the right to write what, bearing in mind the uses of research? What gives a writer emotional dibs on a subject? I'll get back to you when I've worked out what the question is. (Though I have a feeling it's one of those questions that blew fandom up in a previous incarnation)
Fandom is a T-1000. You can blow it up and the pieces melt and reform. I'm not sure what you're asking, but someone was asking relatively recently why so many women writers write men, and a while back other people were asking re: the whole slash issue--why do women write men and also, why do straight women write gay, and in between those metas/kerfluffles was the question about why don't more white people write black people, &tc &tc.
My take, as far as that goes, is that no one is entitled; or rather, everyone is. I don't think an abused child is more entitled to write fiction about abused children than someone who wasn't abused as a child. An abused child might write a BETTER story because she can use her personal experience, but I don't feel like she has more of a right. Same with every other qualification one could think of--it would be much easier for someone living in Siberia to write about Siberia, but she and the people of Siberia don't own the fictional property of Siberia, just as no one has actual emotional claim to one fictional experience over another.
But I'm not even sure that's your question! So I'll be quiet now.