Learning about new things to write

[Northstar4695]

This is hardly a novel thread, but yesterday I had an idea for a story based on a news article. I immediately had the frame of a story in my head, but the plot will require me to learn about a fairly obscure job in order to bring it to life. Some short articles helped me firm up the idea. I've been reading a book about the job in basically every free moment since, taking notes, and generally letting the story take more defined shape. This weekend I'll probably start writing in earnest, but I am so excited about this story that I imagine I will probably read a few more books, watch some YouTube videos, and try to pick up as much detail as I can. This is a new experience for me. Usually, I write about settings or topics I know quite a bit about. There's some risk to this approach, but I'm already in love with the idea. I hope any real-life experts are merciful in their comments. A quick search tells me that I'm hardly the first person to think of it on the site either, so I also need to do it well enough for the story to be a new contribution to the community.

Have you tried to put a story into a setting you didn't already know? What was your research process? I'm not really in search of tips, just excited and keen to share the good vibes I am feeling.

Am I being vague about the setting and the idea? Yes! Absolutely.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Yeah, I just wrote a novella about roller derby in the 50s. I knew almost nothing about it when I started, but I figured, who the hell does?

 

[Voboy]

This is hardly a novel thread, but yesterday I had an idea for a story based on a news article. I immediately had the frame of a story in my head, but the plot will require me to learn about a fairly obscure job in order to bring it to life. Some short articles helped me firm up the idea. I've been reading a book about the job in basically every free moment since, taking notes, and generally letting the story take more defined shape. This weekend I'll probably start writing in earnest, but I am so excited about this story that I imagine I will probably read a few more books, watch some YouTube videos, and try to pick up as much detail as I can. This is a new experience for me. Usually, I write about settings or topics I know quite a bit about. There's some risk to this approach, but I'm already in love with the idea. I hope any real-life experts are merciful in their comments. A quick search tells me that I'm hardly the first person to think of it on the site either, so I also need to do it well enough for the story to be a new contribution to the community.

Have you tried to put a story into a setting you didn't already know? What was your research process? I'm not really in search of tips, just excited and keen to share the good vibes I am feeling.

Am I being vague about the setting and the idea? Yes! Absolutely.

Yes. One of my current Summer Loving stories began as something I saw on the six o'clock news, on puffin researchers counting birds on a series of rocks off the Maine coast. I know nothing about puffin research and, though I don't live far from Maine, I'm not interested in offshore rocks.

So? I looked up the organization that employs the researchers. It's linked somewhere in the Summer Loving support thread.

The research was the funnest part, as it usually is with me. I'm a curious sort, who enjoys learning about new things. I thought accuracy was important in terms of the setting and the job, but not in terms of what I wrote the characters doing. I hope I did the organization justice; they seem like good, sincere people. I'd love it if some of the researchers on the actual rocks came across my story. I think they'd be tickled that a sex story was set there.

Another of my stories involves a sculptor. I learned enough of the terms and techniques to make her sound like a plausible narrator, I hope.

 

[Winter_Fare]

Currently wasting hours of my life trying to work out how people kept track of their shares and investments in the late nineties. Dullest rabbit hole I ever found myself in.

 

[SyleusSnow]

Yeah, accuracy is important to me too, and I spend way too much time on research. My current WIP has me learning about Korean food, welding careers and clawhammer banjo. For a previous story, I went deep into obscure mental illnesses, fast food management and characteristics of different breeds of parrots

I'll never write historical fiction... I'd dive in and never surface.

 

[Voboy]

I'll never write historical fiction... I'd dive in and never surface.

Yes, I have to limit myself. I love historical fiction and I think I write it well, but if I let myself? That's all I'd ever do. The research is just too much fun.

 

[ronde]

While some may not agree, Wikipedia is a good place to start researching most things. Besides the actual content, there are usually other on-line resources mentioned. I also have a large personal library of physical books on various subjects that I use.

It's not necessary to have the knowledge of an actual practitioner in many things and in many cases, especially when writing historical fiction, it's not really possible to obtain that depth of knowledge. It's only necessary to be accurate in what you write and that you write to give the right flavor to the story. William Sarabande wrote novels of pre-historical Native Americans by interpolating and extrapolating data found at archeological sites.

 

[Bramblethorn]

This is hardly a novel thread, but yesterday I had an idea for a story based on a news article. I immediately had the frame of a story in my head, but the plot will require me to learn about a fairly obscure job in order to bring it to life. Some short articles helped me firm up the idea. I've been reading a book about the job in basically every free moment since, taking notes, and generally letting the story take more defined shape. This weekend I'll probably start writing in earnest, but I am so excited about this story that I imagine I will probably read a few more books, watch some YouTube videos, and try to pick up as much detail as I can. This is a new experience for me. Usually, I write about settings or topics I know quite a bit about. There's some risk to this approach, but I'm already in love with the idea. I hope any real-life experts are merciful in their comments. A quick search tells me that I'm hardly the first person to think of it on the site either, so I also need to do it well enough for the story to be a new contribution to the community.

Have you tried to put a story into a setting you didn't already know?

Almost everything I've written here has required some background research. Some of the major ones:
- A character who was a professional cellist; originally it was just a short story and I wasn't expecting to have to know much about her job, but then it turned into a novel and I had to learn more to understand what her career would look like.
- A character who works in the mathematical side of shipping/logistics and has a lot to say about her work
- An escort
- A story set in 1920s New England
- Characters from various ethnic/cultural/religious backgrounds that don't match mine

 

[oneagainst]

Learned a bunch about quadriplegia and orchids, but not for the same story. That would be too much.

 

[AchtungNight]

I write fanfic, and sometimes it’s about stuff I’m not into before I start writing. So yeah, I research. A lot of my stories are based on subjects for which I have been the first or primary fanfic writer. Believability within my fictional universe is important to me, and accuracy- these are important to many fans also. So I have researched things to get them right. I have made excessive use of celebrity interviews in my work to know my subjects, watched movies and listened to music or podcasts to see how to incorporate various things, and also researched things with which I was not previously familiar. A few specifics-

When I decided to satirize certain subjects in my work- the War on Terror, liberal vs fanatic religious practices, the Olympics, etc- I had to learn about them. I have a degree in History, this helped. So did various online archives.

My story Two Cats in Heat shipped two athletes with the same nickname. It was based on an interview depicting the two as friends. Counseling went even farther, spinning various celebrity gossip stories from tv, online, and print media into an adult epic satire. When I’ve portrayed various characters, I have made use of interviews showing off their personalities. Lack of modesty, vanity, lust, fears, all the things a fan would expect from various characters. Some celebrities I’ve gotten obsessed with based on my writing, looking for and weaving in original twists on various themes, and I’ve had to break things down a bit at times just to kick myself away. This is a natural reaction, in my opinion. Counseling was an attempt of mine to deal with such an obsession, other stories have been similar.

Further specific research is evidenced in my stories- go read them if you like.

 

[KeithD]

I worked as an editor in a crisis international news agency for some years, and when an interesting news story went across my desk, I saved a copy of it. Some 35 mainstream novels later, I haven't exhausted that cache. These were all stories in the public domain, which they had to be for me to be able to use them as plots, as my news agency was a classified one.

I mostly write venues of where I've actually been, if only on vacation--and I've been pretty much everywhere in most of the world (though none in South American, not much in Africa). But the Net is so rich in information on places and history that researching that and using Bing maps can put me in a venue I want to use. One of the tricks, though, is to use setting and historical time as just a placing hint rather than delving too much into detail.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Yeah, I just wrote a novella about roller derby in the 50s. I knew almost nothing about it when I started, but I figured, who the hell does?

A bunch of great-grandmothers you don't want to mess with.

 

[KachinaDoll]

I really enjoy background research, even to the extent of checking that the university that my fictitious character is attending does the course I've put her on. I've also learned about military life, driving a traction engine, Native American culture, Arizona, and the 16th century Sussex iron industry.

 

[MillieDynamite]

So, no, not really. I usually research the job before I write a story on it. This thread brings to mind Chandler in Friends and the job, which the people in the show aren't really sure what Chandler does other than input data. But he worked with Actuaries. Data on sales that help project what is or isn't trending. In one episode, he worried about the WENUS, whatever the fuck that is. Actually, it's Weekly Estimated Net Usage Statistics, and of course, then had to be concerned about the ANUS Annual Net Usage Statistics. All of this is quite funny, but it is a real job. I feel sorry for Chandler Bing (love that name) and anyone in the real world that has to perform the job.