Do you research stories?

[mlyn]

What do you research when you do?

I am working on three stories that I've done more research than ever before:

A survivor story and I've spent quite a few hours researching the location, etc.

A cruise story and I've spent days researching the cruise, the ship, the ports of call, and tours at each port. I've even gone so far as to research what they serve for dinner on the Eastern-Orient Express!

Lastly, I am just beginning to put a story together in my head and have done a few hours of research on child prodigies, and how they've grown up.

What have you researched so far?

(Early on, I even researched quite a bit about sex. And I forgot about a story I wrote about Tantra sex, and spent quite a bit of time researching the Kama Sutra )

Please share!

mlyn

 

[ronde]

Yes, I do research

Depending on the story setting and plot, I research location, lifestyles, things that happened during the same timeframe, and such mundane things as dress and manners of speach if the story takes place in an earlier time. Sometimes, the subject of one story appears during the research into another. Such was the case with my series titled "The Sutler Wagon".

It is important to me that things are accurate to a reader who knows the details, and I try to get as much information as I can in order to make them so.

 

[SexyChele]

So far, the only thing that I've had to do research for was to find a very small town in Texas. Not as easy as it sounds, but was interesting work. I would like to delve into a story where I could sink my teeth into reasearch - have always loved to do it!

 

[Guest]

Shooting Script

I work in multimedia and as a habit or more honestly a retentive personality trait, I script out any stories I may be developing. If it's a story based on characters I've used before, I hold a 'casting call' of sorts and surf the net for photos of new characters to see what inspires me. After being happy with the faces (and bodies) I start to look for settings, sometime browsing vacation websites, public festivals and even real estate pages for floorplans. It may sound like more work than most people would care to do but for me, with my training in film-video production, everything flows better and I can visualize where the characters are physicaly to each other before the physical interactions begin to happen.

The project I'm currently 'shooting' on paper concerns a young woman's erotic vacation in Hawaii and all the adventures incurred getting there as well as the ones in the islands proper. I've found myself looking at swimwear catalogs for costuming the cast, various airline seating arrangements for possible fun on that long flight, the deckplans for sailboats so I know just how many people to place aboard to make a good party possible and FAQs about dive boat excursions in tropical reefs to get the details right for some underwater sexual hijinks..... I've not storyboarding the feature by any means but just hedging my bets should my 'stars' stray from the script so that any improvising that may arise (or arouse) doesn't impede the flow of creative juices......*pleads gulity to several on-camera puns*

See you all on location and please people, don't confuse sunscreen with lubricants, they are hardly interchangeable and who wants to see a neon blue cock in a close-up......

 

[Uther_Pendragon]

I'll research what I need to. That is to say, sometimes
I just make it up out of whole cloth, sometimes I look for
the location or whatever very closely.
I tend to be a book researcher, rather than a web researcher, but
this particular page looks like something we all could use:
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/NOTES/note139/1997/note139.html
is, if I haven't typed it wrong, the US Social Security
Administration's list of names. You have to use several
closely-associated websites, but they have all the names
for boys and for girls born in two different years -- 1996
and 1997, IIRC, plus the ten most popular names for each
sex going back more than a century. So, if you want your
heroine to be 20 years old in 1948, they'll tell you what
were common names for women born in 1928.

 

[Sabledrake]

Most of the time, I write fantasy so I don't have to do real world research. But when I do something set in the real world, modern or historical, I'll do my best to look things up and find the answers.

My best experience with research to date was a short e-mail correspondance with a county deputy, whose help on police procedure for the bizarre situation of finding a 100-year-old skeleton in the house was invaluable.

Sabledrake

 

[karmadog]

I enjoy doing research. I tend to have three to five pages of research notes for each written page of a short story.

Uther, that page is a good one. By coincidence, I'm working on a story with a character born in 1898. I picked a diminutive of the fourth most popular girl's name.

Here's another site that comes in handy for historical fiction.

Eyewitness to history

First person accounts of events throughout history.

 

[wildsweetone]

research

i am hooked on research. i love it. i can find anything about anything, given enough time.

at the moment i am playing around with some historical events which occured in New Zealand.

i guess i also ask a lot of questions. anybody that mentions something to me which piques my curiosity better beware because i will question you to death

 

[jon.hayworth]

When I write a historical - I often start with a real artefact and location then weave a story around that artefact and location.

One thing I have discovered are the large number of historians who read stories on Lit., and I have had some very interesting and constructive feedback. To write the Roman stories I have about 25 books plus course work books from my studies with the Open University and a Latin Dictionary.

Rosemund Rowe who writes a series of "detective" novels set in a twenty year time frame in Roman Britain told me she gets by with 6 reference books.

To write "Talisman - Dr Forman's Discoverie" I used one main source book - A.L. Rouses biography of Simon Forman and four other books for background information.

If you are writing historicals can I refer you to the how to I wrote.

jon

 

[Weird Harold]

Speaking of research...

i am hooked on research. i love it. i can find anything about anything, given enough time.

Anyone have any information on how Stoneware pottery is made? Specifically, can it be poured as porcelain is, or is "molded stoneware" made more like molding Pla-do (tm).

I've a story in mind that requires a Stoneware dildo, and any information on working with Stoneware would be appreciated.

PS: I'm somewhat familiar with the process of making Porcelain dolls and painted ceramics, but my Mom never worked with solid clay or stoneware.