Research in Writing

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Prolly should not touch this subject because it gets all the last rain shower fallers all het up...

Bu-u-ut, I'm fairly pleased with myself for having gravitated all on my own to the books on physics that Feynman had out in the Sixties and Seventies long before he became a real pop celebrity of science.

He was aboveall a cultured person with a very well-balanced mind. I think it's going to be many a long year till we ever see the likes of him again. The era has changed completely.

I can't recall him ever sneering at anyone like... The way... Er, I think I'll just leave it alone here!

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Not quite what happened, as best I can recall. What he demonstrated was that if he bent an o-ring out of shape and chilled it, it wasn't resilient enough to spring back quickly. Not quite as spectacular as breaking it, but enough for it to fail in its function. Still a good demonstration, though.

One of the interesting parts of that investigation was that at the time he thought he'd figured this out all on his own; afterwards he realised that some NASA staff had left him a trail of breadcrumbs because they didn't feel safe speaking out.

Youre right, of course.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCLgRyKvfp0

 

[patientlee]

If you enjoy the process of doing the research, do it. If you don't, stick with writing about what you know.

 

[Acktion]

If you enjoy the process of doing the research, do it. If you don't, stick with writing about what you know.

For me, it's not so much that I enjoy it as much as it's a life long obsession and it bugs me when I need to understand something and don't.

That and I go off on tangents really, really easily. For example, I was trying to find an example of a genius (Nobelist perhaps) getting married to a model type for a story I am working on. The next thing I know, in between articles about Autistic savants being best paired with overly social (to the point of psychosis) types, I'm reading about Dolph Lundgren and finding out that apparently he is rumored to have an IQ north of 160 but denies it is that high. Although, he can't deny his Chemical Engineering degree from M.I.T. or that he is fluent in three distinct languages.

 

[sr71plt]

Tangents can gift you with new story ideas.

 

[patientlee]

For me, it's not so much that I enjoy it as much as it's a life long obsession and it bugs me when I need to understand something and don't.

That and I go off on tangents really, really easily. For example, I was trying to find an example of a genius (Nobelist perhaps) getting married to a model type for a story I am working on. The next thing I know, in between articles about Autistic savants being best paired with overly social (to the point of psychosis) types, I'm reading about Dolph Lundgren and finding out that apparently he is rumored to have an IQ north of 160 but denies it is that high. Although, he can't deny his Chemical Engineering degree from M.I.T. or that he is fluent in three distinct languages.

Yeah. I get caught up too.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

For me, it's not so much that I enjoy it as much as it's a life long obsession and it bugs me when I need to understand something and don't.

That and I go off on tangents really, really easily. For example, I was trying to find an example of a genius (Nobelist perhaps) getting married to a model type for a story I am working on. The next thing I know, in between articles about Autistic savants being best paired with overly social (to the point of psychosis) types, I'm reading about Dolph Lundgren and finding out that apparently he is rumored to have an IQ north of 160 but denies it is that high. Although, he can't deny his Chemical Engineering degree from M.I.T. or that he is fluent in three distinct languages.

Try Ernest Hemingway and one of his many wives.

Tangents are what we call LATERAL THINKING. I learned it 40 years ago from a brief book filled with modeling challenges. Like: BUILD A SUSPENSION BRIDGE FROM 3 TABLE KNIVES, 3 WATER GLASSES. Or USING 6 MATCHBOXES ARRANGE THEM SO THAT EVERY BOX TOUCHES EVERY BOX ALONG A PLANE. The solutions are simple but difficult to get logically.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The morning sunlight lay like lace beneath the palms and pines and stunted oaks. The black moist earth smelled of leaf mold. Wild yellow cannas and blue iris bloomed nearby.

Reuben awoke when sunlight poked its finger through the foliage and touched a patch of skin on his face. The appearance of Mary startled him. They agreed to travel together until they came to civilization. Beyond this he refused to disclose his destination, if he even had one.

"No offense Miss Mary, but you don't need to know dat, case you gets caught," he said.

As they walked, she told him her story and he told his.

Reuben didn't know his age, but when he was a child he was arrested for stealing a mule.

"Dey say I was bout fo' years old and too small to ride it," he said.

He was not large enough to mount the animal and was leading it off by the halter when he was caught. The court convicted him of horse theft and sentenced him to twenty years in prison.

"Dey warden at duh prison didn't know what to do wiff me, but he finally invented a task I could do. He put two bricks at each end of duh prison yard, gimme two mo uf em, and told me to carry dem to one uf deh piles, lay dem down, pick up deh udder two, and tote em back to deh first pile, back and foth all day long, always totin' two bricks. An he whipped me when I broke a brick or didn't stack em like he wanted. I grew up toting bricks, and wore out fo' sets of bricks befo' he got me some real work," he said.

"My God! How long have you been in prison?" Mary asked.

"I figger 'bout seventeen years an' some months," he said.

"So, you're twenty-one years old?"

"I supposn' I am."

Reuben talked of his life at various camps. Some mined phosphate rock, some grew crops, some built roads. He had been around the circuit.

Writing slave dialect is one of my peculiarities, its not hard to pick up, but its not universal. Joel Chandler Harris wrote a story where Uncle Remus couldn't fathom black dialect of Savannah (Remus was from Atlanta). The dialect above is a blend of dialects common to Florida. Slaves hadda hard time escaping because no one understood them.

 

[patientlee]

The slave dialect is how I know with 100% certainty that I did not read Uncle Tom's Cabin as a high school sophomore when it was assigned. I couldn't make it past the second page.

I read it last year. It's amazing the difference your perspective is once you have children. I remember thinking (as a 16 year old) that the slaves could just have new kids to replace the ones they were separated from. I'm ashamed to admit I thought that way.

I'm not sure why they'd make 16 year olds read that. Another example of education being wasted on the young.

I couldn't put it down once mother and son were separated.

The morning sunlight lay like lace beneath the palms and pines and stunted oaks. The black moist earth smelled of leaf mold. Wild yellow cannas and blue iris bloomed nearby.

Reuben awoke when sunlight poked its finger through the foliage and touched a patch of skin on his face. The appearance of Mary startled him. They agreed to travel together until they came to civilization. Beyond this he refused to disclose his destination, if he even had one.

"No offense Miss Mary, but you don't need to know dat, case you gets caught," he said.

As they walked, she told him her story and he told his.

Reuben didn't know his age, but when he was a child he was arrested for stealing a mule.

"Dey say I was bout fo' years old and too small to ride it," he said.

He was not large enough to mount the animal and was leading it off by the halter when he was caught. The court convicted him of horse theft and sentenced him to twenty years in prison.

"Dey warden at duh prison didn't know what to do wiff me, but he finally invented a task I could do. He put two bricks at each end of duh prison yard, gimme two mo uf em, and told me to carry dem to one uf deh piles, lay dem down, pick up deh udder two, and tote em back to deh first pile, back and foth all day long, always totin' two bricks. An he whipped me when I broke a brick or didn't stack em like he wanted. I grew up toting bricks, and wore out fo' sets of bricks befo' he got me some real work," he said.

"My God! How long have you been in prison?" Mary asked.

"I figger 'bout seventeen years an' some months," he said.

"So, you're twenty-one years old?"

"I supposn' I am."

Reuben talked of his life at various camps. Some mined phosphate rock, some grew crops, some built roads. He had been around the circuit.

Writing slave dialect is one of my peculiarities, its not hard to pick up, but its not universal. Joel Chandler Harris wrote a story where Uncle Remus couldn't fathom black dialect of Savannah (Remus was from Atlanta). The dialect above is a blend of dialects common to Florida. Slaves hadda hard time escaping because no one understood them.

 

[RoyceConnors]

As far as research goes it depends on the writer and what they might be writing about. If one stays with the same genre of story over and over there is little need for too much research into the subject, as they are in their comfort zone.

When a writer ventures into new genres that they've never been in before and know little about the subject, a great deal of research is needed to be completely familiar with the lifestyle, if they wish to look serious. The more a writer can understand a subject, the better it'll come across in the story, even if it is only fiction. Readers like realism in their stories, even if it is just to spank to.

So research is needed to do any story, but venturing into new areas requires a great deal more and it must be done thoroughly, or face the trolls who'll pick it to pieces, even if it is only amateur writing.

 

[Acktion]

And then there is the research I don't even begin to know what to do with.

In the past three years, I've managed to run off just about every person except one sweet woman who continues to come by about twice a week to check and see if my wife and I need anything. My wife informed me that we just got a call from her that she won't be coming by tomorrow since she hasn't been able to go to work for two days.

Reason; She pulled or pinched something in her shoulder while taking off her bra.

Now, it just so happens that this woman in question can best be described as "Zaftig". However, I have learned the hard way over the years that there are some questions it is best not to ask. "Just how heavy are them thare things?" being one of those.

But, it got me to thinking...

Yes, yes. I know. "Aww, shit. Here we go."

The internet being the wonderous thing it is, surely there would be some records of bra removal related injuries out there somewhere. Perhaps even some reference point to the number of hooks and the statistical probability of an injury occurring.

Apparently a young man in England dislocated his middle finger while attempting to remove the bra from a young lady friend. An injury that is most often seen in rock climbing according to the doctor who is quoted.

Now, I've got a pretty fertile imagination and can usually find a story in the most unlikely of places. The chemicals found in chocolate as posted earlier in this thread as an example.

However, between the two, I find myself scratching my head and wondering "What the...?"

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The slave dialect is how I know with 100% certainty that I did not read Uncle Tom's Cabin as a high school sophomore when it was assigned. I couldn't make it past the second page.

I read it last year. It's amazing the difference your perspective is once you have children. I remember thinking (as a 16 year old) that the slaves could just have new kids to replace the ones they were separated from. I'm ashamed to admit I thought that way.

I'm not sure why they'd make 16 year olds read that. Another example of education being wasted on the young.

I couldn't put it down once mother and son were separated.

I'm most fortunate to have a large fund of documents from the slave times, my ancestors owned large numbers of slaves. The documentary evidence alone makes any generalization of slavery impossible; it's like trying to generalize working conditions in modern America based on Wally World alone. Harriet Beecher Stowe meant well but much of UNCLE TOM's CABIN is inflammatory fantasy. Bottomline: its crazy to abuse expensive slaves who make you wealthy, and abuse was rare.

Few consider that even slaves have issues, and separating a kid from an abusive/negligent parent is what we do today. In most cases children moved to a plantation in the community or moved to another property, say, the town house of the owner.

The real abuse came after emancipation when black labor became a cheap commodity, and no one had any responsibility for or obligation to elderly blacks, women, and children.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Save somebody's life someday ifn you walk past 'wild yellow canna flowers,' and that same person had been stung by a hundred wasps.

Just mentioning it... Not that y'all don't already know it an' all.

 

[MSTarot]

I enjoy the research sometimes almost more than I enjoy writing the story. I will always end up learning something new. But if I wasn't writing the story I wouldn't be going down that line of research so it's at best, mute.


I really love it when the different items I'm researching all seem to just drop right into place for the story I'm writing. Almost like "the story" is latching onto just the perfect little bits of fact and history to make it almost write itself.

"Lord of Devil's Night" did that in a way that was, given the story, almost spooky.

http://www.literotica.com/s/lord-of-devils-night


Then there is the times when what you learn in your researching manages to scare the holy crap out of you!

Earthday is coming and oh boy did I learn things while writing this story. The keep you up at night asking "What the hell were they thinking?" kind of things.

Yeah... that's always fun.

MST

 

[oggbashan]

If you enjoy the process of doing the research, do it. If you don't, stick with writing about what you know.

I start with what I know but have to research to 'prove' what I know.

Sometimes I get it wrong, but readers correct me.

 

[JKendallDane]

I thought that the term "research" was what we authors used with IRS in order to justify writing off 50% (or more) of the cost of cruises, trips to Europe, and bottles of expensive wine.

 

[TxRad]

I thought that the term "research" was what we authors used with IRS in order to justify writing off 50% (or more) of the cost of cruises, trips to Europe, and bottles of expensive wine.

That works also.