Research?

[Zinaya]

I've looked through all seven pages of this forum and I can't see a topic that discusses this aspect of writing, so:

When you write, how much effort do you put in on research and how important do you feel that it is? For instance, if you decide that the main character of your new story comes from, say, Copenhagen because .......... and you've never been within a thousand miles, are you 1) satisfied with what you know about Copenhagen and assume that as no-one else likely is or knows much more than you do, you'll get away with it, or 2) read up about Copenhagen - places and places of interest, street views, shops, culture, food, sports clubs, communications, weather conditions etc - so that the one in a thousand readers who knows the city inside out won't realise that you've never been there? Or if one of your main characters plays ice hockey, a game you yourself have no experience of except perhaps watching it on telly one or two times, do you feel that you have to know the rules, what gear one uses and things like that because that character will talk a lot about it and you want to make him (or her?) believable?

[Personalias]

It depends.

[Zinaya]

Not necessarily but it could be a source of embarrassment if you wrote that "Sally saw Cher at Madison Square Garden last week, lucky girl", or, "we were watching the Super Bowl LXXIV live" and it's April 2015, or, "30 minutes after seeing the Grand Canyon, they drove into Las Vegas". Things like that.

[BabyWarlock]

I can definetely write about switzerland and the valley that I live in and definetely no one on this site lives in it.

[WBDaddy]

Personally, I put enormous energy into research of a location when I write. I find it helps create a more

[Personalias]

41 minutes ago, Zinaya said:

Not necessarily but it could be a source of embarrassment if you wrote that "Sally saw Cher at Madison Square Garden last week, lucky girl", or, "we were watching the Super Bowl LXXIV live" and it's April 2015, or, "30 minutes after seeing the Grand Canyon, they drove into Las Vegas". Things like that.

[Zinaya]

22 minutes ago, Personalias said:

Also, what is unrealistic about seeing Cher at Madison Square Garden?

You're right Personalias, I guess it was a bad example. Or maybe it isn't in the context of this topic?

[Cute_Kitten]

Ah, creating a believeable reality; that's the writer's bane. When weaving an entrancing narrative, a writer must sound like they know what they're talking about so they don't disrupt their readers' belief in them. The writer must research enough to weave the illusion they know what they're talking about.

[Personalias]

51 minutes ago, Zinaya said:

You're right Personalias, I guess it was a bad example. Or maybe it isn't in the context of this topic?

[Angela Bauer]

Sonny Bono died on 5 January 1998, during his second term as the USA Member of Congress representing the California 44th District.

[Zinaya]

1 hour ago, Cute_Kitten said:

Even if the rest of the writing is sound with a captivating plot, screwing up facts will undermine a reader's confidence in a writer, disrupt the narrative flow and have the reader end up questioning other aspects of the work.

Ding!

[Cute_Kitten]

And that's the trick of being a writer.

[Personalias]

Politely disagree that Stephen King is not a great author.

[Zinaya]

47 minutes ago, Personalias said:

"Write what you know, but if you write it, make sure that you know it."

I "Like this" but perhaps it's too simplified to be readily understandable?

As for King, there is no doubting his success and talent as a story-teller of the first rank! But his invented cultural setting "Smallville, USA" plus overly graphic and garish monsters take little creative talent and he definitely cannot be compared with any of Tolkien, Lewis, Pratchett, Heinlein, Asimov, Pournelle, Niven, Atwood, Verne, Hugo, Shelley, Fitzgerald or Dickens to name but a few. I think you may confuse "huge commercial success" with "being a great author", but they are not commensurate! To use a music analogy, it's like saying Dylan is a greater singer than Andrea Bocelli or that Bacharach is as great a composer as Bach, Beethoven, Mozart or Wagner. Or to use actors - all of Wayne, Eastwood (with a few outstanding exceptions), Hoffman, Roberts, Cruise or Hanks do are play themselves, always easily recognisable. Just one film, Dr Strangelove, proves that as an actor Peter Sellers was streets in front. I guess it is a clash of cultures and that to an American, success is the proof of ability and the greater the commercial success, the greater the artistic ability? Europeans in general and Brits in particular make distinction between the two.

[Personalias]

Okay, but how about rephrasing it to

[WBDaddy]

Funny, I don't remember any "overly graphic and garish monsters" in

[spark]

3 hours ago, Personalias said:

"Write what you know, but if you write it, make sure that you know it."

Put that little bit on a poster and follow it.

[Elfy]

I don't do research, though so far I haven't really wrote about anything I don't know. I never really give a location in my stories, I just leave it vague. I'm writing ABDL fiction not the next "War & Peace". I'm all for having detailed worlds and writing the best you can but at the same time you have to know your audience. Do my audience care about the difference between a fictional town I make up where I can add places as I need them, and a real town where I take the layout? Answer is most don't care as long as the story is interesting.

Events are more important. If I were writing about a particular event in history then I would have to research it obviously. Some of the non-ABDL things I am considering writing about I would have to read up on, others I already know a lot about.

I guess I just feel if you are writing fiction that you don't really need to do a lot of research. I don't see a need to be so specific about where my stories are set but if you think it is more important that you map a place out specifically then I guess you can do that too. I just don't think it adds much of anything to most stories. I look at Harry Potter, set in England with some English hallmarks there but it was never specific about anything save for one or two locations such as King's Cross station. 99% of the stories are in made up places and the story certainly didn't suffer because of it.

[justagirl4fun]

I've not tried my hand at writing any stories here yet, but I roleplay a lot and for that I do research a bit. Not necessarily about locations (I tend to stick with a generic "small town in upstate NY setting) but if the characters have any medical conditions I try to learn about the signs and symptoms, treatments, etc so I can be realistic.

[WBDaddy]

1 hour ago, justagirl4fun said:

if the characters have any medical conditions I try to learn about the signs and symptoms, treatments, etc so I can be realistic.

[justagirl4fun]

8 minutes ago, WBDaddy said:

Which is a very good thing, especially in this genre, where we all like the "extremely shorter than normal" trope to set up a story...

lol I HATE the "extremely shorter than normal" trope. I also hate when writers/roleplayers try to explain their characters' incontinence by saying they went in for a routine appendectomy and the doctor somehow messed up and damaged their bowels and bladder, or they fell and ruptured their bladder

[WBDaddy]

Which is why some of us take the extra effort to research why our main characters are short/incontinent/both...

[Nat]

In 50 Shades of Grey I could tell that either the author had

[Zinaya]

Some really excellent replies here, thank you! Even if there is a lot more to be said yet about this part or aspect of the question of research, I'd like to throw a different log on the fire to take it in a slightly different direction. Please read this BBC story and give me your thoughts on it!

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160112-what-i-learned-when-i-lived-as-david-bowie

[Bettypooh]

Fiction is fiction. I recall listening to a radio show long ago before we had easy visual special affects which portrayed a reporter broadcasting live on a beach. From a happy, sunny day a bomber appeared coming in low and you could hear the concern in his voice as things started to fall from the plane onto the kids on the beach! The concern turned to joy as he discovered the "bombs" were ice-cream cones being parachuted down for the kids The slant was that you could do that easily on radio but not on TV (which at the time was true). Imagination is what makes fiction good.

And over a century ago there was a writer who had his character crossing a river (in France IIRC) where no bridge existed, which was pointed out to him by a critic. His response was "Then I put one (a bridge) there!" Simples! So no, fiction doesn't have to be realistic but it can add to how well the story is received. As long as you don't go to extremes it probably doesn't make a lot of difference to most folks. Just don't have a Dane in a kimono outside in the winter or a snowmobile in Tahiti and I doubt that many people will care about slight inaccuracies And if people complain remind that that it's fiction and as the writer you can do anything that you want to

Bettypooh