Hey guys! Look who’s blog is one time! You should all be proud of me. But I did promise that this week I would write on research that I have done for different novels that I have written. So let’s start with some of the more simple stuff.
A long long long long long long time ago back before I should have known better I attempted to write a historical fiction novel about the titanic. No, I had never watched the movie and no I still haven’t watched the movie. Sorry to disappoint. But I attempted to write a novel nonetheless. In case you were wondering it ended up just like the movie except they both lived. So, I guess that really is the only Titanic story to tell. As I was saying, the research that I did for that was a lot. I had no idea about any of the specifics of the Titanic at the time. Keep in mind I was 11 or 12 when I wrote this book. All I knew of the Titanic was that it was an unsinkable ship that sank and a lot of people died. So, I read books. And I looked up articles. I even looked at all the articles on what was being found at the bottom of the sea now. I found timelines and printed them off to tape in the notebook. I made lists of facts. The funny thing about research is a lot of the things that were important at the time you just seem to forget. This was one of those things.
Another book that I did research on was a book about pirates. I live in the middle of a dessert. We have a rare few lakes and no ocean nearby. I discovered at a young age that I am scared of water and, even given the chance, would never choose to go out on a boat. So how would I ever learn anything about being a pirate? I read a lot of books. I memorized terms. I learned which directions of a boat were which. (Another fact I still have yet to remember when not looking at a diagram) I watched sailing videos to get a feel for how people stood, walked, and climbed on a boat. I read books that took place on boats to get a feel for some of the things that aren’t mentioned in movies or books on 17th century boats. In the end I didn’t even finish that book but some of the information has stuck with me and has proved useful in the writing of a different book I’ve been working on. The only reason I have any sense for a boat in Toss the Dice is because of all that previous research.
A third research assignment that I have done another time was for the novel I am working on now. I won’t go into a lot of detail about the plot line (don’t want to give all my secrets away. My dad reads this. 😉) but the main enemy is a society of aliens from another planet. They are actually genetically evolved humans. So, of course, I had to research genetic evolutions but not only in human beings but also in all sorts of plants and animals. I figured that if I did enough research into the science I could fudge some believable way that the humans evolved. Turns out I didn’t need to fudge something but I’ll get to that another time. What was really interesting was all the research I was actually able to find about it. My favorite was from the conference I went to last year. It was a writers conference for teenagers. (I will create a post about writing conferences but that is for another time). An author by the name of Lee Falin gave us a workshop titled Genetics and Evolution for Creators. He had so many good insights and info for writers that I took 4 pages of notes! He introduced us to the book that he wrote called Science Fictioned. I bought a copy from the conference book table and constantly refer back to it for any real science fiction research I do.
One last goofy note on your research. You better get your research right. There is always someone who knows the research better than you. If you get things wrong once in a while that’s fine too. It is fiction after all. But don’t mess up the science fiction science that can be explained or else you’ll end up on the Nerdist Youtube page as they explain the science of your book. (Shout out the the tie fighter explanation video on Nerdist).
So that’s all that I’ve got this week. If there’s anything that you want me to write on in the future let me know. I’m slowly but surely running out of ideas but I’m good for a little while. Next week I’m going to write a review of a book. I’m thinking it will be something epic that I have read recently. Guess you’ll find out next week. (Which is a clever way of saying I have no idea so I’ll figure it out Thursday). See you next week!