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What are we all researching right now?

Hmmm, does watching Wednesday on Netflix count as research? I'm going to say yes. I love the Adams family franchise and I'm so glad they didn't ruin it with modern radical culture. The casting is great imo as well. The writers are old school so I suppose they have kept their game and not folded to modern pressure. Even though Wednesday as a character is obviously OP, I like it, call me a sucker for strong female leads even if they didn't earn it in the current iteration.

That said, Iike the modern spin on new things.
Is it the new Wednesday series? I think Wednesday is my favourite anti-villain. Tim Burton directed it no?
 
My current research is ruthlessly pragmatic: trying to make One Note work with my dyslexia software. The various story lines in my books are getting so complex and intertwined that it isn't enough to keep it all in my head any more, I need some way of getting it into the PC in a form I can have it read back to me when I need to. It's just a bit embarassing when my editor picks up a continuity mistake that I'd missed.

The last story related research I did was poisons and how to distill them from flowers and other plants. All very interesting, but not something I'd want to explain to anyone other than my editor.
I have The Taste of Poison by Neil Bradbury in my to read list which I’m looking forward to reading, not because I’m planning on killing anyone, but because I’m a gardener/grower and really interested in the historical garden apothecary how plants were used to heal etc. Also interested in foraging, and knowing what can kill you is just as important as knowing what is edible. If I *ever* were to have an editor I think I’d probably be the queen of mistakes.
 

CupofJoe

Myth Weaver
What the climate conditions are line in cool/cold high deserts.
I think my MC might just be arriving at one and I need a bit more than chilly or warm...
 

BearBear

Archmage
Is it the new Wednesday series? I think Wednesday is my favourite anti-villain. Tim Burton directed it no?

Yes, my friend says Wednesday is her hero so can she be both a hero and anti-hero? I have always liked Mortisha and Wednesday characters. You could say I integrated them into my own thoughts.
 

Pinkwizaard

Dreamer
I have been slowly trying to get more and more back into writing and I keep getting interested in attempting again to write a book. My last attempt was... A pretty big flop. I realized that I am absolutely amazingly terrible at writing characters as I seem to not quite understand what makes a funny character... Well, funny.

So I am researching a lot about character traits and character development. Basically, how to make a "character." I have a lot of ideas in mind, but I am still in the learning process of understanding why a character are the way they are. I very recently listened to an audio book which inspired me greatly where I even snickered and thought the main character was interesting as well as funny. So my recent research have been a lot of character analysis videos as well as videos describing how to write a character.
 
Mostly been digging into speculative biology and zoology lately. Because it is a wonderfully weird thing that can definitely add something to the world building and possibly even the story itself. It goes in general with other prehistoric research I'm already fond of. And a fair bit of looking into ancient empires and kingdoms, especially in Africa.
 

Babayaga321

Scribe
Ships a few days ago... yesterday going over some of the dockside occupations we had here in Liverpool during the 19th century so that I could work some of them into the chapter I was working on.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
I've seen a number of people say ships, and I am always looking for this as well. I swear, one day I am going to the do all the writers a favor and write the reference source for all things ships.
 

Miles Lacey

Archmage
I've been researching how pulp fiction novel writers did their job. What I learned was fascinating.

Now I just need to find a whole lot of pulp fiction book covers....
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Research for me happens constantly, right through the project, but there are a couple of points worth mentioning.

First, mine is an alternate Earth, so each story is set in a real place. I therefore do a fair amount of visual research as a start a new novel (very little such goes into a short story). This starts out with just trying for a general impression of place, but later on, as individual scenes take shape, I have to get down to figuring out how far it is from A to B, what the intervening landscape looks like, and to what degree I can get away with changing that.

Somewhat related, I have to deal with names. I try to go with pre-modern names where I can (e.g., Mediolanum instead of Milan), and this leads to some quick searches. This doesn't interrupt the writing for very long--I'm pretty good about not going down rabbit holes--but if the story involves a region I might set aside some time and draw up a list of place names. The same goes for personal names, terms, objects, etc.

Another sort of research falls into the "how's this work?" category. How long could my dragons (not yours, just mine) stay airborne? Should that wagon be drawn by mules, horses, or oxen? If a tower is 60 feet thick, how many rooms can reasonably fit inside? And so on. That sort of research usually falls outside a writing session. I'll get into a scene, sometimes get through a couple, before the question nags me to action. Then I'll simply take the time--mainly so if there's any adjusting to be done, I can get it done before I get too far along.

Other stuff just happens, handled ad hoc.
 

Miles Lacey

Archmage
The Internet Archive is your friend here. I just typed "pulp magazine covers" and got a bunch
Thanks 😊

The world of my work in progress has the technological level and aesthetics of the interwar period in our world. I know a huge amount about this period but much of the research I do is related to the more mundane stuff that can sometimes be more tricky, especially as the setting is that of an Empire made up of tropical islands that vary considerably in size and that the main characters are mostly working class people.

An example is the weather. Is the rain warm or cold? What does being in a high humidity environment feel like? How does the tropical weather impact upon the clothes people wear? What types of food, spices, herbs, plants and so forth can be produced in such a climate? How does regular periods of heavy rainfall affect the design of housing? What types of insects and wildlife thrive in such environments and what diseases can they pass onto people? Are floods and landslides a regular event? Does the tropical weather influence the cultures, traditions, languages and beliefs of the people? And what sort of sports would people play in a wet tropical climate?

So many questions that need research to answer and each answer helping to make the story just that much more believable.
 

Gurkhal

Auror
No research right now for me. Just conceptualzing and reading some books I've borrowed to help me get a "Plan, Execute, Finish" method to my projects.

EDITED: I was listening to a mini-series on YT about the Russo-Japanese War but the first episod sadly enough losses the sound after about half the first episode. So I'm a bit disappointed with that.
 
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