Do you need basic knowledge of everything?

[Meg the Healer]

I find I'm having a hard time with a certain chapter I'm writing beacuse I'm at the point where I'm describing the house my hero is going to be living in and he's seeing it for the first time. I don't feel I can simply have him ask one of the supporting characters "You live in a castle?" and leave it at that. Do I need a basic knowledge of Art and Architecture to truly be able to describe the living quarters with any semblence of justice?

 

[At Dusk I Reign]

Of all the fantasy novels I've ever read I've never needed to know the difference between an archivolt and an apse, and I've never found an author who needed to know either. Obviously if you're describing a castle you'll need to know some basic terms, but a quick trawl of the web will sort that out. Unless the architecture of a particular place is integral to the story I'd say there's no reason to get hung up on details the reader probably won't even notice/be interested in.

 

[Ravana]

Short answer: yes.

Medium-length answer: if it's material to your story, or if you want to be certain not to create a sense of dissonance (or outright impossibility) with readers who might be familiar such details, then make sure you know what you're talking about… and if you don't know, don't put it in there.

Long answer: You should know everything you can about as much as you can–if for no other reason than it can be a source of new ideas for you. Take architecture: what you know about a castle might provide you with settings or actions that you would not have thought of had you not learned those details. At a minimum, it will allow you to vary your descriptions and give a greater sense of concrete reality for your reader to draw upon. If the castle never actually appears in the story, no reason to worry about the details–though even the basic name for the place might tell your readers something about the character: whether he lives in a keep, a castle, a citadel, a manor, a palace, or any number of other possibilities can give hints as to that character's material wealth, his military, political or social power and standing, etc. Especially if there are other characters who also live in "castles," even if those dwellings never appear either. Also, it can give a relative sense of time period and culture, if you want it to and you're consistent in your usage. Or, on the other hand, if the castle never actually appears in the story, you might skip it altogether.

If action does take place in the castle, then you have to consider the extent to which the action is affected by the castle. If things only take place in the grand hall and the bedrooms, you won't need to worry about floor plans (unless at some point you need to know how long it takes someone to get from one place to another, say during a chase or an emergency of some sort). But it's quite likely you'll want to be able to describe the areas you do use with at least a minimum of verisimilitude. If you frequently have characters strolling about on the walls, it won't hurt to know what a battlement or a crenellation is (they're essentially the same thing), and the difference between these and a parapet or a machicolation (considerable)… or a merlon, a hoarding, an embrasure or an arrow loop. You may not need to know all of these… but if you use one incorrectly, at least some of your readers will notice.

(For the record: a parapet is simply a narrow wall running along the top of a thicker exterior wall or a roof, and its purpose may be nothing more than to keep the castle's children from falling off, though usually it's intended to provide protection for troop atop the wall. If some parts of the parapet are taller than others, allowing troops to fire upon attackers through the lower sections, then it's a battlement; the tall parts are merlons, the parts they fire through embrasures. If the embrasure is not lower, but instead thinner and with a narrow slit to fire out of, it's an arrow loop; these may also appear below roof levels, within the walls or towers. Machicolations project slightly out from the wall and have holes things can be dropped through, and is a permanent part of the construction; hoardings are wooden machicolations, and are often temporary.)

In the situation you describe, with the character seeing the place for the first time, you will want to be able to describe everything the character is seeing that is either (1) something he'd be likely to notice–which means you need to have some idea what someone in that situation would be likely to notice–or (2) something that will be important to the character or the action at some point. Not all of this needs to be described at once: it can occur alongside the action as the details become relevant, and, particularly if the character is in an unfamiliar setting, you can even provide explication from the other characters in answer to his questions: "Why does the wall have those notches?" "The battlements? They're for…" etc.

As for living quarters (what you originally asked about… ), you might at least want to be able to give some idea of size, furnishing, heating, ventilation and lighting. Just to take the last of these: room size was often dictated by how far natural light through windows would be useful, and in most construction, every area in constant use will have windows: there are no interior "halls," rather, rooms connect directly to one another. (Which is also why so many larger constructions are built around courtyards, rather than as single massive slabs with interiors far remote from any natural light source. Also, walls are what keep the roof up: if the room's too wide, you'll need pillars.) What keeps the drafts out–glass (probably not in exterior windows, if the place ever needs to resist violence), shutters, heavy curtains? At night, light will come from candles, lamps or torches–but how many, to light how much space how brightly, and what happens to the smoke? Where do you set them? Likewise, furniture: if the walls are made of stone (probably covered in plaster on the inside, then painted), clothes go in wardrobes or chests most likely, rather than closets. Bathing, sanitation? Cooking, water supply? Recreation?

So, yeah: everything. Or to look at it another way: knowledge is never wasted. You may not need any given piece of information for any specific work, but odds are it'll work its way into something, somewhere. As a general rule, I'd say that if you were present in the story, and would want to know a particular detail about a particular setting, then you should consider including it: your readers, or at least some of them, will want to know it as well. Conversely, if it has no effect on the story, include such details only to set the tone and create a stronger sense of the setting, otherwise omit them altogether. And as another general rule: as previously mentioned, don't use something unless you're using it correctly. As Dusk mentioned, it's easy enough to look things up or verify them; getting them wrong is far worse than not including them at all.

 

[Ravana]

P.S. I needed to look up "architrave" myself. I had known what it meant at one time, but I'd long since forgotten.

 

[At Dusk I Reign]

Water supply is important I'd say (and more relevant to the reader than knowing if a quoin is decorative or structural), especially if at some point in the story a siege will occur. It might even be used to establish character if buckets have to be carried some distance from a river or well for the purposes of cooking and cleaning – backbreaking work if it has to be done numerous times a day. Mentioned in passing these things add colour. But I disagree that a writer needs to know anything more than the basics (unless, as I mentioned in my earlier post, the plot will revolve around a particular detail at some point). I don't need to know how Hobbiton got rid of its sewage. Tolkien may well have spent many hours researching the subject, but if he did he needn't have bothered. It doesn't make a difference to the book or, I'd suggest, most readers. I'm not saying your approach is wrong, Ravana – I have no doubt your knowledge is put to good use in your writing – I just advocate not getting hung up on the small stuff.

 

[Donny Bruso]

Another thing to consider is that while a good many fantasy readers are knowledgeable enough to know what most of a castles' architectural terms are, for a reader who doesn't, having the terms dropped in can be distracting. Now instead of reading the prose that you have spent hours slaving over, polishing it until it blinds unwary readers with its brilliance, they are staring at the page going "Well what the heck does machicolation mean?" Of course if you work at it, you can make the terms self-explanatory by a character either using them, or moving around in them etc. but as the trend seems to be going here, unless your castle comes under siege, most of the defensive structures are unlikely to be key to the story.

As a side note, if you are looking to research this kind of thing, there is a series of books out by Frances and Joseph Gies. They are entitled 'Life in a Medieval Village' 'Life in a Medieval City', and 'Life in a Medieval Castle". All of them are worth a read if you are looking for accurate details about life in that time period.

 

[Ravana]

I just advocate not getting hung up on the small stuff.

But it's all small stuff.…

Seriously: I agree with you. I'm just saying that you won't necessarily know what's important and what isn't without familiarizing yourself, to at least some small extent, with any given topic. I write more in SF than in fantasy (for those who perceive a difference), and there are things I wouldn't dream of putting in a story without researching them–at least far enough to know I'm not saying something stupid. (Like a spaceship would use a pure oxygen atmosphere because that's what we breathe, y'know? )

Tolkien probably knew exactly how Hobbiton's sewage was handled (and I'm willing to bet I could tell you, too)… but he felt his readers didn't need to know, or wouldn't want to know, or he just plain felt it indelicate to discuss: he didn't exactly say a whole lot about reproduction, either. And whereas today it seems there are at least some writers who feel their world insufficiently described without a detailed bedroom (or balcony, or battlement) scene or two, I'm inclined to agree with his choice there. In his setting, the "courtly" love of Faramir and Eowyn was far more appropriate; having them hop in bed and screw like minks at the end of that chapter would have been jarring. (I would've been more interested in the sewage system of Minas Tirith, myself. Consider how it was built.…)

And that's fine. If it isn't important to the story, it's optional at most, and then only for creating an overall sense of background; if it's not good for that, it's excess verbiage and should be excised. Yes, the basics will do for most situations–at least they will tell the writer whether or not more in-depth research is needed–and normally what the basics will tell you is that you don't need to go further. I was deliberately taking the castle wall thing beyond what anyone not writing about a siege is likely to need, in order to illustrate (1) a degree of detail that can be brought to a given, narrow subject, (2) how little of that detail is likely to be necessary outside of a specific situation, and, conversely, (3) how easy it is to make a mistake if you don't know what you're talking about, and (4) how much you might want to know in order to fulfill the needs of your story, or give you new ideas to include in it.

Take the same approach to anything you feel is important to your setting: water supply is another of the things I mentioned in passing, and, yes, a huge amount of life in pre-industrial settings will revolve around it… and in detailing your water supply, you might at least want to know how waste removal is handled so that the water isn't poisoned, even if it's something you never tell your readers. Or how likely it is for people to get sick if it isn't handled properly, and from what diseases, so you don't make a mistake there–assuming you ever want someone to come down sick with something in the story.

Or take fabrics: what are the clothes made of? The sheets? If you're aiming for a Medieval European setting, your options are basically wool and linen; cotton would have been an exotic import, silk a rarity that may well be worth its weight in gold, or at least silver (though, unlike cotton, it's actually cultivable in Europe, and eventually was). If you aren't worried about establishing that kind of setting, these values may be different… and if it doesn't matter to you what the characters wear, you can omit it altogether. Just don't talk about people living in a Nordic climate wearing homespun cotton–because it doesn't grow in that climate.

And so on. Yes, you can easily get bogged down in the details, and you absolutely should avoid doing so. You'll have to decide what level of information is necessary, what information you personally want to include to flesh out the setting, and what you simply do not need at all. The more you can provide, the more your reader will be transported to your world. I consider it more important that you not get something wrong than that you include every little thing you possibly can. It is possible to get so detailed it becomes annoying… depending, at least, on your reader: Umberto Eco spends eight pages in one of his books describing a pair of doors, and yet the book was a best-seller, so presumably that didn't turn too many people off.…

 

[Meg the Healer]

Another thing to consider is that while a good many fantasy readers are knowledgeable enough to know what most of a castles' architectural terms are, for a reader who doesn't, having the terms dropped in can be distracting.

As a side note, if you are looking to research this kind of thing, there is a series of books out by Frances and Joseph Gies. They are entitled 'Life in a Medieval Village' 'Life in a Medieval City', and 'Life in a Medieval Castle". All of them are worth a read if you are looking for accurate details about life in that time period.

I will look into the books, they sound rather interesting. And I never really considered that some readers would be in the same boat as me. I don't want to distract them with details that aren't that important that they miss what is because they are wondering what a flying buttress is.

In his setting, the "courtly" love of Faramir and Eowyn was far more appropriate; having them hop in bed and screw like minks at the end of that chapter would have been jarring.

This made me laugh for a good solid 20 minutes.

If it isn't important to the story, it's optional at most, and then only for creating an overall sense of background; if it's not good for that, it's excess verbiage and should be excised. Yes, the basics will do for most situations—at least they will tell the writer whether or not more in-depth research is needed—and normally what the basics will tell you is that you don't need to go further. Yes, you can easily get bogged down in the details, and you absolutely should avoid doing so. You'll have to decide what level of information is necessary, what information you personally want to include to flesh out the setting, and what you simply do not need at all. The more you can provide, the more your reader will be transported to your world. I consider it more important that you not get something wrong than that you include every little thing you possibly can.

Your insight is very much appreciated and I agree that I would rather make sure the information is correct rather than just throw out words that have no actual place. So I gather that what you're saying is that I don't need to know everything, but at least knowing the basic structure would be best and though terminology is important if it bogs down the reader with unimportant details then it may be best to leave it out.

I do like the idea of setting the stage and that while the character will see the dwelling as a whole in the beginning and it needs to be describe the real focus is the rooms in which the action takes place and how close they are to one another and if they would actually be near one another given how some castles are laid out.

 

[At Dusk I Reign]

I'm just saying that you won't necessarily know what's important and what isn't without familiarizing yourself, to at least some small extent, with any given topic.

If, at some point in a story, you need to know about the life cycle of the weevil then that's the time to research, I would suggest, rather than learning about it beforehand in the hope that someday it'll become relevant.

I think perhaps we both look for different things when it comes to reading and writing. Like a giant magical broom, I prefer the grand sweep.

 

[Ravana]

So I gather that what you're saying is that I don't need to know everything, but at least knowing the basic structure would be best and though terminology is important if it bogs down the reader with unimportant details then it may be best to leave it out.

I do like the idea of setting the stage and that while the character will see the dwelling as a whole in the beginning and it needs to be describe the real focus is the rooms in which the action takes place and how close they are to one another and if they would actually be near one another given how some castles are laid out.

Essentially, yes. Terminology has its place–don't talk down to your readers: any of them who are genuinely interested will look up a word, and may well be happy they learned something from your work. If the context it's used in is clear enough, they probably won't even need to look it up if they don't want to; as long as they can get the gist of what you're discussing, leave it to them to decide what they "need" to know.

I agree generally with Dusk in that you don't need to research every little detail beforehand; if you tried to do that, you'd discover that there's more out there than you can possibly assimilate, and you'd never get anything written at all. Where I disagree–perhaps "diverge" is more accurate–is that I nevertheless feel you should try to learn everything you can about anything you can, because each new thing you learn can lead to ideas which might never have occurred to you otherwise. I have yet to learn anything that has never "become relevant" some way or another. (Or, to borrow a somewhat more cynical look from a friend of mine: "There's no such thing as useless knowledge… you can always use it to bore someone.") But I am a firm adherent of the Bacon quote that is the first sentence in my signature… even if I do have fun with it in the second. No, I don't know much about the life cycle of the weevil; I do know enough about insect life cycles and the situations in which one might encounter weevils that I know when I might want to include them in something, at which point I'd do the research to achieve the finer level of detail I want.

Seems to me you're on the right track. There are plenty of castle (and other residence) floor plans available online, which can give you an easy start on deciding what you need to look into further, even before you start trying to track down specific reference books. And, yes, there are quite a few of those out there as well… if I'm remembering the right ones, the Gies titles are among the better ones.

 

[At Dusk I Reign]

I have yet to learn anything that has never "become relevant" some way or another.

I have. Despite watching little TV I already know more about Justin Bieber than I want or need to know.

No, I don't know much about the life cycle of the weevil; I do know enough about insect life cycles and the situations in which one might encounter weevils that I know when I might want to include them in something, at which point I'd do the research to achieve the finer level of detail I want.

So you're saying without this basic knowledge of weevils (to stick with this example) you wouldn't know enough to even think of using them as a plot point? Surely it doesn't matter how ignorant the writer is, knowledge will flow from the idea - as opposed to your position which seems to argue the opposite?

 

[Ravana]

So you're saying without this basic knowledge of weevils (to stick with this example) you wouldn't know enough to even think of using them as a plot point? Surely it doesn't matter how ignorant the writer is, knowledge will flow from the idea - as opposed to your position which seems to argue the opposite?

It matters if the author has never heard of weevils in the first place… or if he thinks they're things that wobble but don't fall down. Or even if he knows they're bugs, but think they carry infectious diseases rather than being crop pests. Or course, as long as the author is aware that there are such things as crop pests, regardless of their precise natures, he is free to invent his own… but making them weevils provides a shortcut by which he can avoid considerable amounts of description, as he can then simply employ them in confidence that the reader will be able to fill in the missing information, either from personal knowledge or by looking it up, or, if the reader is satisfied that he has gathered enough from context that he does not need to know more, he need not be bothered with wading through such information. So, yes, I'd say that what I know about weevils opens up possibilities I might not have otherwise considered. (I just thought of two, along with several variants on the second, while writing the foregoing, in fact.)

Despite watching little TV I already know more about Justin Bieber than I want or need to know.

Not at all. You know he exists; you have enough of an idea of who and what he is that you know you don't want to know any more–or even as much as you do–and will probably never need to. On the other hand, if you want to kill him in a story some time, or perhaps use him as the basis of some dystopian setting where he becomes Minister of Homeland Insecurity, you might well need to know more than you do now. (See? More ideas. If you knew nothing at all about him, you could never have used him in such ways.) Will you ever use this knowledge? Probably not, except in the negative: "Okay, I know enough about this clown that I can be confident he would have no effect whatsoever on the world I'm creating." Even that can be important. If, on the other hand, he was some terribly important personality that you'd simply missed due to your deliberate (and laudable ) media isolation–or, even as he is, if your story concerned his occupation, the circle of acquaintances in which he moves, or any other situation in which he might predictably appear–not accounting for him could seriously impair the plausibility of such a world.

That having been said, yeah, I know more about him than I want to, too. But I'd never say I knew more about a topic than I needed to: I don't actually regard that as possible. At most, I'd say I knew more about a topic than I needed to for a particular situation (which, of course, is where your own position arose from)… my knowledge of Bieber is unlikely to affect any story I'm writing about hidden chthonian goblin cities. Unless I wanted to make him, or at least use him as a model for, the head goblin, at any rate.…

 

[At Dusk I Reign]

or if he thinks they're things that wobble but don't fall down.

This made me chuckle, I must admit.

You know he exists; you have enough of an idea of who and what he is that you know you don't want to know any more–or even as much as you do–and will probably never need to.

So you reckon no knowlege is completely useless? Yet if I memorised the answers to Trivial Pursuit it wouldn't make me wise - in fact, unless displayed in a relation to the game most would consider me an idiot. Surely knowledge only has meaning if it can be applied in a broader sense?

 

[Ravana]

Surely knowledge only has meaning if it can be applied in a broader sense?

Sure–but that's a far cry from being useless. Heck, memorizing Trivial Pursuit answers can be useful if you play Trivial Pursuit a lot. You'd only be thought an idiot if you went around babbling them out of context:

ATTRACTIVE FAVORED-GENDER PERSON: "Hi! How are you? I've never seen you here before."
YOU: "The 'S' in Robert S. McNamara's name stands for 'Strange.' "
ATTRACTIVE FAVORED-GENDER PERSON: …

…and you're going home alone again, back to study those cards for a better opening line. (Yes, that is a real Trivial Pursuit answer, and yes, that's where I learned that particular datum. We played particularly vicious cutthroat Trivial Pursuit where I came from.)

Yes, I reckon that no knowledge is completely useless. You might never find the correct application; that's true of so many things in life. It doesn't keep you from collecting little metal bits that you discover fallen from some unidentified piece of furniture or other: you might someday discover where it came from (and it might even be useful to put it back there–though probably not, assuming you can even be bothered to try). But if you ever run into an attractive favored-gender person who's into unusual middle names, or the 1960s, or Secretaries of Defense, or even (perish the thought!) Trivial Pursuit… you're probably gonna be real happy you spent that synapse in that particular fashion. I won me some in-laws playing that game once.…

 

[willg71]

It just seems to me if your character is seeing the place for the first time, does he really need to know the technical terms. Stick to simple easy understood terms with a good graphic description. after all, is it necessary for the reader to know that the battlements are 3' 3/4" cobbled granite with a 1' 1/4" mortar. Personally I'd rather read about how at the stone walls highest point resembled the back of a dragons spine and it was rumored the mortar was made with the blood and bones of fallen slaves.

 

[Legerdemain]

Am I being too simplistic in thinking the writer should write what they know, and if you don't know what you are talking about, how are you writing it? I mean, for the castle example, I could describe smooth stones, tall towers, and brilliant flags waving in the breeze without knowing anything about "castles" I just think of what a castle is in my mind and describe it.

That said, different audiences like "The Little Stuff" more than others, but you have to write the little stuff as you see it. If you don't know anything about the Japanese Castle period, I recommend looking at pictures and describe the pictures, only looking up details in words if you don't know them, but define them as well.

The author of the "Series of Unfortunate Events" books, pen-name Lemony Snickett, is a master as use vocabulary beyond his audience, children, by defining the words as he goes, by saying phrases like "The hallway was daunting, in this case meaning dark, spooky and not a place you would want to walk at all."

 

[Ravana]

Am I being too simplistic in thinking the writer should write what they know, and if you don't know what you are talking about, how are you writing it?

In many ways, the complement to my point: if you don't know what you're talking about, you can't write it. Your visualization of a castle may well be satisfactory for your purposes, and that's fine… but it will inevitably become clearer as you learn more about castles.

If you don't know anything about the Japanese Castle period, I recommend looking at pictures

If you don't, you'll lose all verisimilitude with anyone in your audience who is familiar with Japanese castles the first time you describe a tower as "round," for example. No, you don't need to know the Japanese word for "tower" in order to describe one; on the other hand, you could use the word and give a description of the thing without ever defining the term directly, after which you can reuse the word with confidence your reader has an accessible image to call to mind. Or you could just use the word, and leave it to the reader to work it out or look it up: I've seen this done quite a bit, and am rarely taken aback by it.

…defining the words as he goes, by saying phrases like "The hallway was daunting, in this case meaning dark, spooky and not a place you would want to walk at all."

Precisely. A little more heavy-handed than I'd do it, but I don't generally write for children, so it might be more appropriate there. (I think even if I were, I'd leave out the words "in this case meaning": just write "daunting–dark," etc.)

No, you don't need to say what size the blocks of the battlements are… unless it matters to the story at some point. You don't need to say how they're joined… unless etc. (By the way, you'd never put that much mortar between building blocks: it would crumble under their weight, and the whole edifice would collapse. See what I mean about details?) You may want to say the walls are granite, or limestone, or basalt, or what have you–each would give a very different look; at any rate, you don't want to say they're marble–unless they aren't intended to withstand a siege, and unless the builder is either massively wealthy or marble isn't as valuable in your world as it is in this one. You probably don't want them to be made of sandstone; on the other hand, if that's what's available in that locale, that's precisely what they will be made of, unless the builder has indulged in some very costly transportation to bring better materials to the site. You certainly don't want them made of shale. Roofs, yes; walls, not so much.

So it all depends on what you want to accomplish within the story.

 

[Legerdemain]

(I think even if I were, I'd leave out the words "in this case meaning": just write "daunting—dark," etc.)

Those words are the author's note to children: It's definition time! He always uses "In this case meaning" or "In this situation it could mean".

No, you don't need to say what size the blocks of the battlements are… unless it matters to the story at some point. You don't need to say how they're joined… unless etc. (By the way, you'd never put that much mortar between building blocks: it would crumble under their weight, and the whole edifice would collapse. See what I mean about details?) You may want to say the walls are granite, or limestone, or basalt, or what have you—each would give a very different look; at any rate, you don't want to say they're marble—unless they aren't intended to withstand a siege, and unless the builder is either massively wealthy or marble isn't as valuable in your world as it is in this one. You probably don't want them to be made of sandstone; on the other hand, if that's what's available in that locale, that's precisely what they will be made of, unless the builder has indulged in some very costly transportation to bring better materials to the site. You certainly don't want them made of shale. Roofs, yes; walls, not so much.

I do understand your point, and I think we are on the same page. The concern I have are very similar, in the same way that "Cho Chang" is an AWFUL name, as it has made every Chinese reader I know hate the author's ignorance of naming schemes, and it has tainted their view of her work completely with that slight error. It always gets to me when people point out false facts from books, like in "Cold Mountain" several of the scenes they look our and see another mountain that's actually blocked from view or in a different direction. Fine enough for people who don't live there, but it's like saying "I walked the Kansas/Oregon border for days"... doesn't mesh well with locals of either place.

Ooooo... I should start a thread of greatest author fact fails! Would that be appropriate, or too mean?

 

[Ravana]

Those words are the author's note to children: It's definition time! He always uses "In this case meaning" or "In this situation it could mean".

Yeah, I figured. Still more heavy-handed than I'd've done it.

Ooooo... I should start a thread of greatest author fact fails! Would that be appropriate, or too mean?

Heh. Go for it. Here's a good start–from a comic book, which isn't necessarily a source you'd expect to be "reliable" (at least not when this one was written), but which is still a good example of why you check your bloody facts if you are going to bother using them: a character uses carbon dating to determine that a piece of metal from an alien spacecraft comes from a million years in the future.…

 

[Mdnight Falling]

You definitely need basic knowledge of everything you plan to write about in your book. Just don't take the Anne Rice way and spend pages describing furniture... You'll lose all the readers that are like me and get bored and distracted very easily LOL. But yeah when it comes to things such as castles, it's essential to fully detail what said castle looks like in every room the story leads you to