Fun Facts Shared With Your Readers

[foxnflames]

My story is set in 1920's New Orleans, so I had to (and still) do so much research, because I'm a stickler for accuracy, and anachronisms make me cry. Through all this, I've learned many things that I add to my author's note to share with my readers. Most of it is '20s slang, tidbits about fashion, and overall life back then.

Since my story is also gothic horror centered around American Spiritualism and the Spiritual Churches in New Orleans (you can read some about the first church and their founders here), I thought it paramount to highlight a lot of the diversity in the city and the decade because there's more to the Roaring '20s than The Great Gatsby.

Some top facts I've learned and share are these:

-Notable skeptics of Spiritualism were Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Harry Houdini.
-Notable devout Spiritualists were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens (they were both members of London's Ghost Club, founded in 1862)
One of the main reasons the "cupid's bow" look for lipstick was so popular then was that it was considered vulgar for women to fill their lips fully.
-The "pinstripe" mob outfit is all but a Hollywood myth. Gangsters back then wore tailored European outfits, and in the early '20s, fitted pants were in style.
-Look up menus from the decade—so much codfish.
-Unlike today's plastic, metallic, and even LED Mardi Gras beads, they were made of Czech glass back then (until the 1960s).

If you want more Fun Facts with Fox and more '20s vibes, give my story a read!

Give In to Me | Tapas

Tell me the random things you've learned while writing and researching. The more esoteric, the better! Do you share them with your readers? Let me know

[jkb4753]

I love all your fun facts, and I think this is a great way to engage your readers! cool note about the czech glass!

[foxnflames]

Thanks! I'm sure you have more since your story goes further back than mine. Gimme

[jkb4753]

right now im reading a book about the european military in the mid eighteenth century. there used to be a position called "pikeman". you guessed it, pikemen carried a big pike, 16 ft and 17lbs. they pikes were to defend against an enemy with larger numbers, or another enemy that had pikes. they phase out the pikes in the first decade of the 18th century in favor of muskets. marshal saxe of france made a push to bring back pikes for the cavalry mid-century. this is not as wild as it sounds. generals were hesitant to let the cav use guns because they thought it slowed them down. everybody gets over it, though, and pikes do not come back.

tell me more cute new orleans facts

[foxnflames]

There's some kind of joke about bringing a pike to a musket fight in there.

Um, I read up on Congo Square (still there today) that became a meeting ground for freed slaves and now it's more of a communal place for voodoo rituals as well as singing and dancing. Also learned that not just anyone could learn those songs.

New Orleans was one of those places during Prohibition where no one cared, hence it's nickname, "the city that care forgot." Fastest bust of booze happened there, about 30 seconds.

Happens after the timeline of my story (maybe), I read about the 1927 trunk murders. Guy chopped up his wife and sister in law then pleaded insanity

[blackorchid]

Spiritualism is deeply connected with woman's suffrage, too! Oh man, I have a whole book on it from when I was researching Victorian culture.

Like weaving, dressmaking, spinning, ale-making, and herbalism before, it was a career that was female-dominated and carved financial independence.

It's really cool. I'll scour my bookshelves to see if I can find it again.

I also have one on haunted places and their ghost stories and how they're influenced by local culture. I know I there are a couple from New Orleans---I think.

I'm afraid to go into the things I know now from research OF BONES AND BLOOMS.

[FafasMcMelt]

Thas pretty fun not gonna lie. It has to be somewhat overwhelming to try and find authenticity for any historical period, unless you're lazer focused, no?

One fun fact I did come upon (not really resarching or anything), is that people apparently brushed their teeth with twigs, along with salt or even cloves back in the medieval days. Pretty cool in my opinion.

[foxnflames]

Yep! I didn't want to write a book of my own in the forums (like i did in google docs ) about Spiritualism. I read up on the Fox sisters (appropriate) and how their redacted then redaction of redacted encounter with the beyond. They were also all for fairer treatment of Natives and notable abolitionists.

All this led me to the Spiritual churches because its founder Leafy Anderson moved to New Orleans because the National Spiritual Association of Churches said they didn't want black members anymore. So my antagonist is loosely based off her. Running rich men for their money so she can get what she wants

[Ruthful]

I love learning about things like this! That's such an interesting tidbit about the glass Mardi Gras beads. I went down a bit of a rabbit hole looking at listings for the vintage/antique beads, they are so pretty.

Whenever I see a lengthy author's note that's looking like a glossary, I know I'm in for a good time

[foxnflames]

It becomes a dumpster dive when you spend an hour just to write one sentence. I take some liberties with a few things because I take my characters' personalities into account and not everyone followed the preferred trends of the day. And when it doubt, gloss over it

But that's cool. I also wonder how people back then brushed their teeth. I knew about the cloves (and parsley). Never knew about the twigs

[blackorchid]

Running rich men for their money so she can get what she wants

Gah, woman after my own heart.

[foxnflames]

I did the same because I ended up looking for examples of Mardi Gras floats and some vintage masks. I found a neat bulletin from 1923 (the year my story is set) where one krewe had an "Alice in Wonderland" theme.

I get self conscious about my notes being too long sometime because I get carried away I love explaining the slang I use and the random things I learned while I was writing a certain episode. And the puns I use in my episode titles! I can't leave those out

[foxnflames]

I am (hopefully) doing her justice! That's one of the few things my MC likes about her because he does the same thing, haha.

[Ruthful]

I googled the bulletin, that is so cool!! I really love the idea of finding antiques from the time period of your writing, ESPECIALLY if it's from such an interesting setting as the 20s. It's those little details that really ground the story and jazzes up the writing. I find it delightful! If my next project is historical, I'm definitely going to use the summary section as a little classroom haha

Also your episode titles are top, love those puns

[DasIstWunderblyat]

I write fantasy simply because I can skim on the research, and here I am proudly announcing my laziness. So my "research" a.k.a quick Google search is often about random and unimportant things, that there is zero footnotes required except for fictional language.

I would probably quit if I had to write something based on a real setting, moreover a story revolved around it. I can grasp people who are able to do research about complex and serious things. Also sometimes historical fiction can be a field trip for nitpicky history nerds who just want to flaunt their knowledge. So, good job! I think people who write science fiction and historical fiction are gutsier and smarter by default.

Some trivias I found

• Toothed whales have poor ability to taste.
• Jade encompasses many kind of minerals: from silicate materials like jadeite and nephrite, to serpentine. "Jade" found in America is mostly jadeite, while Asian jade is nephrite. The reason I said this? Only because the prologue there is a nephrite lamp.
• "Traditional Persian" breed is believed to be the OG Persian cat breed when selective breeding has not occurred to create more extreme and freakish physical appearance (no peke-nose and eyes that don't share the same zip code). There is also "Traditional Siamese" which is a stockier, rounder-faced version of the lanky and angular "Modern Siamese." The correlation to my series? So one character has a cat and I cannot decide what breed it should be.
• There is no naturally bioluminescent plants (yet), there is some GMOs though. They either use marine protists (like dinoflagellate) or firefly's luciferase gene to make the glow.
• Heterochromia iridium is a condemned Mary-Sue trait in fictional character design. There are some types of it: sectoral, central, and complete. In human it can be results of either just your genetics, injury, or as a symptoms several syndromes. It can also be a result of chimerism, which is when an individual has two or more different genomes in their body.
• Blood collecting vials (brand: vacutainer) have different cap colors which denotes different additives and different functions. For example red is no additives, gold is clotting agent and serum separator, the greens contain heparin (anti-coagulant).
• Murder blow "Mordhau" is a half-swording technique which you grip the sword by the blade with both hands, and use pommel/crossguard to deliver a strong blow like a hammer. Half swording is 14–16th century something I think German-made (too lazy to check) sword technique for longsword, when you grab your sword by the center of the blade and adapt-improvise-overcome the shit of it so you can do more powerful thrust especially for armored opponents. Unlike shits above, this is actually kind of relevant.

My series is about ghosts I do not do any research about ghosts.

[foxnflames]

I'm lucky I found it! And it goes with my "Through the Looking-Glass" and overall mirror symbolism throughout the story. That's why I love it, too. The little details bring the story to life and help the reader feel like they're there.

Thank you! They take the longest time to come up with, all the better reason to explain them in my notes!

And thanks for subbing

[Ruthful]

Yes! I'm having the best little time over here drinking my tea and reading it! You nailed the dialogue and language/slang, I'm swooning

[foxnflames]

I find it easier to base a place in a real setting than something you have to build from the ground up. My other series is fantasy and the setting, albeit fictional, technically exists. If I needed some geographical inspiration of something, I pulled up Google maps. New Orleans exists and I went to college there so it wasn't hard at all to do a few second searches for some things. The more tedious parts were getting notes on life there and life in general 100 years ago. But, aren't we lucky we have all the information we could ever need at our fingertips.

I won't pass up the compliment on being called gutsy and smart, though. And you can nitpick and tear apart any genre because each genre has their respective conventions that are expected to be adhered to when writing. I don't think typing something into a search bar requires any kind of complexity, but to each their own.

Awesome facts, though

[foxnflames]

thank you so much! I can't remember which episode, but I'm sure I wrote a saga at the bottom

[kmlangleyauthor]

I have so many random fun facts... but can my brain remember them right now?

The one that pops into my head is that there’s a Gangnam Style statue in Seoul – and it was vaguely relevant research