Apr 2021
10 / 25
Apr 2021
Apr 2021
blackorchid
Apr '21

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
Apr '21

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
Apr '21
blackorchid

Yep! I didn't want to write a book of my own in the forums (like i did in google docs :cry_swag:) 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 :sip:

Ruthful
Apr '21

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. :sparkles:

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

foxnflames
Apr '21
FafasMcMelt

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 :sparkles:

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
Apr '21
foxnflames

Gah, woman after my own heart.

foxnflames
Apr '21
Ruthful

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 :sweat_02: 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
Apr '21
blackorchid

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
Apr '21
foxnflames

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 :heart_01:

DasIstWunderblyat
Apr '21

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 :upside_down: I do not do any research about ghosts.

foxnflames
Apr '21
Ruthful

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 :cry_02:

Ruthful
Apr '21

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 :heart_03:

foxnflames
Apr '21
DasIstWunderblyat

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
Apr '21
Ruthful

:heart_01: thank you so much! I can't remember which episode, but I'm sure I wrote a saga at the bottom :joy:

foxnflames
Apr '21

Was this the statue you were talking about from the collab :eyes:

You unloaded an earlier thing about low-frequency sounds earlier :sweat_02:

DasIstWunderblyat
Apr '21
foxnflames

Of course a simple Google search cannot suffice. you need to understand something to integrate it into your series, right? Like you have to both understand spiritualism and both 1920s NO/American in general history to create your series. For slangs, you have to understand the context of it, and integrate it with your dialogue seamlessly that it won't sound gratuitous or fabricated. That is in my opinion what is difficult, knowing things is easy, understanding it is harder. That is why I think such things require perseverance and brain power.

I am genuinely bad at praising people ignore it

I agree though with every genres has their own points to nitpick. However, I believe the more a series based in real life conventions, they have more nitpicks point and the errors are more visible. For example you can be excused for a more outlandish armor designs (as long as it is still functional) in fantasy series, while when you are writing historical fiction you have to adhere the design to the era and culture.

foxnflames
Apr '21

You don't have to have the same level of understanding for adding something in your story as you would if you were writing a research paper. Because, oftentimes, if people really wanted to know more, they can research it at their leisure and won't ask you anyway.

Spiritualism for example. I read what it was and its origins and its principles. It's literally just, when it was founded, by who and what people who follow it believe in.

Adding info to a novel isn't like creating a presentation or lesson plan. The information will always be there. And my readers don't quiz me on what's provided in text. And if that information isn't hard to follow, you can search the parts you don't understand.

Slang is a bit harder, but the definitions and context are given in every list I have saved. Most are things that haven't been lost to antiquity and have more than enough context.

And no matter what fictional thing you add, people will have something to say. Fiction isn't absolved from criticism. No matter what you include, it's compared to and inspired by something real.

kmlangleyauthor
Apr '21
foxnflames

Yes! From the collab! I had to double check how close certain monuments were to a museum :joy:

Ooh, yeah, see? I already forgot about that one :sweat_smile: Let’s see how jumbled of a summary I can give about that again :see_no_evil:

Pretty much, SUPER loud sounds (that you can legit feel), including music, can give you a “runners high” – which is actually a fight or flight response. And consistent exposure to said loud sounds can actually lead to addictive behaviors to get that adrenaline/endorphin high. And it causes damage on a cellular level. Pretty much the “safe” (but clearly not) version of what happens with the solid air wave from an explosion.

Did I read a random 10 page paper about this? Yes :joy:
Will I probably talk about this for the next 2 weeks? Also yes :smile:

Just in case someone else is legit interested :see_no_evil:

foxnflames
Apr '21

Random learning excursion!

I never figured out what the statue was but now I know :sparkles: