Cool Stuff You've Learned Whilst Writing Your Novel

So I came upon a pretty interesting factoid/story while researching an upcoming chapter. The idea for the chapter was one of my MC's infiltrates a secret meeting of the baddies. Originally it was going to take place in a harbor in Manhattan. Having never lived in New York, I decided to do a little research to see if I could find an abandoned harbor. But I found something oh so much better:

http://gothamist.com/2008/10/14/bannerman_island.php#photo-1

It's an old abandoned island on the Hudson River called Bannerman's (or Pollepel) Island. Back in the early 1900's, an army surplus dealer decided to build a castle (a CASTLE!) on this small little island to hold his wares. It's been uninhabited since then - all sorts of moss and wildlife has taken root in the castle (which is still standing, albeit barely). Even better, much of the munitions were never removed, making it somewhat unstable - making it a perfect place to stage a set piece. Discovering this has re-energized me on my whole story in general. I can't wait to get to this chapter now.

Has anyone else learned anything they otherwise would have never known about due to their novel? Any cool factoids/stories to share?

I discovered the following bits by watching National Geographic channel yesterday during a program called Hitler's Secret Weapons.

http://natgeotv.com.au/tv/hitlers-secret-weapons/

Some of the interesting stuff were

The Fritz-X which was a radio guided bomb. Two hit and sank the Italian battleship Roma and one hit the USS Cruiser Savanah. The bomb that his the Savanah smashed through the gun turret, bounced off the breach, smashed through the gun magazine and put a whole in the hull below. If it had detonated in the magazine like designed then it would have blown the Savanah to bits.

The Mouse and the Rat were a pair of designs for super heavy tanks. The Mouse had a small factory for construction but construction of the Rat was called off. The Rat was the larger design and was scheduled to have two naval guns and mass at 1000 Tons with a length of 114 feet.

The V-3 Vengance was a bunker with a series of artillery guns set to bombard London England. The barrels were so long they had charges at the base and in perpendicular tubes along the length to keep up the pressure as the round went down the barrel. Joseph Kennedy died in Operation Aphrodite that was a suicide Lancaster bomber that aimed at taking out the bunker.

The Wasserfall was a rocket that was an outgrowth of the V-2 program as an anti-air defense missile equipped with a liquid explosive that would disperse and then detonate (sounds like a fuel air explosive) to destroy several bombers in one explosion. It also had two types of guidance (radio and a radar guidance).

I just found these programs as neat options for a villain to use plans from or to discover a working test model hidden somewhere.

I learned how to purchase a helicopter and how to get a helicopter license. It was a lot of fun looking at all the helicopter types. There were some pretty nice looking ones.

I don't have a fancy link to it, but when researching historical, non-faith based, goverment set ups in northern Europe, I found the Duchey of Courland!

It's now Northern Latvia, but it's literally the setting I had in my head! AND not to mention that one of the Duke's (Fredrich something) spent more time shmoozing and boozing than he did developing and protecting his country and it was soon taken over...also known as...my plot! There it was, just sitting in history, already written for me :-)

I learned how to use the range estimation image in a Dragunov sniper rifle's scope to accurately estimate a range just from examining a target, and I learned how to make homemade explosives and where to get the ingredients for them.

I've learned more about the East China Sea in the last two weeks than I ever knew before.

Portuguese Empire and the spice route via sea. And I've done a lot of translating into Portuguese and Swahili. Plus about the Sassanids... :o)

Funny how you choose to use a name or a location or a time period, and then a month later, you're researching said location and a fact pops up that you could legitimately use to further your story. Said occurrence happened to me when looking for a career for a main character's father that kept him on the road, but that fell apart in a year or so. Just so happens that the character's last name is "Pearlman" because it draws some association with water magic. A rock band famous in the 70s and 80s (Blue Oyster Cult) had a manager named Sandy Pearlman who wrote lyrics and scheduled gigs. I thought, "BINGO!" Completely unbeknownst to me, a perfect situation arose that allowed me to create a fictional character who worked alongside said manager, and have the same name.

How Vikings dressed, what a bearded axe is, where Hardstad, Norway is and what the climate is like above the arctic circle in Norway (pretty mild as it turns out), and the entire Futhark sequence. My novel idea started when I was reading a book about runes, so now my MC is on a quest to learn them too. xD

I named my island nation Kergeulia after the Kergeulen Plateau, an actual sunken continent that I resurfaced for my own purposes. I discovered it while I was browsing around articles of mythical places looking for ideas for what to name the country, and this just worked out perfectly.

I'm writing about the gold rush in western australia in late 1800's and was surprised to learn that the township had electric lighting in the main street in 1897. i had imagined it to be like a tent city and quite dark.

I've learned that I can write 1667 words per day or a few more. It has determined my writing goal for the rest of my life. I realize I will have to edit this stuff, but I've worked on two books off and on for years and could not come up with a way to motivate myself. This has been a great learning experience.

I've don a ton of research on 19th century railroads, which are terribly unstable and lead to the death of an unimportant character.

I've learnt that there's only one entirely supermax prison in America called ADX Florence and it's located in Colorado. It mostly holds terrorists and mafia.

I learned a lot about airships, such as different ways to build them, different types (rigid or non-rigid?), how fast they go, how high they can fly, what you can fill them with, and what happened to the Hindenburg. I also did not know that airships were used as actual vehicles of war in history, which was really quite awesome and fits my story very well.

Pretty much everything I've learned of African cultures and mythology, as well as customs, traditions, clothing, food, ectra I've began studying elements of the cultures and counties that will have no impact on my book at all, I'm just in love with the topic.

I'd really love to visit one of the counties some time :D

Most of my new learning has been focused on a lot of small bit research items, but I did do a lot of studying of ancient mythological Indian weapons (and a bunch of Southeast Asian weaponry in general) all in the development of one supporting character.

It's possible to travel on cargo ships. http://www.yearofnoflying.com/2009/10/crossing-the-pacific-by-container-ship.html

I also learned a lot about shipping things over the sea in general, particularly by container ship.

Three things!

1: I've learned I use this too much: "He did that, BEFORE walking over to there."


2: I've learned around 15 different phrases that imply the exact same thing.


3: I studied up alot on the mythology of the cockatrice, so I know much more about it now than I did previously.

I have also now looked up and learned about:
-diagrams of the human eyeball
-the definition of a cog
-electrical burns (oh geez, THAT was awful...do not Google it if you don't have a strong stomach)
-Machu Picchu
-cities in India
-Indian cuisine
-the Taj Mahal
-how to convert miles per hour to knots and vice versa
-how far it is across the Pacific

I have REALLY enjoyed this year's NaNo writing...lots more research than last year. :)