Ah, the wonders of research!
I was just wondering if you guys do research for your stories. If so, how much, and how do you go about it? Which details do you think need some realistic touches? (For example, locations... Do you make up a street name in the province of Tarlac, or do you actually research through the municipalities just to use a true-existing name of a street? - A bit extreme hehe, but you get the idea. Or another example. If you have a scene in your story about a psychiatry session, do you interview psychiatrists or do you watch some movies with such, or you just wing it?)
I'm quite the nitpicker when it comes to details. I enjoy research (when it's online hahaha), but sometimes it's distracting when you come across too many interesting things. Haha. Could use some advice for this. ^^
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And I just realized the terrible redundancy of having my word count in a signature
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rants & raves
43,057 / 50,000
Oct 30, 2009 - 23 47
Hi! You might want to visit the first research topic in the regional lounge here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3275720 :) There's a lot of useful tips for research and interesting quirks from other Wrimos there too :D
----------Tina, ML for the Philippines
Refine Me | PinoyWrimos | @pinoywrimos
37,056 / 50,000
Oct 31, 2009 - 08 13
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when asked i gather it all depends on the story you're working on, though of course 'research' is essential when it comes to any or all literature forms perhaps to, for the most part, imbibe credibility and sense of authenticity with regards to the novel setting itself and the characters within it. this rings entirely true if the novel you're working on is backed with either historical or empirical facts and figures.
on how often one should include or convey such figures, what type of figures necessary, and on how far one should go to obtain those figures, and on whether or not such figures are essential to support your novel is up to you.
unfortunately this might not very well answers your question however it all somehow boils down to effective storytelling; timing is of utmost importance. i'm quite sure there're places and times within the book to include facts and figures, and on how it can be conveyed in an effective yet also in a seemingly interesting manner proves to be very much hard work. unless you're into Umberto Eco stuff, subtle research is quite suffice, for pitting such discipline during NaNoWriMo crunch-time is a huge challenge.
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this somehow harks back my first NaNo stuff: almost no research was made during NaNo '03, since it's almost an autobiography set in a fictitious town synonymous to where i used to live. (insert Dragnet theme: "the streets and names of the people i knew in Cainta, Rizal (*ding!* ahahahahaha!) has been changed to protect the innocent").
in '04 i could barely remember having included anything factual at all simply because i was busy reaching 50k, unknownst to me upon finishing it that i just wrote a story of a genetically-mutated aardvark (yes, aardvark...) the size of Godzilla who wreaked havoc across the globe, all while whining on paper of my then-mundane day job.
'05 would prove to be half-factual and fictional, since i made a hybrid of an art instruction book and a fiction novel. (odd-numbered chapters would instruct you how to draw both clothed and unclothed male and female figures in a fast-paced, yet easy-to-learn manner; while even-numbered chapters would tell you a day-in-the-life story of a timid, basketcase comicbook artist.)
and then '08 would be the first time i ever wrote NaNo in tagalog, with a wacky catch: odd-numbered chapters're conveyed in old-school, pre-colonial tagalog whereas even-numbered chapters're told in modern-day contemporary tagalog; which required me to immerse myself in both under moss-stricken 19th century journals and spanish/english/tagalog dictionaries, digitally-converted and easily found on-line. it almost drove me towards the wall but, HOW it increased tagalog usage to a hundredfold!
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so yeah, i guess research does actually help. how far you'd go into it, along with NaNoWriMo time constraints, is entirely up to you.
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"what the band TrueFaith would've been, hadn't they screw-up with stuff back in the 90's."
20,056 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 09 34
Well, as for me... I usually make up my own fiction names for streets and places and other stuff but they really point out to a real place/location.
I do research at times and yeah, I do get carried away - FAR AWAY- from the topic most of the times. And there are really lots of interesting things you can add up to the stories that's why you can't stop clicking and clicking. I use books/net for research and sometimes, I ask my mom or some pther friends about a topic i don't understand without them realizing I'm using them for research for my stories already. lol
37,301 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 17 22
I just write whatever appears on my mind since I only have 30 days to write 50,000 words. Perhaps I'll pad my novel with research later if I feel the urge to publish it.