Nobody Asked Me…

My friend Stretch sent this as a response to my research post- Some additional search resources you can use to find things!

www.refseek.com – Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org – a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com – access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org – volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free.

And if you’re REALLY bored, you can go to this link and hear Lawdog and I get interviewed on BizTV about short stories and anthologies!

Or how far down the rabbit hole do you go???

TL;DR everyone writes differently! Now that I’ve said that…

I started writing because I hated the perfect characters and how often the weapons were misportrayed (e.g. WRONG). Now I have a reputation for accuracy…sigh

How much research? Well, what are you writing? Alt history? Western? Fantasy? SciFi? Urban Fiction?

Each of those could require some level of research. I’ve been shooting for over 60 years, and an instructor for about 20 years. So I know a good bit, enough to know ‘I’ don’t know what I don’t know. I’ve gone down rabbit holes on guns to make sure I’m accurate, sometimes hours of research on the history or use of a particular weapon.

Alt history? What country, what era, steampunk or realistic? European Hanseatic League? Roman times? You want to talk about rabbit holes, each of those is a massive one! Have you been there? Any idea of how Europeans interact? Videos? etc…

Fantasy? Do you know your fae, your old gods? Who begat whom? Again, what time period?

SciFi? Do you understand math? Can you compute ballistics? Do you understand gravity in space? Orbital mechanics? Are you writing hard SF or Space Opera? Handwavium or reality based?

Urban fiction? Have you lived in a big city? Traveled to cities? Traveled around this or another country? Know the differences between and within cities? Good vs. bad, with all that entails?

Do you have experts you can reach out to? As an example, Jonna Hayden for fabrics vs. historic time period? A doctor if you’re dealing with medical issues? A lawyer? A pilot? A bartender? Whomever can help you make your story better is always good! One of my shorts had forging metal in it, I’d done the ‘book’ research, but lucked into a guy who actually makes things in a real forge and he was an immense help to get those bits I was screwing up correct. Never be afraid to reach out!!!

Now that you’ve done all that research, how much ends up in your book? The western example I used earlier was roughly 6 hours of research, and it ended up a one sentence entry in the book. BUT, I use very sparse descriptions and no info dumps, preferring to let the reader build characters and situations in their heads.

Is the information ‘critical’ to your story? If so, how do you sneak it in? A senior teaching a junior, a flashback, a challenge/response? That is up to you and your style of writing.

Do you ‘have’ to do research? No, you don’t. Should you? I believe so. Regardless of what you write, the more accurate you can make your background and interactions, the better it will be received by readers, especially if they are widely read in that genre.

Lastly, get your ego under control and be willing to accept criticism of your baby! Get alpha and beta readers if you can! You want folks that will honestly critique your work, telling you what they don’t understand or seems to be missing!

We, as authors, ‘know’ what is going on with the story, but those alpha and beta readers don’t, so they WILL find holes where you’ve written past a critical piece of information, changed a character’s name, description, or something really stupid (yes, I’ve done ALL of those)… sigh…

If you’re still here, what did I miss???

Or how to grab your readers with those first lines of your stories…

These were collected and shared around a number of years ago, but hold true even today! Note that a number of the authors are women…

DON’T LOOK DOWN – by Jennifer Cruise & Bob Mayer

Lucy Armstrong was standing on the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge when she first spotted the black helicopter coming at her through the sunset.

Based on the rest of her day, that wasn’t’ going to be good.

LOST GIRLS – by Bob Mayer

In the night there is death.

It was one of the first lessons they had taught the Sniper and he had never forgotten it.  Night is a common denominator regardless of terrain, enemy, or mission.  It will always come with the movement of the planet.  He knew how to move unobserved, like a ghost, in daylight, but the night was his special friend.

STARSHIP: MUTINY (STARSHIP BOOK 1) – by Mike Resnick

The ship hung in space, all but motionless, a dull gray in color.  There was no rust on it, of course, but it looked like there should have been.

SANTIAGO: A MYTH OF THE FAR FUTURE – by Mike Resnick

There never was a history written about the Inner Frontier, so Black Orpheus took it upon himself to set one to music.  His name wasn’t really Orpheus (though he was black).  In fact, rumor had it that he had been an aquaculturist back in the Deluros system before he fell in love….

A GATHERING OF WIDOWMAKERS – by Mike Resnick

The two boys looked out through the store window.

“Are you sure it’s him?” asked the first.

“I’ve got his holo on my computer,” said the second.  “It’s him, all right. And see that little guy? They say  they always travel together.”

“Why would he need any help?”

“Him?” was the reply.  “He doesn’t need any help, not now, not ever. Maybe he just wants someone to talk to.”

PRODIGAL SUMMER: A NOVEL – by Barbara Kingsolver

Her body moved with the frankness that comes from solitary habits.  But solitude is only a human presumption. Every quiet step is thunder to beetle life underfoot; every choice is a world made new for the chosen. All secrets are witnessed.

THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins

When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim’s warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress. She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother. Of course, she did. This is the day of the reaping.

THE RED QUEEN by Philippa Gregory

The light of the open sky is brilliant after the darkness of the inner rooms. I blink and hear the roar of many voices. But this is not my army calling for me, this whisper growing to a rumble is not their roar of attack, the drumming of their swords on shields. The rippling noise of linen in the wind is not my embroidered angels and lilies against the sky, but cursed English standards in the triumphant May breeze. This is a different sort of roar from our bellowed hymns, this is a howl of people hungry for death: my death.

DARK TASTE OF RAPTURE by Gena Showalter

Two men stood in the middle of a shadowed, barren field. Both were human. One was tall, muscled, with dark hair and a busted-up face. His syn-cotton shirt was torn, his jeans dirty, and his boots scuffed. There were telltale weapon bulges under his arms, at the wrists, and at his ankles.

Clearly, he was the bodyguard.

DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? by Phillip K. Dick

A merry little surge of electricity piped by automatic alarm from the mood organ beside his bed awakened Rick Deckard. Surprised–it always surprised him to find himself awake without prior notice–he rose from the bed, stood up in his multicolored pajamas, and stretched. Now, in her bed, his wife Iran opened her gray, unmerry eyes, blinked, then groaned and shut her eyes again.

“You set your Penfied too weak,” he said to her. “I’ll reset it and you’ll be awake and–“

“Keep your hand off my settings.” Her voice held bitter sharpness. “I don’t want to be awake.”

Those opening lines apply to ANY story length you’re writing- Short, novella, novel…

The ultimate flash fiction, IMHO, is the six word story- ‘For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.’

Attributed to Ernest Hemingway, there are others that say it is even older, HERE.

In any case, look for how to hook those readers! Especially today, with all the competition out there, those first words ARE important, not only to you the writer, but to grab that reader and bring them into your story!