Careful where you point that sword! Available June 7.
Since Atticus O’Sullivan is about 2,100 years old, he has one hell of a backstory. (That’s most of our recorded history, right? At least the parts that were recorded without hieroglyphs?) Though his adventures are firmly rooted in the modern day, occasionally his past has to come up, and when it does, I have to make sure it’s at least somewhat plausible.
Without giving anything away, I had to do quite a bit of research on the World Wars for HEXED. I was trying to confine it to WWII, but then found out that certain details required going back to their roots in WWI. Most of that research didn’t make it into the book, but I enjoyed educating myself nevertheless.
One of the things I learned in the course of doing research is never to tell people it’s for a novel. They never react like you hope they will.
If you’re a nerd who’s into fantasy, you hope they’ll find you vastly interesting and want to buy you a beer in exchange for a story. And I mean a good beer, too, not “the Banquet Beer”—I’m talking something with a craft name like Chocolate Oak Aged Yeti from the Great Divide Brewing Company in a flagon.
Sadly, no one ever does that. I will cling to the fantasy that it could happen, but experience has shown me that the odds against it are pretty high. You will never get a free beer for telling someone you’re doing research for a novel. You will get polite indifference, outright disbelief, or glazed eyes. On the upside, you do get all of those for free. Free is good!
I think I was talking about backstory.
Researching a huge backstory like Atticus’s can take an inordinately long time. It’s so easy to get distracted. Did you know that the ancient Celts used to charge into battle naked? The idea was that they’d terrify their opponents because they weren’t afraid to let their naughty bits go flappity-flap. It’s not a bad idea, honestly. If I saw a few hundred naked men charging me, I would RUN. But then the Celts ruined the effect by wearing golden torcs around their necks; it was concentrated wealth and it tended to focus one’s gaze. Dudes would squash their terror of floppity man meat long enough to get a shot at scoring the gold.
Wait. Was I talking about backstory or distraction?
Once you realize that you’re sinking time into research you should be using to write, you might think it would help to ration your research or schedule it. You can do that, sure, but you might wind up missing something that way. Free association can lead one to spiffy discoveries. I recently discovered this band called Dark Moor on Pandora, by the way. They do this rocking version of Vivaldi’s Winter and their album cover has a bitchin’ squid dude sitting on a throne with a Corinthian helmet. I’m going to put a link to the video on YouTube below. Only about the first 3:36 or so is the real song…bunch of bonus track nonsense after that, but it’s brilliant up to there.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txwlKqt01TQ[/youtube]
Anyway. Backstory. It’s tough stuff. Rewarding, though, if you don’t let the research consume you. :)
nice tune…they did a great cover… I also like the album cover although they seem to mix up Poseidon and Chthulu.also one of the reasons I love your books so much is that you do the research..Thx Kev!
I’ve been working as a researcher on WWII (Pacific War) type things for a long time and I have yet to come across a floppity man-meat story…. Oh, wait, ancient Celts. Damn, I was hoping to find some distraction in my work…
Many an hour I have lost to researching something that never actually makes it into the book, even in passing. But it was worth it to know for myself and the story every time! I was recently looking for information on how bronze age bronze weapons would react to modern solvents and while I didn’t get glazed eyes or indifference, it was pretty ridiculous how hard it was to get a straight answer. I think mostly because people did not have bronze age bronze on hand to test it? ALSO I don’t know if you know this, but getting bronze these days is pretty ridiculously hard. Everything is Brass, or fake bronze polish unless you want to spend the BIG bucks on some kind of sculpture BUT, I ended up crossing paths with a modern-day blacksmith who forges swords by CHANCE at a wedding, and SHE held all the answers.
and that is my story for your story about research.
Amalia, I think it’s awesome that you ran across a weaponsmith at a wedding! It sounds like the sort of thing that would happen in a roleplaying game! :) It makes sense that bronze would be hard to come by these days, though; it’s been relegated to decorative metal rather than practical.
Psynde—I agree it’s a mix of Poseidon and Cthulhu, but I kinda like it! :)
Robin—You might (??) enjoy Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. Major subplot revolves around Pacific theater of the war.
Ah, well it’s better then old’ Cuchulain when it went into BATTLE MODE he turn himself inside out with fire and blood shooting out of his head….guess having his manly bits feeling the breeze wasn’t good enough for him!