Yeah, damn, @Zingiber. You've got a basic premise, the desired feel and inspirations, quick character relationships, but my favorite part is the plot seeds. Plot seeds for Lucy's background, plot seeds for what supporting characters might be doing, plot seeds for chickens coming home to roost... This has actually sold me on "Writer's Notes" threads as a way of opening up the world to contributors and showing what they can do with it.
Thanks! I pulled it out of a forum thread (actually the Literotica Chyoo forum thread, originally) and put it in the story to make it accessible. One click away from the start or the story map. Just added a note about Tessie Longbottom, Lucy's younger sister, to the Notes for Writers. In a couple branches, she's an airship hostess who sends cards back to Lucy's daughter/her niece Annie but probably otherwise tends to cover her humble background (housemaid's second bastard daughter, tch tch) with lip gloss, ready wit, and bright-eyed efficiency.
Here's a starting point: http://forum.chyoa.com/threads/cockshoots-hall.268/ Next I shall start adding the servants. Your views are most welcome.
Oh damn, that's right, you are, and that was only at the mid-50-ish thread, isn't it? Vain is a juggernaut, I swear, I really did try to keep up with his stuff, but after passing the 120 mile marker, I slowed down, I'll be honest. That is a level of detail only seen in long-running fantasy authors like George R. R. Martin or Robert Jordan, and I know I lost track of things in like the fifth book of Wheel of Time. Brandon Sanderson, in finishing the series, said he was grateful to the extensive notes Jordan left behind (a huge book in their own right) and even had one of his editors be a continuity director, especially since the final book ballooned into three and equally tripled in word count (250,000 to 750,000, yeesh). When you have a universe that detailed, you need something like that, and I agree, emphasizing key points for a collaborative effort is vital. Oh hell yes, I, Robot is one of my favorite books, but pick any book from the Foundation series and it's... not on the same level. Not to knock all of his fiction, I enjoyed Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun, but I stopped a Robots of Dawn because it dragged and, spoilers, I don't read Asimov for erotica. (Making matters worse, the central character, Elijah Bailey, is married but has a fevered sexual fantasy about a woman from the previous novel that goes on for about two pages, and then he contemplates what it would be like to live with her instead of his wife -- and if some rumors I've heard about Asimov at conferences are true, maybe I shouldn't be surprised.) In much of his other novels, Asimov can tend to be quite preachy, and even though those sermons are ones I can get behind, I feel like I'm being browbeaten sometimes. How Few Remain by Turtledove is excellent, I recommend it just for how well he channels Mark Twain from beyond the grave, but I tried to read one of his recent series, The War that Came Early, and it's a slog in my opinion. Not for the content, I don't mind a good war novel, but it's not enough to keep my interest. Adding aliens like in Worldwar makes it fascinating, especially when things get twisted around in unexpected ways (Spoilers: at one point, the Nazis abandon their policy of the Final Solution to redirect all efforts -- and people, including Jews -- to fight the alien invaders, so Turtledove makes you root for Hitler). In the end, Turtledove's life as a history professor shines through in everything he writes, and so he writes history a Churchill-esque "one damn thing after another" sense, and sometimes it works, while other times it doesn't. In the same vein of the conversation, I'm reminded of another thing from On Writing when King states that supports the old idea that you should "write what you know," even though you may not think it entertaining. He gives the example of Cosmic Engineers by Clifford Simak which is, effectively, plumbers in space, and that it's pretty good though dated. In that sense, you already know the research, and can make it interesting. For duskford's "Tales of Silver Lake," I've actually been thinking about another cabin trip that Heather goes on for a few days, but this one is owned by Rohit's family, the Indian teen I've referenced more than once. I had several Indian-American friends in high school, and went to a few of their houses, and so I have this interesting conversation in my head between Heather and Rohit's mother, Bipasha, where she effectively adopts her and pesters her as her own daughter after she and Rohit stop dating. Bipasha sees a lot of herself in Heather in terms of personality and drive -- and of course when Heather demonstrates that she can cook bhindi perfectly, she starts calling her about these nice boys her age she met and that they would make good husbands for her. (Mostly in jest of course. Mostly.) All of that comes from my experience, and besides, I think Heather begrudgingly answering her phone to talk to Bipasha is hilarious. Side note first: I love the description of House of Leaves that a friend gave to another friend -- "It's a book about a book about a movie about a house that doesn't exist." After said second friend read it, she called it more of an art piece than a book, and you put it exactly why that is. I think Mark Danielewski is the only person I know to use detail itself as a literary device, and by virtue immersing you as a character in the book just by possessing the book, let alone reading it, because you want to be like Johnny Truant and try to figure out the message yourself. If you're worried about that Patzo, read anything by Neal Stephenson and you'll know what not to do. The man breaks away from the story to go on about organic chemistry or cybernetics or an erotic upholstery story for about 20 pages before picking up back where he left off. Sometimes it's effortless and before I realize that I've been in a lecture, the story is back, but sometimes it's so shoehorned, he was obviously trying to make a point. Again, Stephen Baxter falls into this problem as well, because everyone in his books seems to know everything so the conversation about meteorology or multidimensional physics can go on. lol, and that' really it. Stop when you have enough of a compelling story on your own. I remember in my text RP days, I asked one of my mother's friends, a former FBI undercover agent, about the kind of criminal activity the FBI was investigating in the 80's. The story we were currently writing involved my character, an alien living on Earth in a facility that was once under the protection of the United States government, being monitored and raided by the new Reagan administration, so my question revolved around what kind of excuse would they need to conduct the raid. He said that anything involving the illegal drug trade would be good, and since my character's facility was in the American southwest, it fit rather well. Then he directed me to a case of a major bust in New Mexico in the 80's he was involved in, so I researched it, tweaked some details, and made that into the event in my story. It worked out beautifully. He works as a TV and movie consultant now for that very reason. I guess, eventually, at least when it comes to stories like this, you reach a point when you're talking about the decisions people are making on the spot, and at that point, the story begins, regardless of the universe that exists around them. :3 Oh wow. Amazing, I love it. That's totally like the story behind the creation of Frankenstein, when Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, John Pollidori, and Lord Byron sat around telling ghost stories during the abnormally cold and miserable summer of 1816, a year after the massive eruption if Mount Tambora in Indonesia which lowered global temperatures because of the ash in the atmosphere. It was even called "the Year Without a Summer." I love the cultural history of natural events. I really think that's affected our culture and society more than people realize!
By the by Patzo, I now have a copy of Come As You Are, and after I'm done with The Martian, it's next on the list. Reading has been a good time sink over the past week.
Example of research, I've just looked up whether it was practical for one of my characters to catch the train from High Wycombe to Oxford in 1921 ... fortunately it was.
I found the perfect location for my new story and did some research on the area which gave some new colour. Then I researched horses and measured routes on Google Maps and realised the location made a crucial part of the story impractical ... without thinking of a messy way around it. A further problem I have is while the history of large towns is well documented, that is the case for small towns or even countries outside Europe. Yes I know that allows me to make places up like Casterbridge (Dorchester), Cranford (Knutsford) or Middlemarch (Coventry) where the names have been changed just to populate them with fresh characters, but unfortunately that does not bring a couple of the real places closer together.
Sorry, I'm a little sleepy to be reading all of this right now, but I figured I'd throw in my voice as well. Research is probably the most important part for me, though I'm a bit anal. I've not written much here, but I researched Roman, and Greek political structure, as well as Roman wages and currency during the height of the Empire. All of the names that I use for the characters are historically appropriate as well. That said, the world in which I'm writing is still fiction, so I'm not worried too much with it. I've butt heads with people in the past who hate realism in their fiction, but my philosophy has always been to add it anywhere possible, so long as it will detract nothing from the story. The added realism, I think, helps ground the story, or at least add the illusion of depth.
I must admit that Ancient Rome is my favourite historical period. I do have a fairly simple story which I cannot publish here yet (I won't explain why but the story would be perfectly acceptable here) but I found a lot of questioning about whether it was accurate, with comments such as "I thought the Romans treated their slaves like family." - some did, but they were after all property. It is almost as though they had read some glossed over child friendly history instead of the reality. Now I own many books on the subject including one with eye witness testimonies and I knew that in order for the story to ring true historically (some of the events were far fetched) it had been set at a very specific time. Often, it turns out, the more extreme stories, especially about emperors' families. might just be propaganda from their enemies or wishful thinking.
Haha, yeah. I took three years of the classics back in school, and while there is a certain truth to the idea of well respected slave, the flip side is portrayed in stories we read of harsh punishments for mild affronts (such as branding the foreheads of, or beating of, even slightly disobedient slaves), and sexual harassment not being unheard of among the slaves of the wealthy. There is also a big difference between east and west Rome. At the end of the day, I only adopt the aesthetic of cultures and societies, doing research appropriately, but doing whatever I want with story content. I like my playground wide open, if a cultural phenomenon that would drive the story doesn't exist, make it exist.
My story did actually feature a branding of a slave of a senator who had escaped and been recaptured. Bizarre though it may seem, Nero actually pushed for slave rights so after his reign the average citizen was less likely to abuse them. however, as you say, wealthy citizens ... Slaves even sued their masters for abuse, something which surprised me. As you say there was a flipside and extreme though it may seem one punishment was to lead a slave with collar and shackles naked through the streets of Rome. I remember reading a discussion on "Spartacus" the TV programme, which from my research even though it was 1st century BC was very extreme, where some were trying to claim that slaves would never be naked because slaves would not put up with it - what part of slavery did they not understand. And of course the female cast all wore merkins, but at times in Ancient Rome and I believe Greece shaving down there was the fashion.
With my first story (Paradise Pandora) I didn't do any research. I was still basically trying to find myself as a writer and just sort of jumped in head first with only the basic ideas in my head. More and more of the story got fleshed out as I went but a lot of that was thanks to the writers that contributed (Manbear and Gunde to say a few of the best on that one.) With my second and possibly best story, Shadow Hunters, I really did some monster research to decide which monsters I wanted in there. I looked into Greek, Roman, Japanese, and Norse mythology for a lot of names for heroes and monsters. Some where stolen from popular games and movies (Van Helsing, Gilgamesh, and probably others I'm just not thinking of) while others were based off of D&D type RPGs I've done on other sites. Larissa was a former character I RPed. Leck was the name of another player in a game I GMed and Malkor was his NPC partner. I just kind of switched their roles, but they were Minotaurs in that game as well. You can bet that if a name pops up and you can trace its origin, then I have plans for them. I don't pull Mythological names unless I have something big in mind. Though some of the characters I named on the spot are actually some of my favorites. Although I wonder if anyone can spot the character in Shadow Hunters that was at least somewhat influenced by Mystogan from the manga, Fairy Tail? First person to get it can have a cameo to fuck the character of their choice from the stories Shadow Hunters, Power Play, or Forbidden Temptations!
Pray you never have to research shipping. Just spent the last 5 hours researching 18th century boats with ridiculous specific parameters. Films don't really seem to reflect life aboard ship to well and pirates were not very nice people. If you were not Anne Bonny or Mary Read you were probably going to get gang raped if you were a woman without a significant ransom value or Stockholm syndrome. Hollywood has a lot to answer for! There will not be any gang rape aboard my ship, but life is so unpleasant I can't imagine why anyone would want to be a sailor. I read Captain Johnson's(possibly really Daniel Defoe's) story of Bonny and it was like Tristam Shandy - 75% of it how she cameto be born and her period as a pirate is covered in about half a page.
