Research Woes

[AlexH]

What have been your biggest research challenges? Did you get there in the end, give up, or change course?

Setting a story in an 18th/19th century West African village has thrown up some research challenges. I've been at it for 2 or 3 days, and still don't know:

• What Dakar was like in the 18th/19th century (I've found accounts from Europeans of Saint-Louis, which was the capital at the time, but they're not what I'm after - the likes of "The parade is tolerably handsome...This town has, in other respects, nothing very interesting in it, only the streets are strait, and pretty broad, the houses tolerably well built and airy. The soil is a burning sand, which produces but few vegetables").
• What was used to protect fragile cargo (I currently have an instrument wrapped in cloth sacks).
• Whether many horse-drawn carriages carried a spare wheel (I've found only one reference to say they did).
• What sort of adhesive a remote village in West Africa might have used on wood (animal-based, I guess, but I don't want to assume) and how they'd clamp the neck of an instrument (oops, spoiler alert on that fragile cargo) together.

I could easily set this story somewhere along the Silk Road, but as West Africa seems underrepresented, I'm going to stick with it.

And if you can answer any of the above, I'd be very grateful!

 

[Abernovo]

Most carriage or wagon wheels were made from parts, so spokes and sections of the rim, or felloe, could sometimes be removed and replaced. It might not be a professional job, but could keep you going to the next wheelwright. If your journey was long, and in remotes areas, the ability to make a lasting job of it could save not just your cargo, but your life.

It made for easier packaging, as well, having sections rather than whole wheels. But it would not stop you having a whole wheel, ready to change, and you can repair the damaged one on the move. Used to know a few cart drivers.

 

[Ihe]

I'm afraid I can't help with any of your questions, but I can comment on my challenging research: all of it is challenging (if it isn't it's not research! ), specially for thematic and big-picture plotting. I'm on the Sci-Fi side of things (the scide? haha...ha....), and so physics is a big headache for me. I love reading about it, but lightning split me in half if I understand half of what I read. Quantum physics and astrophysics are my most visited fields. Truly fascinating if it wasn't all so eye-bleedingly complicated. Thank the gods for those science channels out there that dumb things down into bite-sized info. If the maths fail me, at least I can hang on conceptually. Lots pf philosophy and psychology as well, but the latter is more up my alley at least.

Sometimes it's not even research. Just curiosity, and this often leads to some great brainstorming on new ideas as cool concepts accumulate in the back of my mind. You can't crank out something from nothing, so I collect mostly useless pieces of information until something clicks.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

The worst are often the depths of folklore I increasingly explore - because they're a rabbit-hole I struggle to emerge from.

The most harrowing was around torture and its effects. What humans will do to other humans beggars belief

 

[AlexH]

I'm afraid I can't help with any of your questions, but I can comment on my challenging research: all of it is challenging (if it isn't it's not research! ), specially for thematic and big-picture plotting. I'm on the Sci-Fi side of things (the scide? haha...ha....), and so physics is a big headache for me. I love reading about it, but lightning split me in half if I understand half of what I read. Quantum physics and astrophysics are my most visited fields. Truly fascinating if it wasn't all so eye-bleedingly complicated. Thank the gods for those science channels out there that dumb things down into bite-sized info. If the maths fail me, at least I can hang on conceptually. Lots pf philosophy and psychology as well, but the latter is more up my alley at least.

Sometimes it's not even research. Just curiosity, and this often leads to some great brainstorming on new ideas as cool concepts accumulate in the back of my mind. You can't crank out something from nothing, so I collect mostly useless pieces of information until something clicks.

I don't usually find research that challenging, as learning new things is part of what I enjoy about writing. It's when information seems impossible to find that it becomes challenging for me. Though I don't think I'd ever get to the ins and outs of quantum physics and astrophysics - my brain would probably flat-out refuse to take anything in.

The worst are often the depths of folklore I increasingly explore - because they're a rabbit-hole I struggle to emerge from.

The most harrowing was around torture and its effects. What humans will do to other humans beggars belief

I've done some research into historical tortures (probably around and older than medieval times). It's sick, but as it was so long ago I feel distanced from it. If I had to do that for something more recent I'd probably struggle. I've been putting off a story I do want to finish, but the main character has cancer, so that's a difficult subject matter to research - easy in a sense, as there are so many wonderful people sharing their experiences online, but it can be heartbreaking.

 

[sknox]

Three days? I reckon I'd get discouraged after three years. Three days is barely getting in the front door, even with a culture one thinks one knows. Key information, especially for a writer, can come from such unlikely sources. One of the best descriptions of life in Africa I've encountered comes from Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter, which is set in the 1940s. So, motorized vehicles and such, but his descriptions of the light, the air, the sounds, are priceless. You can't research that in the usual sense. You just have to start wandering.

What made you choose such a setting? Any place in particular? West Africa covers a lot of ground.

 

[Mouse]

Can't help with any of your questions!

I tend to write about what I know, because most everything else is too difficult for me. In the WiP I finished recently one of the characters was hooked on heroin so I've done lots of research on that, which isn't overly pleasant - especially as one of my best mates was a heroin user too and she passed away earlier this year.

 

[Theophania Elliott]

Can't help either - but 2-3 days is hardly any time at all. Keep going!

I write (try to write) fantasy - which means a lot of my research is on how it works rather than places and events. I have one character who is building an aircraft, so I thought it would be a fine idea to go for a flight in a microlight just to see what it was like to be up in the air in something so tiny and fragile so I could describe it properly.

Getting the microlight flight was easy enough; getting away again was the hard part. Seven months later, I've gone solo and passed one out of five theory exams. This research is a dangerous business!

 

[Montero]

In terms of glue, you might get an indirect answer through museum exhibits - collections of artefacts from the period and area and whether any of them were made in a way that needed glueing. Further thought - sticky sap from a tree? Have a faint Sherlock Holmes South American poison dart thought that sticky sap from trees might be involved.
Brainstorming this further, you may find that you are finding out nothing because there was nothing suitable. How early were things glued with boiled animal remains? How early did Western culture glue? Did it start with furniture? Especially inlaid furniture.
If you can't find something for Dakar maybe you can find something for a nearby country.....
Protecting fragile cargo - from years of packing boxes to move house I always have a bottom layer of scrunched up newspaper, to have actual give, some springiness. I'd bet on straw myself. I do know that pre WW2 in UK boxes of slates were delivered to building sites with a padding layer of straw around the slates. Tea clippers coming from China used to bring back blue and white pottery from China as ballast and it was packed into the tea itself for padding. So you'd wrap cloth around something to protect it from scratches and dirt, but I think you'd go for local leaves/stems for packing around the wrapped items, inside the packing crate.
Also I do wonder if carts would always be used - a column of porters carrying boxes and bundles would give them a smoother ride than a cart. Depends on the weight of course.

It may not be horses pulling carts, it could be bullocks. Suspect you'd find there was a lot more cattle around than horses. Reading Elspeth Huxley "Flame Trees of Thika" - Kenya before WW1 their belongings travelled to their coffee plantation by bullock cart - and boy was the road dusty.

 

[Mike Donoghue]

Awesome question. Gosh... Where do I begin. It took me six years of self-guided research, a college degree, and two years of working professionally for me to achieve the level of technical competence needed for me to move forward confidence with the technological premise of my WIP. I had to steel myself against a lot of naysayers long enough for me to know I was right. The moral of the story in my case is to never give up. If you enjoy your scifi world and the story believe you can to tell within it, never stop learning, thinking, researching the science needed to make it that much closer to reality.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Think of tribal boundaries, not countries - Dakar wouldn't have been Dakar. You might find a book called 'African Dances' helpful but it is around the turn of the century, not C18/19th.

pH

 

[Susan Boulton]

Just a word of caution, unless the items you are researching are important to the plot, don't go into great detail. A short sentence, even a few words will be enough to give the reader the feel and flavour of what you need to convey.

 

[AlexH]

What made you choose such a setting? Any place in particular? West Africa covers a lot of ground.

The plains of Senegal.

A few reasons I chose the setting:

• It's about a musician, and I wanted to pick an instrument not well-known in Europe/the US, so chose the kora.
• I love travelling and learning about new places (though I haven't been to Africa).
• I'd like to set stories in places and eras that aren't often seen in fiction. It would've been easier for me to set this one near the Silk Road (maybe East Africa), but I've read a few stories set there.

Awesome question. Gosh... Where do I begin. It took me six years of self-guided research, a college degree, and two years of working professionally for me to achieve the level of technical competence needed for me to move forward confidence with the technological premise of my WIP. I had to steel myself against a lot of naysayers long enough for me to know I was right. The moral of the story in my case is to never give up. If you enjoy your scifi world and the story believe you can to tell within it, never stop learning, thinking, researching the science needed to make it that much closer to reality.

That's great dedication - well done! Three days is nothing then, as a few have pointed out. For my first draft, the story was only a flash piece, so maybe three days seemed a lot in that context. Draft two was 1200 words, draft 3; 6000 words!

 

[sknox]

Oh, I take it back about research time. Original research for flash fiction? Brave lad!