I'll Remember That

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I've been scarce around here recently, partly in an effort to rest my eyes, partly in order to let my mind revamp and produce some more ideas.  On the former front, I wrote a chapter by hand this past week (Elisabeth would be proud if she weren't off resting her eyes, too) before deciding most of it wasn't necessary to the story after all.  Eh.  You win some, you lose some.

At any rate, I have been doing some specific research, some general research, and some reading that isn't technically research at all.  I don't typically write about this aspect of my writing, simply because what interests me in its nonfiction format isn't always what interests other folk.  But, on the other hand, sometimes it is enjoyable to hear what tidbits an author has dug up.  So rather than doing a great big post on the Age of Sail or the healing properties of comfrey, here is a snapshot of some of the things that have stood out to me in researching for Tempus Regina and writing in general.

what ho!

The Minoan civilization, which populated Crete and the islands of the Aegean some millennia before the birth of Christ, had running water and sewer systems.  And toilets!  That flushed!  (Sort of.)  If the culture hadn't been wiped out, plumbing might have been widespread much sooner in the history of the West.  I think that constitutes a tragedy.

Aristotelian theory posits that all forms of matter are simply combinations of the four elements (earth, water, fire, and air) in varying proportions, which means that if you were able to alter the proportions, you could change the matter entirely.  Which means that under Aristotelian theory, alchemy is not an unreasonable pursuit.

Chinese alchemy makes no sense, but they did manage to make chemistry sound pretty.

Common speedwell is also known as "Paul's Betony."  I'd like to know if that was the reason for the actor's name.  Probably not.

The walls at the Minoan palace at Knossos were inlaid with wooden frames for support against the frequent seismic activity.  In the final cataclysm it obviously wasn't one hundred percent effective.

Wood avens was once thought to drive away rabid dogs, evil spirits, and venomous snakes.  Good thing to have on hand, I suppose.

The original copper sheathing on the USS Constitution was most likely imported from Britain, not manufactured by Paul Revere; he only got to do the ship's detailing, since his copper company wasn't founded until 1801.  He may, however, have provided the sheathing for the USS Argus in 1803, which is the brig Tip ships out in. 

have you found out anything intriguing of late?

Enjoying Research

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No matter what sort of book we happen to be writing, sooner or later - preferably sooner - we'll find ourselves needing to buckle down and research.  This is pretty intuitive for those of us writing historical fiction; the era of careful propaganda and make-believe "history" has, alas, gone its way, and now we've actually got to stick to facts.  Ho hum.  For fantasy or science fiction authors it is a little less obvious, but again, at some point you realize that they demand, if anything, even more research than historical novels.  It's just a fact of writing life.

It is not, of course, always a pleasant fact.  Some people really enjoy researching; others find it daunting and unpleasant.  I happen to fall somewhere in the middle: there are times when I love it - especially those moments where a nebulous idea and a concrete fact finally click - and then there are times where I'd rather be doing anything else.  Maybe even scrubbing bathtubs.  And I'm pretty sure that second feeling is more common than the first.

It is difficult to know, especially when you're just getting started, where to start.  There must be books - no self-respecting writer should really on the internet - but what books?  And where do we find them?  And once we've found them, how do we find what we need in them?  Are books our only resources, or are there others?  If there are others, what are they, where are they, and how do we use them?  If you are tackling a particularly big subject, like World War II or the history of medicine, it can seem like there's no resource material; and then it can feel like there's an ocean of material and we're just paddling along on the surface in a little leaky dinghy.  That is what makes research not so fun.

I still get this feeling, whether I'm studying the Age of Sail or astrolabes: I'll confess that right away.  But it is a little less overwhelming when approached with some ideas of organization and method - they keep the holes in the dinghy patched, at the very least.  These are a few of the things I do to make research a little smoother, a little brighter, and a little more enjoyable.

1. make book lists

I like lists.  I like how practical and efficient they are.  When I begin researching seriously, I try to write down all the titles of books that I think might be helpful in different aspects of the novel, big and small.  Often you can find these by merely googling the topic you're looking for, and once you've found one book, you can discover more by following that author's references.  You are pretty sure to find yourself with an extensive list this way.

After that, I'll usually try to track down the book either on Google Books or Amazon and preview it.  If it looks worthwhile, I can sometimes get it from the library; but our library is pretty poor, and at any rate, at some point you've got to give library books back.  They also frown on underlining.  So if at all possible, it is really best to save up and buy the books you need - the ones that look as though they'll be most useful across the board.  It may seem like a dull use of your money, but it really is worth it. 

For those books you can't purchase or that don't look extremely helpful, take note of them and see if they aren't available online.  Many books and original material are.  I was able to use the Naval Documents of the Barbary Wars without paying $500 dollars for it, which was very nice indeed, and I've found numerous other works via Google Books.

2. underline! take notes!

I talked about this in general terms in "More Than Pages Flying By," but it really is a good idea to, at the very least, stick tabs in pages you'll need to reference later.  Don't trust your memory.  It never turns out well.  ("Was it pages 300...?  Or 3...?  I think it was on a lefthand page.  No, no, pretty sure it was right.  Or was it left?")  If you come across a random tidbit of information, or something you want to look into more deeply, jot it down in a handy notebook.  Underline, if you like, and perhaps make notes in the margins: you can do it in light pencil and erase later, if the idea of a pen makes you cringe.  

3. pick out useful bits

You needn't read all the way through every book you get for research.  I think you should read through some, even most, or you will have no cohesive feel for the time period or the topic; but to read from page one to the end in every single work can be both tedious and unhelpful.  Skim through the pages, decide which books will be most helpful, and read those.  Settle yourself in, get a cup of tea, and immerse yourself in those works: they may not be one hundred percent enjoyable, but I think they'll be rewarding.  For the other books, look at the chapter headings (if there are any) and the index and read those sections dealing with your subject. 

4. space research out

Cramming isn't the best method for thoroughly learning anything.  I know some writers like to do all their research before they begin to write, but even with this, I think you should space your reading out over a good long period: don't try to stuff it all into a couple months.  For myself, I rarely know half of what I don't know until I've begun to write, so I spread my research out before, during, and after my first draft.  Whatever works - just don't cram.

5. keep notebooks

I don't do this like I should, but I'm going to be hypocritical and say it's a good habit.  One thing I started doing last year or the year before is keeping a notebook of common British plants, with sketches (flowers are about the only things I can draw, apparently), common names, folklore, and medicinal uses.  It has been helpful on occasion; but immediate helpfulness aside, it provides a pleasant diversion and is something I know I'll be glad to have down the road.  It's good practice, at any rate.  I have another blank notebook ready for common birds, except that birds are significantly harder to sketch than the odd sprig of valerian.

6. don't be narrow-minded

It is easy to hone in on one era or topic to the detriment of others, but that practice is bad for the mind and makes research tiring.  I get bored of focusing on one thing for a long time.  That's part of why I keep my plant notebook: it is something entirely removed from politics and historical events, and that makes it refreshing.  No matter what you are primarily researching, remember to branch out - and to enjoy yourself when you do.  Keep a sketch notebook, if you like; or, if you can't draw, paste photos into a notebook and write your notes by hand, scrapbook-style.  Just the other day I started a Pinterest board for random bits of research and notes that snag my interest and may come in handy: photos or drawings of birds, of plants, of fruit I might eventually need to describe.  I'm not terribly particular about it, but I do have fun with it.

what research methods do you use?

Logos

I want much more than this provincial life!
I want adventure in the great wide somewhere
I want it more than I can tell...

- beauty and the beast

I am not an adventurous individual. I get nervous about car rides and the idea of being on an airplane makes me shudder. Snowboarding? Tubing? Riding a bike down a really steep hill? They all make me want to slink away to my comfy chair in the living room and settle down with a book. Real-world adventure and I don't get along.

Adventure in the realm of ink and paper, however, is quite a different matter. That I couldn't do without. Whether it be an adventure of the past, as in a biography, or one like Treasure Island, where the action is nearly fantastical, there is something thrilling about it. Through the story we see a wholly separate world; through the characters we are allowed to live the adventure. In a way, it takes us out of ourselves.

I suppose this is a large part of the charm of reading. There is only one Emily Dickinson poem that I have read and enjoyed (although I will admit to not being well-versed in her works), and it is probably also her most famous.

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!

Perhaps this is a little embellished, as poetry usually is. Yet it hints at the beauty and power of the written word, its seemingly unlimited capabilities. There are few things that so set Man and his soul apart from the animal realm as his rationality and capacity of both thinking and communicating; last month I wrote a short post on the Imago Dei, and this aspect of Man vividly portrays that God's image in him has not been lost. Jesus Christ is called the Logos, the Word, the thought of the Father communicated, and as humans we are privileged to bear that image through language.

It is impossible to explain the impact of words, yet it is equally impossible to deny that they do indeed have an impact. We joke about the saying that the pen is mightier than the sword and envision a battle between a writer and a soldier, but cliche though the saying may be, it remains true: we would no longer know of the great warriors of history had some writer not chronicled their lives. Words have the ability to transport the reader "lands away," to conjure up another world in his mind, to communicate in a manner that is almost magical. Like so many elements of the human psyche, this is something that, while tangible, is also indefinable.

And yet, also like so many other parts of the human mind, this comes with its own dangers. It is easy to fall into escapism - I know I often do. Is it a godly way of living to shut oneself up in the realm of the written word and never come out? I have heard people declare that they live in the wrong era. These are usually readers, individuals who see another period in the (oft-glorified) mirror of books and wish they had been born in that time. It just seems so much better than the humdrum life we have every day. But not only is this an idealized way of looking at history, it also constitutes a slap in the face of Providence. God knows what He is about; He put us in this day and age for a reason. We must not lose sight of that, or we run the risk of getting so caught up in sighing over days gone by that we forget to live as salt and light here and now.

Are books dangerous, then? Should we all burn our adventure stories? Well, to answer the first question, with our sinful nature it is possible to take anything to excess; and to answer the second, if you intend to get rid of them you should send them to me. Books are wonderfully beautiful and helpful things. So much can be gleaned from them. We cannot live in that realm alone, but I do think we should strive to unite it with the world of our daily lives.

Tomes and White Phosphorus

First off, I would like to remark that The Soldier's Cross has recently been reviewed on two blogs - Eva's The Watered Garden Letters and Ashley's The Epic Reader. If you would like to see their thoughts on the book, just trot over and take a peek!

And now on to the subject of this post. A few days ago the rough draft of The White Sail's Shaking passed 100,000 words (I do realize that the sidebar doesn't say as much, because I haven't added the current chapter to the main document, but thankfully even my math skills can handle adding 5,000 into 97,000). It's a little sad that since November 2010 I've only added 50,000 words to the total, but I like to think they have been good words...and anyways, milestones are nice. I am now about three-fourths of the way through the novel's first draft, which is quite exciting when I don't allow myself to look at what I still have to do, so I thought I would write a kind of celebratory post.

This week I've been doing some research - research on phosphorus, to be precise - and jotting down notes for chemicals to be used in a future story, so my brain is in search-mode. In general I have to admit that I would rather be writing than researching, but there are times when I find something quite fascinating and I can hardly drag myself away from it, like the ingredients in match heads or Naval Documents related to the United States Wars with the Barbary Powers. This is the mood I am currently in, and so in honor of white phosphorus and having reached 100,000 words in White Sail's, I thought I would shine some light on my favorite resources for my work in progress.

naval documents of the barbary wars

I only discovered this fairly recently. It would be a massive tome if it were in book-form and costs about $500, but fortunately the whole thing is available online. It has letters, journal entries, and legal forms from the time period of the two Barbary Wars and is helpful for finding the movements of ships on specific dates, as well as for checking the information in the books I have. Searching by subject gets a wee bit tiresome, so I don't usually go to this resource first, but when I do the results are almost always worth it.

edward preble: a naval biography [by christopher mckee]

Edward Preble was the Commodore of the American squadron in the Mediterranean during the time in which The White Sail's Shaking takes place, and I had originally planned for Tip to be on Preble's flagship, the Constitution. That was subsequently changed, but I still read this biography from cover to cover to learn more about Preble. And I wouldn't do it again just for fun. Nothing much happened to Preble prior to the First Barbary War, except for a few events during the American Revolution, and so all and all the first half of the biography made for pretty dull reading. The chapters dealing with the Barbary War, however, are wonderfully thorough - and they have diagrams and maps! (Yes, I am still inordinately fond of pictures in books.)

six frigates [by ian toll]

I can't forget about this one, since it inspired White Sail's to start with. This book isn't as in depth as Edward Preble, but then, it makes for a much lighter and more enjoyable read. I use this for looking up the major movements of the squadron and the Americans' relationship with the British, then look up the details in Preble. This book also has some good information on Stephen Decatur, which is very nice.

the barbary wars [by frank lambert]

Despite the fact that this is a whole book on the two Barbary Wars, it is not in-depth and deals with the events in fairly cursory detail. It's easy to search things in because of its small size, so I use it first to see if I can find what I need before turning to the larger books. Although not really applicable to my novel, it does have some interesting information on life in Tripoli itself.

biography of stephen decatur

I have yet to find a biography of Stephen Decatur that I like; they all tend to be oozing with hero-worship until I'm pretty sure even he would be ashamed to read them. I am inclined to think him an amazing man, but the triteness of the biographies makes him seem trivial. The number of mistakes in this particular book is also a downer. On the other hand, like The Barbary Wars, this is easy to glance through and when I find an interesting "fact" I can check it off some other, more reliable work.

I have other books as well, not to mention a random website here and there, but these are the ones that get carted around the house from one computer to the other (and which always seem to be at the wrong one when needed). I researched prior to 2010 NaNo, but there were so many facts that had to be crammed into my brain that naturally a lot of them fell out again and I have to keep restocking. It's a fascinating business, though - almost as fascinating as white phosphorus.

In Defense of Nonfiction

I don't write nonfiction. At least, I haven't written any yet and I didn't see it in the near future when I looked at my scrying mirror; I have too many novels to write. Yet a defense of the genre seems to be needed in this day and age, both to writers and readers alike, for people are much more eager to read fiction now than to pick up a biography or even a "religious" book. The reverse used to be true, of course. There was a time when the novel was considered to be a frivolity and the primary books read by literate men and women were works of philosophy, science, history, and religion. Now the tables have turned.

This is not, of course, to say that I dislike fiction or that I read as many nonfiction works as I would like. I agree with Jane Austen's tongue-in-cheek comment in Northanger Abbey: "The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." Novels can have many truths in them, and stimulating the imagination is a good thing. I would rather see a person reading a decent novel than flipping through the comics section of a newspaper. The classics, especially, are classics for a reason and (generally speaking) ought to be read and enjoyed.

But what about nonfiction? This genre seems usually to be reserved for the middle-aged and elderly, while younger readers prefer novels. Many read widely - classics, fantasy, historical fiction, what-have-you - but don't read nonfiction, not realizing how much they are missing by never reading a biography longer than a hundred pages or delving into a Puritan Paperback. Few people take note that if fiction is an ode to man's imagination and creativity, the real world is an ode to God's. And fact, as they say, is stranger than fiction.

There are numerous reasons why the reading of nonfiction is an almost lost art, not least of which is the argument that biographies, histories, etc. are dull and tedious. I think, however, that this is more a holdover from textbooks than a truth about the majority of nonfiction; after all, writing something like a biography is still classified as "creative" writing, which implies that the author puts imagination into the crafting of his or her book. Writers like David McCullough and Robert K. Massie are so skilled at writing that their books read with the ease of a novel while still presenting the facts in all their fascinating detail. Nonfiction certainly is a different style than fiction and one that takes getting used to, but it is no more unusual or difficult than the style of classic authors like Jane Austen is today.

"Religious" works (the term seems rather loose and open-minded, but I don't really know what else they might be called) are just as important as histories, if not more so, for they feed the soul. Yet if anything, they are less read than biographies - or, if readers do pick up a book on some aspect of the Christian life, it is usually a modern, insipid work about what religion can do for you. Granted, these are easier to read than Jonathan Edwards, but they are, as a whole, neither well-grounded in Scripture nor lastingly worthwhile. Books by the Puritans or such men as John Piper and Charles Spurgeon are a little harder to read, but provide meat for the soul rather than what my sister-in-law calls "candy-reading."

As a caveat to all that, I will say that I don't advocate that someone who only reads novels run out and buy Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire or Jonathan Edwards' Treatise on the Will. The best way to slide into a habit of reading nonfiction is to start with something relatively small on a subject that interests you. My first adult nonfiction read was Robert K. Massie's Nicholas and Alexandra... but it's over 600 pages and was a long, hard slog to get through. That was, by the way, not because of any deficiency in Massie's writing, but because I wasn't used to such big books. I made it to the end through a combination of sheer determination (also known as stubbornness), interest in the Romanov family, and love for Massie's writing. On the other hand, the excellent book Amazing Grace, a biography of William Wilberforce by Eric Metaxas, is only about 300 pages and makes for a much lighter read.

As for books on the Christian life, there are plenty of good ones for laymen and laywomen; they are not all as overwhelming as Karl Barth's Dogmatics or John Owen's works. (Which I haven't read. Just in case you thought I was actually smart or something shocking like that.) Some good authors are John Piper, J.I. Packer, and A.W. Tozer, and the series of books called "Puritan Paperbacks," put out by the Banner of Truth Press, are well-worth getting as well. Once you've dipped your toe into the water, you may find that the pool isn't as terrifying as you first thought.