Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

smsarber said:

Uncle Jim, got my assignment finished last night.

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Great!

Now do it again.

euclid said:

... at least 2 operating systems used by DEC's pdp11 series.

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"Wow," was about all she could say... wow...
(adapted from "Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse" by Kevin Henkes)

Hello, all. I haven't posted here in quite a while. I've been making enormous progress on my WIP, but now I can't put off the research any longer.

The story involves someone who can see several hundred years into the past, roughly throughout the Mojave Desert and some distance south. I need to learn a lot about North American natives, as well as Mayans and Aztecs. Extinct animals and plants would be interesting too, for color and texture.

I have a stack of National Geographic articles -- about every fourth issue has something I can use. I've raided Wikipedia for, say, Mayans and Apaches, but if the Internet has what I want, the links aren't obvious.

Is there a place you go for this kind of thing? I have the feeling I'm missing something blindingly obvious.

--Milton

MiltonPope said:

Is there a place you go for this kind of thing? I have the feeling I'm missing something blindingly obvious.

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The Children's Room at your local library.

Or the community college library. Or can anyone get into those?

The college libraries are worth looking into. The university here offers community borrower cards with a limit of ten items for two weeks.

Seriously, start in the Children's Room. That'll give you and overview (usually with colorful pictures), definitions of terms, and enough background to get you started in the direction you should go. After that you can hit the other library shelves. But start with the kids' books.

MiltonPope said:

Hello, all. I haven't posted here in quite a while. I've been making enormous progress on my WIP, but now I can't put off the research any longer.

The story involves someone who can see several hundred years into the past, roughly throughout the Mojave Desert and some distance south. I need to learn a lot about North American natives, as well as Mayans and Aztecs. Extinct animals and plants would be interesting too, for color and texture.

I have a stack of National Geographic articles -- about every fourth issue has something I can use. I've raided Wikipedia for, say, Mayans and Apaches, but if the Internet has what I want, the links aren't obvious.

Is there a place you go for this kind of thing? I have the feeling I'm missing something blindingly obvious.

--Milton

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The Apaches were relative latecomers to the southwest. For tribes with cultural and trading connections to the Mayans and the Aztecs, you may want to look at the Anasazi and the Hohokam.

Here's a link which may help

http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/onlinebks/hohokam/chap1.htm

I've followed Uncle Jim's advice about the Children's section of the library. Sometimes it's the only place I can find what I want. It's particularly strong for things like overviews of geography and the like.

And Dr. Seuss books!

Reference librarians are my heroes. Ask one for assistance -- they always have great ideas for finding what you need.

They're also usually willing to go above and beyond the call of duty, like the one who helped me earlier this week by allowing me to use her personal library card to gain access to ProQuest through the Newport Beach library, since I didn't have a card of my own for that system. And this was after she spent an hour or so tracking down for me exactly which libraries in OC (city, county, and university) had what I needed. Then, while I was happily involved with ProQuest, she continued to bring books to me that she felt might be of use.

Reference librarians are wonderful.

Thanks, everyone who responded to my research question. I'll check the children's rooms (and online catalogs, once I find out where to look), and the college libraries. And thanks, firedrake for the Hohokam reference.

I'll let you know how this works out.

--Milton

Children's books are not to be underestimated. The higher a book goes in level, the less generally useful it gets. Children's reference books contain a quick and dirty overview of nearly any subject, so you can get a basic idea of whatever you need to know in an afternoon. Take notes. Then work your way up the ages, getting reference books as you go.

Take Norse Mythology. It's really hard to find any explanations of it. You'll find books about it, but not books of it. Then you find that one book that's no more than half an inch thick, with glossy pages and lots of illustrations. A few hours later, you know the story. Then you can go grab that 500-page tome and get the scholarly details and understand them in a way you wouldn't without first knowing the big picture.

Reference books are written with the attention span of their audience in mind. A children's book is meant to impart as much information as possible to someone not like to sit still for more than a few hours. This means you can absorb its information in a few hours.

Once you do get to the weighty scholarly tomes, the place to look for story ideas is in the footnotes.

The footnotes are where the learned professors float their crackpot theories, and where they get bitchy about other, equally learned, professors.

You're allowed to use crackpot theories. You aren't writing a scholarly work; you're writing something fun and interesting. Crackpottery is both of those, in spades.

Judg said:

I've followed Uncle Jim's advice about the Children's section of the library. Sometimes it's the only place I can find what I want. It's particularly strong for things like overviews of geography and the like.

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I did that all the time! It's just about the only way I can understand anything.

Heading to Boskone. See you there!

(Readings! Signings! And so much more!)

James D. Macdonald said:

You're allowed to use crackpot theories. You aren't writing a scholarly work; you're writing something fun and interesting. Crackpottery is both of those, in spades.

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No kidding. I once sold a story that had UFOs and zombies in it.

Crackpot theories are wonderful for generating story ideas. Just start thinking "What if they were RIGHT?"

Hell, these days are there any real crackpot theories anymore? Real life is just as crazy as anything that can be conjured!

smsarber said:

Hell, these days are there any real crackpot theories anymore? Real life is just as crazy as anything that can be conjured!

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Clearly you've never read Saberhagen.

Also, "these days"? Things were so much crazier in the past.

Okay, point taken. But with the media we know about the craziness, and the fragility of morality, that encompasses humanity faster, and more accurately than in the past. I get a lot of my story ideas watching Cold Case Files and the news. It just seems to me that people are much sicker than I could make them (my characters) on my own.

Berry said:

No kidding. I once sold a story that had UFOs and zombies in it.

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Double mumbo jumbo! Good work, you made it fly!

Now UFOs VS Zombies...

According to the five-year old I baby sat the other day, aliens are actually a type of monster.

Aliens are also generally friendly in his experience. I don't know where zombies would fall on the sliding scale of friendless/unfriendliness, as I haven't brought it up yet.

I figured I was pushing things already with the leviathan (friendly) and the chimera (unfriendly).

I had a story idea for zombie gunslingers. I never wrote much on it, not really my genre, but still it would be cool. Jesse and Frank James teaming up with Billy the Kid in a Resident Evil style battle against humans. I won't ever go forward with this, so the idea is up for grabs.

smsarber said:

Your blue hamster ate a poodle? Mine too!lol

Uncle Jim, got my assignment finished last night. A page + of new material. Thanks for the push.

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>.<

I was saying that I speak Japanese too...

smsarber said:

Okay, point taken. But with the media we know about the craziness, and the fragility of morality, that encompasses humanity faster, and more accurately than in the past. I get a lot of my story ideas watching Cold Case Files and the news. It just seems to me that people are much sicker than I could make them (my characters) on my own.

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Someone once said to write your book in the same room that you burned your television. I'm not an advocate of burning TVs indoors-- waste not, want not-- but I do advocate trading your TV for a library card. There are more things in heaven and earth than dreamt of in your evening news.

A notebook, a pen, and a daylong trip to the library are worth more than cable television and high speed internet.