...and the red sawdust spilled out onto the grass

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MarkQuinn

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Deleted by OP due to extreme age of this post and probable lack of current relevance.
 
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Chasing the Horizon

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It's contemporary fiction that makes me throw my hands up in research frustration, not fantasy. In my fantasy books, I just make up all the neat little details.

Every now and then I'll be forced to look up something for one of my fantasy books (usually something having to do with either weapons or ships, which are the two banes of my writing life). But I generally already have the knowledge base for the type of books I like to write.

If the puppet blood thing really is a historical detail and not just something GRRM made up, he probably just Googled it. I'm sure a Google search for medieval puppet shows would give you way more details than you ever wanted.
 

MarkQuinn

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Well Chasing, out of curiosity I looked up "puppet show blood sawdust", just to be very specific and improve my odds if an article existed with these words. Google lead me to this very post (the first hit) and nothing else of interest. I might find more if I searched for a while.

I'm sure it's possible that Martin just wondered about it and figured that would make good blood for a puppet show, just as a real puppeteer might have come up with the idea a thousand years ago. Of course this indicates a great imagination and understanding of how things work and what might work under such and such circumstances. In contemporary fiction, the setting already exists. There's no need for guesswork. Don't mind my musing. I'm just constantly astounded by the things these fantasy writers come up with and I wish I could go back and live there for a day. It would be better than a year's worth of research.
 

katci13

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I probably wouldn't even notice something like that. I'd just think, "oh, cool! Fake blood."

Yeah, quick Google searches are great. Never takes me more than 5 minutes to find what I'm looking for unless I have no idea what I'm looking for. I'm also of the mindset to think Martin just made it up. I would have.
 

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When I saw the title of this thread I was a bit like, "I've heard that phrase before..." Love Dunk & Egg!!

I must say, I get by on two things: imagination and blagging. Sometimes it comes up to bite me on the bum, but other times it really works. I moved from historical romance to historical fantasy (after reading asoiaf) because it allows for that slight room to manoeuvre, so that if they didn't actually use red sawdust in puppet shows in the 1500s, I can turn around and say well really this isn't the 1500s.

Obviously reading helps. I don't tend to research while writing. Funnily enough, I write first then go back and do the research I need to do in a particular topic. So I did some research on naval battles of the 1500s so I could rewrite my opening chapter recently. I still wouldn't say my naval battle is amazingly accurate, but it's much better than it was when all I was doing was writing it to get into my MC's head.

The other thing I do, that I believe is really valuable, is I go out and see places from the time and speak to experts about it. It helps that I'm British and we have an abundance of medieval castles, but then pick a time period that your local history supports. I've learnt so much from watching and talking to re-enactors, and from going around with a notebook and pen, describing the interiors and exteriors of old manorhouses and castles.
 

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I wouldn't be so sure that anything in a contemporary setting is necessarily less research intensive. I mean, most likely you're not going to write exclusively about people who share the exact same background you have after all, even if you stick with a contemporary setting.

But I get that feeling of being a bit overwhelmed by the challenge. It's not so much that I'm taunted by the prospect of hours of research, it's more the art of picking exactly the right detail to evoke the setting without going all info-dump.

I agree that Georg R.R. Martin is pretty good at this (although he's sometimes mocked for going over-board a little, with the lavish descriptions of food for instance. But I think at this point this particular criticism has become almost a bit of a meme itself.)

And Hilary Mantel is also really awesome in that regard. Her novels are very dialogue heavy, showcasing more of the history made in drawing rooms, courtyards and ante-chambres than the history made on the battlefield. They are also fairly fast-paced - you don't get pages and pages of descriptions. Her use of little evocative details to convey time and place and vibes of the setting is generally super elegant.

But I remember reading somewhere that Mantel's novels are the results of years of research and many, many rewrites. So I guess that's what I'll be looking forward to, should I ever hope to accomplish anything even approximately in the same ballpark.

My creative process is not terribly linear, so I certainly don't stop to look up stuff every three sentences. My first drafts/outlines are more about crucial character interactions, trying to get major plot points and emotional arcs down, but at this stage I'm still very vague about a lot of stuff. It's not something that reads like a novel at this stage - just a couple of sketches with lots of add-lip-type [add description of XY] parantheses in between. The idea is to fill in the details later, hopefully getting more and more precise with every rewrite.
 
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Honest Bill

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The thing about reading other people's work, is that you can't always see the extent of what is behind it. It's quite plausible that GRRM was reading something about medieval history and came across a little snippet about using red sawdust for blood, and thought "Oh that's pretty cool" then he just wrote it down somewhere. Then when he found himself wanting something cool for a scene, he simpy reads over all his old ideas and found a good match for the scene.

The moral of the story is, write down every tiny thing that occurs to you while you're researching. Most of it you'll never find a use for, but then there will be those odd things that fit perfectly, and you can work it in so seamlessly that one day, someone will be reading your book thinking 'How does he come up with this stuff?'

There are great little details everywhere, you just have to look for them, and you need to capture those little things that occur to you from time to time.
 

bearilou

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The thing about reading other people's work, is that you can't always see the extent of what is behind it. It's quite plausible that GRRM was reading something about medieval history and came across a little snippet about using red sawdust for blood, and thought "Oh that's pretty cool" then he just wrote it down somewhere. Then when he found himself wanting something cool for a scene, he simpy reads over all his old ideas and found a good match for the scene.

The moral of the story is, write down every tiny thing that occurs to you while you're researching. Most of it you'll never find a use for, but then there will be those odd things that fit perfectly, and you can work it in so seamlessly that one day, someone will be reading your book thinking 'How does he come up with this stuff?'

There are great little details everywhere, you just have to look for them, and you need to capture those little things that occur to you from time to time.

This is exactly what I was thinking.

But yeah, I see stuff like that and want to wail in despair that I'll never be 'that creative ever in my life no matter how hard I tryyyyyyy'.
 

Filigree

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Martin, Dunnett, and Mantel are known for vivid details, much of which was provided by lots of research. In my case, I don't always set out to research a specific thing. I just stumble onto it and think, 'that's a cool idea, I need to remember that.' I'll either get it into notes for specific WIPs, or just try to remember the keywords so I can find it again later.

This is why newbie writers run from me when I tell them to start reading nonfiction aggressively. There's so much grist out there.
 
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Martin, Dunnett, and Mantel are known for vivid details, much of which was provided by lots of research. In my case, I don't always set out to research a specific thing. I just stumble onto it and think, 'that's a cool idea, I need to remember that.' I'll either get it into notes for specific WIPs, or just try to remember the keywords so I can find it again later.

This is why newbie writers run from me when I tell them to start reading nonfiction aggressively. There's so much grist out there.



Read all of the non-fiction, people. It's so interesting.
 

Honest Bill

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Agreed non-fiction books are a good place to look. Some of the stuff you find there is just as fantastic as your typical fantasy novel. Watching documentaries is a great source for material too. You have to look everywhere for inspiration. It doesn't always just come to you.
 

Chasing the Horizon

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Well Chasing, out of curiosity I looked up "puppet show blood sawdust", just to be very specific and improve my odds if an article existed with these words. Google lead me to this very post (the first hit) and nothing else of interest. I might find more if I searched for a while.
He probably just made it up then. Which makes it a function of creativity, not research.

I was about to post saying that I never read non-fiction, but then I realized that isn't true. I just have a totally different focus than most fantasy writers. All my books are on sociology, psychology, world religion, and mythology, not history or warfare. I think it's imperative with fantasy to write what interests you. There's nothing I find more boring than medieval history, so I write about industrialized societies. My interest in ships is because of how they form their own micro-societies due to frequent isolation from greater society, not how to sail them, so I write as few sailing details as I can and stick to interactions between the crew. I also made most of the ships magical because I know magic is something I'm *extremely* strong with.

No-one can be an expert at everything, and you'll never get anything written if you try to become an expert at every element in your story. Just use your strengths to compensate for the areas you'll never be an expert in.
 

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They use red sawdust for barf cleanup, and there are mulches that are blood-red without sticking. You just have to have the right kind of wood.

Lol, well, I had to ask, didn't I? Redwood lumber would make a rust-colored sawdust, at least.

Is there a reason red sawdust is superior for ejected stomach contents?
 

MattW

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They use red sawdust for barf cleanup, and there are mulches that are blood-red without sticking. You just have to have the right kind of wood.
Or shavings/sanding dust from something previously painted red.

Maybe a particularly rude knight whose shield appears to be in need of a fresh coat of arms?
 

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It's these little details that really make the immersion work for me, and GRRM is a master of them.

What irks me though is when the author mucks it up. I'm reading Scott Lynch at the moment and after carefully building his world, his society and the twelve-or-thirteen god pantheon of his religion, his main character has twice now referred to a ship having been "rechristened" with a different name. Wham! There goes that immersion right there...
 

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One of the reasons I love writing fantasy as opposed to any other genre is because you are at liberty to create your own world and details.

No one can ever tell you how fast a dragon can fly or the sociology of elves or what exactly happens when a wand is snapped. You can, by all means, study up on the middle ages and chivalry and similar subjects. However, in a fantasy world you are the god, and everything will be as you wish it to be. Grass can be blue, rivers can run uphill, and knights can fight each other with scythes.

If you were writing a historical drama then it would be a matter of research. With a fantasy it really is just a matter of imagination. Just try and imagine your world and how exactly you want it to work. Read George R R Martin and other writers to get ideas. Hell, Brandon Sanderson wrote a book with giant crabs and crustaceans as a world's NORMAL animals. Take those ideas as inspiration to come up with your own.
 

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Write what you know, right?

GRRM is a eccentric old soul who, amongst his many quirky interests, collects miniatures....

Not a stretch to think that he knows a thing or two about puppets.

It is a selective sample from a reader's point of view, if you write about something you really know then you are likely to look omniscient. The skill is in being able to cloak the manipulation of the reader towards things you know so it seems natural.
 

ClareGreen

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You may be at liberty to create your own world and details, but what you create has to hang together and make sense somehow. A fantasy writer often ends up knowing all sorts of things, because we have to ground the fantasy in something that feels real in order to make it believable.

To create a convincing illusion of a fire you'd not only have to have the glow, the movement, the smoke and the heat, you'd have to have the effect of the wind and other circumstances - but to create a fire you'd just have to set light to something. That analogy works for worlds too.
 

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It's these little details that really make the immersion work for me, and GRRM is a master of them.

What irks me though is when the author mucks it up. I'm reading Scott Lynch at the moment and after carefully building his world, his society and the twelve-or-thirteen god pantheon of his religion, his main character has twice now referred to a ship having been "rechristened" with a different name. Wham! There goes that immersion right there...

For what it's worth, "Christ" and "christening" both come from the Greek Khrisé, khristos "anointing, anointed one." Anointing is a ceremony common to many cultures, so "christening" isn't necessarily all that... ahem..."Christian."
 

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I'm remember loving that detail when I read it too. I'm of the opinion that Martin probably made it up. I don't know that puppeteers necessarily used red sawdust for blood.

But I strongly agree with one of the above posters: read nonfiction in your off time, and make notes on the things that stick out to you. Those little details may one day find a place in whatever you happen to be writing.
 

PeteMC

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For what it's worth, "Christ" and "christening" both come from the Greek Khrisé, khristos "anointing, anointed one." Anointing is a ceremony common to many cultures, so "christening" isn't necessarily all that... ahem..."Christian."

Yeah I know but all the same it's just jarring, you know? Especially on his two-moons-in-the-sky world with alien relics and no ancient Greeks...
 

ClareGreen

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If we start excising words from our language based on Greek origins, we're going to lose a lot of very valuable words. It'll start with abnormal, then plunge straight into the abyss...
 

PeteMC

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Fair point. Maybe it's just me being picky, but it felt totally out of world when he could have just said "renamed", you know?
 
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