Barbara Eberhard's Blog - Posts Tagged "internet"
The Things You Don't Know
My fictional biographies are usually populated with people that I can imagine. I mean, I was 20 or 30 once. I remember a lot of what happened in those times. And I know a fair amount about what it's like to be that age today, through colleagues and family.
But there are definitely some things I don't know about when I'm writing. For example, when I first started writing fantasy, I needed to know how far you could ride a horse in a day, as most fantasy involves riding horses, not cars or other modes of transportation. At least on the world I'd invented.
Some of the people in my fictional biographies have had jobs similar to jobs I've had. In my early career, I worked for a bunch of different kinds of companies. And some parts of businesses are fairly universal.
But this current novel is set on a cattle ranch. Do you know how many acres you need for a cattle ranch? Neither did I. Do you know where in the U.S. there are cattle ranches? Neither did I. Do you know how many cattle you can fit on a ranch of a certain size? Neither did I. Do you know how many people it takes to run a ranch of a certain size. Neither did I.
Fortunately, I have all the statistics in the world at my fingertips courtesy of Google. Now, you do have to be a little careful about what links you trust to have the correct information. And I usually try more than one to make sure the information is reasonably the same.
But it must have been challenging to write novels in the days before the Internet. You would have had to either write about things you'd experienced - or your friends or family had experienced. Or spend months or years researching. Or make it up, and hope you were close to the truth. Or not care if the reader called you out for the things you don't know.
But there are definitely some things I don't know about when I'm writing. For example, when I first started writing fantasy, I needed to know how far you could ride a horse in a day, as most fantasy involves riding horses, not cars or other modes of transportation. At least on the world I'd invented.
Some of the people in my fictional biographies have had jobs similar to jobs I've had. In my early career, I worked for a bunch of different kinds of companies. And some parts of businesses are fairly universal.
But this current novel is set on a cattle ranch. Do you know how many acres you need for a cattle ranch? Neither did I. Do you know where in the U.S. there are cattle ranches? Neither did I. Do you know how many cattle you can fit on a ranch of a certain size? Neither did I. Do you know how many people it takes to run a ranch of a certain size. Neither did I.
Fortunately, I have all the statistics in the world at my fingertips courtesy of Google. Now, you do have to be a little careful about what links you trust to have the correct information. And I usually try more than one to make sure the information is reasonably the same.
But it must have been challenging to write novels in the days before the Internet. You would have had to either write about things you'd experienced - or your friends or family had experienced. Or spend months or years researching. Or make it up, and hope you were close to the truth. Or not care if the reader called you out for the things you don't know.
