Which comes first, the Story or the Organization?
Because my brain is a patchwork quilt occupied by plot bunnies with minds of their own, I have to instill discipline upon my imagination.
Discipline is not punishment; it's from the Latin word disciplina , meaning "instruction given, teaching, learning, knowledge". I tend to use it in the meaning found in Merriam-Webster: "to impose order upon". (I know it's not the first definition, but it's still legit!)
How this happened today:
I was/am working on the first book in my regency series, and was trying to find a contemporary (Napoleonic War Era) way to describe how a group of people were standing. In my head, I was thinking of a dancing configuration and my hero was going to mention that in his own thoughts. The configuration is important, as my heroine has to be positioned just so, you know?
Naturally, I hied me hence to Google's search engine and lo and behold, I found many descriptions of dancing configurations and not a single one of them would serve my purpose.
Lovely, but not quite what I wanted to show for my scene in the book!
But, what I found was a wonderful treasure trove of proper ways to dance in the era, so I have marked many pages for further reading. Writing a Regency Romance isn't all about introducing the waltz to Almack's Assembly Rooms, after all. For me, it's about doing my best to incorporate the background music, as it were.
In the case of the series I am working on, that means the conflicts England found herself in during that first portion of the 19th Century. It means that some characters will be concerned about the plight of children in the chalk mines. It means that men will come home from the wars wounded in body and spirit and have to move past that without a lot of help, as help simply wasn't available for them.
For me, research gives me a structure in which to grow these characters. I want to hear the strains of music, yes. And the sounds of conversation. And the whispers of emotional revelations. And I want it all to make sense. At least to the characters.
When I am ready to ask them about it, we'll all sit down in my living room and listen as Sandi, once again, gives a seminar to her sofa. :)
Discipline is not punishment; it's from the Latin word disciplina , meaning "instruction given, teaching, learning, knowledge". I tend to use it in the meaning found in Merriam-Webster: "to impose order upon". (I know it's not the first definition, but it's still legit!)
How this happened today:
I was/am working on the first book in my regency series, and was trying to find a contemporary (Napoleonic War Era) way to describe how a group of people were standing. In my head, I was thinking of a dancing configuration and my hero was going to mention that in his own thoughts. The configuration is important, as my heroine has to be positioned just so, you know?
Naturally, I hied me hence to Google's search engine and lo and behold, I found many descriptions of dancing configurations and not a single one of them would serve my purpose.
Lovely, but not quite what I wanted to show for my scene in the book!
But, what I found was a wonderful treasure trove of proper ways to dance in the era, so I have marked many pages for further reading. Writing a Regency Romance isn't all about introducing the waltz to Almack's Assembly Rooms, after all. For me, it's about doing my best to incorporate the background music, as it were.
In the case of the series I am working on, that means the conflicts England found herself in during that first portion of the 19th Century. It means that some characters will be concerned about the plight of children in the chalk mines. It means that men will come home from the wars wounded in body and spirit and have to move past that without a lot of help, as help simply wasn't available for them.
For me, research gives me a structure in which to grow these characters. I want to hear the strains of music, yes. And the sounds of conversation. And the whispers of emotional revelations. And I want it all to make sense. At least to the characters.
When I am ready to ask them about it, we'll all sit down in my living room and listen as Sandi, once again, gives a seminar to her sofa. :)
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