Why Online Research Isn’t Enough
Yesterday, Mr. PJ, Tiny Satan and I were sitting outside on the screen porch. Mr. PJ was doing some work-related things, Tiny Satan was coloring and I was writing. “As a fantasy reader,” I asked him, “are you interested in the fact that most moats weren’t in fact repositories of delightful fresh water but of raw sewage?”
The look on his face was priceless.
That little tidbit of historical color isn’t something I learned online, or from watching fantasy movies. I learned it, rather, at [insert name of university you've probably heard of]. In class. I earned a degree in medieval history for the same reason that one of my series is set in the high middle ages: I love the period. Not what everyone thinks they know, Lord of the Rings-style, but the actual period. How misunderstood it is by most enthusiasts. How, placed in the appropriate historical context, that cartoonish specter of evil the Sheriff of Nottingham would have actually been the good guy. The “heroic” Lord Locksley–and of course neither of these men actually existed, we’re talking archetypes but in a way they’re all the more powerful for that, because they do so much to inform the consciousness about what “should” be true–and his ilk were all killed off for a reason. And yet, all too often, we see these archetypes repeated because they’ve gained the kind of permanence that makes them true; if not as representatives of historical fact then as myth.
Which, there’s a lot of validity to that. We need myth. I mean, I make up stories for a living, I would think that. The problem arises when you’re trying to write something historically accurate, or at least based in history: fully armored destriers charging across an open plain, when in fact a fully armored destrier could advance no further than a trot. That armor…was heavy. And, like plate armor for human warriors, didn’t come into fashion until after the introduction (to western warfare) of gunpowder. Because armor, despite what certain fantasy authors will tell you, wasn’t about fashion and people didn’t flock to specialized armor smiths because they made pretty helmets. Chain mail, like today’s bulletproof vests, withstood punch impact pretty well but was zilch against concussive blasts. Plate armor was devised, not to be pretty but to solve this problem. Which it did surprisingly well; kind of like the Michelin Man-looking suits that bomb techs wear now.
Everyone didn’t sit around drinking to get drunk; they mixed a few tablespoons of wine into their water to kill germs. Which, while the notion of actual germs was still heretical at that point and would be well into modern history, practical knowledge of their effects was not. And most of the food they ate was actually pretty normal; sweet and sour chicken was an invention of medieval England.
The problem is that, if you go online to look up, say, moats, whatever article you find won’t teach you all of that. And might not even be accurate. There’s a reason that, as obnoxious as this may sound, the University of Google isn’t a real thing. You have to have at least a solid general grounding in a topic before you can know, as it were, what you don’t know. If you’re too ignorant, you have no way of taking responsibility for the gaps in your knowledge–which is, as we see, a self-perpetuating problem. Without enough basic knowledge to know what basic knowledge you need, you don’t know that you don’t have the basic knowledge to acquire it. Which is why looking up issues piecemeal is so dangerous, from a research-oriented perspective. Even if an article on moats does teach you what you want to know, it won’t teach you about destriers. Or the fact that the average woman got married at around age 18 (not 12).
I think–for what my opinion is worth–that if you really want to write about a period (or a particular place, or thing) then you need to immerse yourself in it. Buy actual books, or check them out from the library, and read them cover to cover–whether you think they’re going to contain anything of interest to your story or not. Take notes. Read more books. Hopefully, as you do, your story (and characters) will evolve.
Writing about any period in history is a lot like writing, in general: you have to know what the rules actually are, and be conversant with them, before you break them. A great example of a book that breaks a lot of THE RULES, writing-wise, is Clive Barker’s Coldheart Canyon. But, you know, that’s Clive Barker. He’s someone who definitely knows THE RULES, and for whom breaking them is a conscious choice. And Coldheart Canyon is an excellent novel, by the way; if you haven’t read it yet, you should.
Incidentally, it’s also a great example of what I’m talking about in terms of writing what you know: Barker’s novel is a pretty searing (and also gripping, and hilarious) view into the stupidity, decadence, and ultimately misery of Hollywood. He portrays all the different angles–business, artist, would-be starlet–with equal understanding. And, hidden in his mockery, compassion. No amount of research into what Hollywood is like, or is supposed to be like, or should be like could possibly match Barker’s decades-long experience of working there. When you’re writing about the middle ages, you’re essentially trying to do the same thing: speak in the voice of someone who’s been there. But since time machines haven’t been invented yet (at least to my knowledge) we have to do the next best thing: hit the books.
Thoughts?
