Thursday 13: Round up of Science /Humanities

1. E-readers get heavier with each book
2. One step closer to the borg
3. Stretchy solar cells make self-powering 'skin'
4. Mind-reading devices help the speechless speak
5. Brain scans reveal lucid dreaming's sleep cinema
6. Smart chimp gets speech like a human
7. First known Europeans identified
8. Cancer found in 2,000 year old mummy
9. Blood from a stone? No. Blood from a rice? Sure.
10. Eyes are the window to the soul; skin is a window to the brain
11. Vampire-like predatory bacteria could become a living antibiotic
12. Your brain knows a lot more than you realize
13. NASA to develop dust grabbing tractor beams for future missions

How I Write-- Research

While last week we talked about how we develop our characters, this week the question asked was how we do our research.

I don’t know if you know, but I write weird stuff. I don’t write normal, humans living ordinary lives. My book is all about spies and assassins and psychic powers. And through the vein of it all, I love science and adding a scientific spin on the paranormal.

My research involves science textbooks and Googling about psychic abilities and various uses of equipment. But mostly, I make it up. That’s the thing when you write paranormal, you can use your imagination to create things. Like copying memories from one person and transferring them into another.

What I write, there isn’t tons of research out there for (sometimes, none). I have been known to look up fighting techniques, however, and watch youtube videos of it, studying the way the fighter moves. I don’t tend to mention real places either. Why? Because I fear those details that need to go into the story to make it real for readers. If it’s a real place, especially one I’ve never gone to, which less face it, is everywhere, then I know I’ll mess something up. So what did I do? My characters live on the mountains. Granted, in book2 they do go to town, but it’s not a real place. I can make up whatever I want and no one can say ‘hey, you wrote that wrong’.

I’m always in awe at those who write historicals. I think that it’s the hardest genre to write just because there’s so much you need to know. All those accuracies, you need to keep in the back of your mind or else you know someone is going to find it and point it out.

All in all, there are layers to researching. I Google (my main source to the wacky information you can’t ask someone out loud), but I also watch movies (fight scenes) and read other books. In the end, it all helps those puzzle pieces fall in place.

Check out how my other friends do research: Danie Ford Emma G. Delaney Kimberly Farris Kristen Koster

Research- When Paranormal Meets Science

I do a lot of research while I write. Yes, with paranormal, the lines blur and I do take that tactic when I can't explain some things, but, a lot of the times, I'm trying to combine the supernatural with science. Maybe it's because of my biology degree, but I can't just not try to explain why something may occur.

Sometimes, you just can't explain something.

But, just because something can't be explained now doesn't mean it won't ever be explained. Some things, we just don't have the knowledge or technology to use. Every day science and technology is growing. For example in January, scientists came closer to creating a cloak of invisibility. We're constantly hearing about medical discoveries like creating blood from stem cells.

So to close our minds off from things that don't make sense at the moment doesn't make sense. We may not understand it now, but we may in the future. I love thinking outside the figurative box. I like exploring the unknown and seeing what can be done. And it's this that influences my books, Fatal Visions in particular.

Research: A Writer's Goldmine

Research, it's something that all writers must do. We just don't know everything, even though sometimes we like to think that we do. They always say to write what you know, but if that were the case, you wouldn't get all these great paranormals or fantasies, etc. There would be so much that readers would miss out on.

I recently had to write an action scene where the hero is trapped in a burning building. I definitely have never been in such a situation. Just like I've never been involved in a gun fight. I wouldn't know half of what to do if someone came up to me with a gun. In reality, I'm a chicken. A big one. I'm not brave enough to walk into scary situations. I run.

The solution? Research.

Obvious duh right? I'm constantly amazed with what's on the net. There's always someone who knows something about it. Even tv now, there's shows out there to give you a bit of an experience about what to do, whether it's Survivorman, Surviving Disaster, or whatever. What research sites/shows do you love?

How I Write-- Research

Brainchild of Ansha Kotyk, How I Write is a weekly blog series all about writing and the different styles we all have. Click on the banner to go to the homepage and visit other participants or click below. This week is all about research.

I've always done a lot of research. Mind you, it also depends on what a person writes. For me, I tend to do a lot of science-y stuff. I do like to try and explain why they can sort of do what they can, even if it's paranormalish. I have books for that... books that talk about the science behind comic book heroes, or the television show heroes... books about the way the brain works and technologies that are being developed that will become the future. I use these to develop my story and layer it.

Or try to.

I don't really do a whole lot of research before I write. I used to. When I was first starting, I spent hours filling out books on serial killers or forensic techniques... or viruses. I spent hours on the computer printing out science terms, things I didn't even use. Recently with the start of Muses, I did do a bit of research on Nostradamus and ancient Greek/Rome. For the most part, I don't research first.

While writing is usually when I will; as things crop up. The science shelves in Chapters is my friend.

There are things I don't research however. Things such as real people or places. Everything I write is fictional in that way. It's isolated in the mountains... or the town is something that doesn't really exist. I don't have the patience to look for these small details that readers will be able to pick out. Of course, it's said that you might risk not involving your reader into the story but honestly, I like knowing that it's a made up world. I don't need the streets of downtown Toronto in my story or the inclusion of... whoever. For me, it just doesn't work that way.

The Wandering Imagination

Sometimes, writing makes me research things I never expected to ever be curious about. Other times, research just doesnt' seem to be enough. Sometimes, there's just no other way than to live it for yourself, to experience it first-hand. Granted, a lot of what I write I could never truly experience just because I tend to write paranormal/urban fantasy.

For instance, I will never in my lifetime meet an ancient Greek warrior who was locked away in an amulet. Nor will I ever find myself in a Bed and Breakfast that just so happens to be a source for literal time travel. Some things, a person just can't experience unless it's in their imagination.

But there are things I never expected to -have- to explain. Like take for instance my Greek warrior, Talon, who suddenly is going to find himself in the modern day in the middle of a gunfight. There is so much that he's not going to know and it'll have to be explained. So what do I do today? I Google guns and how to work them and just what would be the perfect gun for my heroine to sport. This is something I could experience, if I wanted to, I suppose. If I went on a firing range... just how to properly fire and the tools and trades.

I love history, always have, so writing the book with this ancient Greek is fascinating. Yes, it's modern day, but he is still going to have a personality that is so different than what a person use to this time would have. His world as he knew it is going to come through in not only his attitudes about things but his words and gestures and just how he interacts with the world. I can't wait because I know he's going to be so fun to write. I'm only partially into the manuscript but I'm already loving him and the heroine.

And it's just one of the reasons I love writing. It can take me on such curious/wicked paths I would never have expected.

Thursday Thirteen: 13 books I'm reading...

I'm at home at my parents for the week. I love it here-- the open fields, the surrounding bush, the lake... the fact that it takes 20-30 mins to walk to neighbours. Pictures will come once I'm back again and am not on dial up, but seriously, I love it here. But just because I'm home, doesn't mean that I wouldn't have books on me. Some are mere research books and it will be oh so clear what topic. LOL. Others are for pleasure reading...

1. Sylvia Browne- Past Lives, Future Healing (Ok I admit I didn't actually bring this with me. My aunt had it and it has to do with cell memory and because it's something my novel has to do with, I decided to borrow it).
2.The ESP Enigma by Diane Hennacy Powell
3. The Science of Heroes: The real life possibilities behind the hit show by Yvonne Carts-Powell
4. The Physics of Superheroes by James Kakalios
5. PSIence: How New Discoveries in Quantum Physics and New Science May Explain the Existence of Paranormal Phenomena by Marie Jones
6. More than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement by Ramez Naam
7. Burning Alive by Shannon Butcher
8. Small Favor by Jim Butcher
9. Night Secrets by Cherry Adair
10. Bound by Honor by Colette Gale
11. A Drop of Red by Chris Marie Green
12. With Open Arms by Nora Roberts
13. A Perfect Darkness by Jaime Rush.