While tracking down more information about the biological progression of language and fairy tales blog, I found a few other really cool articles that followed the thread of the fairy tales. To disseminate what I mean about “fairy tales in reality,” I found a few things that are suggestive of something magical in different parts of the world that offer inspiration for my own writing. I’m currently working on a project about mermaids so the first one especially called to me:
Mysterious Deep Hum Found Within The Ocean’s “Twilight Zone”
The library in this breathtaking ‘Beauty and the Beast’ photo shoot is real
Human Remains Found Under Irish Pub May Rewrite History
The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast are two of my favorite fairy tales (and Disney movies). Knowing that some part of them, even in spirit, exist in the real world alongside me always inspires me to create that sort of magic in my writing. That last one just hits my horror interests since Europe in general is built on old cities built on old cities. The remains of Richard III were found under a London parking lot, after all.
It brings up something else that is a good rule of thumb for writing in general: doing your research can be insightful, rewarding, and overwhelming. My current project centers around researching a lot of broad subjects in a lot of detail, specifically for the ocean. To give you an idea of the stuff I am researching:
- Maine coastline
- Maine islands
- Maine geography and climate, weather patterns
- Ocean currents
- Pollution in the Northeast (especially Maine)
- Mermaid anatomy (how it would work and also be different)
- Suicide procedures for high school-aged kids and medical leave at universities
- Law internships
As you can see, it would be easy to get overwhelmed. What I find works best is to write the scenes and note in the document what I need to research to make that scene work and going back in next drafts to make any corrections.
How do you approach researching your stories? What are the ways that you put this information together?
Next time: organizing research into a useful format to write your story without vomiting information at your reader but also giving them some guidance about your world.
Worldbuilding: Writing for Intermediate Writers 