Thursday, February 24, 2011

Handy how-to's

One thing about writing/attempting to write fiction is that you very quickly come up against the limits of your knowledge. You're going along and suddenly realize your character--or at least the narrator--has to know something that you don't.

This is, of course, an opportunity to conduct research. And the internet makes it possible to do that research without getting out of your chair. Potentially, the very ease of doing so can lead you to waste time wading through websites when you should be writing. But you can also come across genuinely interesting stuff like this . It's a good find, even though it's kind of tangential to the story I'm writing.

Dead birds are a weirdly ubiquitous part of life, whether you live in the country or the town. Or the really big town.

4 comments:

susan said...

I seem to have encountered a missing link but I agree research can often lead to utter distraction.

Ben said...

Oops. I forgot to include it. Hence the missing link that would never be found by the Leakeys. But I have it now, and it actually redeems the idea of research, somewhat.

susan said...

Thankfully, we never found a dead hummingbird in our balcony garden in Portland.

One of the earlier items purchased here, however, was a Super Soaker for chasing pigeons off the current one.

Jennifer Innes said...

Wow, I see this blog has come full circle as your second post or so was about a dead duck and this post mentions dead birds, or maybe this is just a theme...
Anyways, I'm new to your blog and liking it so far. :)