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I have to say, for the majority of my stories, I fly by the seat of my pants. Most of them, are on fantasy worlds, and while they require world building, I always just sorta roll with the 'pseudo-European' model.
However, the next story I'm writing requires enough research that I've got a stack of library books about China, Mongols, Egypt, Rome, the Tsars of Russia and so on and so forth.
I've got notes, on my personal diary (linked in the side bar) about the thoughts I've had about where my research needs to go next.
It's best for me to put it online, so that I can find it all with the use of my tags. Of course, the poor f-list gets inundated with those thoughts, especially when I get them multiple times per day.
A lot of the time the research is always a bit extraneous to the writing.
No matter how much you research, there are going to be things in it that you can't fit into the writing. And you're going to want to. There are going to be bits and pieces that you know you can just fit in, if you just tweak here and there...
Except then, your writing reads like a text book, and that is almost never fun.
Research and writing have to be carefully balanced. If I want a society based off of Ivan IV's (the Terrible) reign in Tsarist Russia, I can't just start dumping in every detail about his attempted social reforms.
Unless they start becoming relevant to the plot, there are things that you need to know, that the reader probably doesn't.
I'm involved in my research and love the way it's going. I hope I can bring it across in my writing, and hope that my research makes my writing better.
However, the next story I'm writing requires enough research that I've got a stack of library books about China, Mongols, Egypt, Rome, the Tsars of Russia and so on and so forth.
I've got notes, on my personal diary (linked in the side bar) about the thoughts I've had about where my research needs to go next.
It's best for me to put it online, so that I can find it all with the use of my tags. Of course, the poor f-list gets inundated with those thoughts, especially when I get them multiple times per day.
A lot of the time the research is always a bit extraneous to the writing.
No matter how much you research, there are going to be things in it that you can't fit into the writing. And you're going to want to. There are going to be bits and pieces that you know you can just fit in, if you just tweak here and there...
Except then, your writing reads like a text book, and that is almost never fun.
Research and writing have to be carefully balanced. If I want a society based off of Ivan IV's (the Terrible) reign in Tsarist Russia, I can't just start dumping in every detail about his attempted social reforms.
Unless they start becoming relevant to the plot, there are things that you need to know, that the reader probably doesn't.
I'm involved in my research and love the way it's going. I hope I can bring it across in my writing, and hope that my research makes my writing better.
