When it's clear no one bothered to research

BunnyMaz said:

This episode? To be fair, I think with NCIS you kind of have to have very low expectations or phenomenal suspension of disbelief to get through any episode.

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My older sister's a med tech and she watches those shows as if they were sitcoms.

scarletpeaches said:

Call it Butt-Bacon Boogie and dedicate it to me.

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Stacia Kane said:

Out in the country past the city limit sign
Well there's a cemetery near the county line
The joint starts jumpin’ every night when the sun goes down
They got entrails, detached limbs & brains
It's where all the zombie folk go to butt-bacon boogie

I died twenty years ago but I still kick around
When it's eatin’ time I climb up out of the ground
My legs are kinda weak but I head toward the town
I go stumblin' cross the road to that old folk's home
Stuck out in the woods to do the butt-bacon boogie

Yeah, feets, toes, dosey doe come on baby let's eat the butt-bacon
Oh, Cadillac, blackjack, baby slice up those backs we're gonna boogie
Oh tear em up, gobble up now we sup the butt-bacon boogie

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LQJYgs1sxc

scarletpeaches said:

I've never watched a single episode of House. Am I the only living person to be able to say that truthfully?

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Hah! Got you beat. I've never watched an episode of M*A*S*H, Cheers, or Friends, either.

BenPanced said:

My older sister's a med tech and she watches those shows as if they were sitcoms.

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My 27-year-old daughter does this too. She loves to count the number of times Horatio takes off/puts on his sunglasses. This mindset makes the show far more enjoyable.

caw

Mom and I like to imitate Horatio's head tilt.

blacbird said:

My 27-year-old daughter does this too. She loves to count the number of times Horatio takes off/puts on his sunglasses. This mindset makes the show far more enjoyable.

caw

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Sunglasses of Justice.


(This isn't the "original" SoJ, which seems to have disappeared. Sigh.)

A particle weapon fired at a planet in another system. The next day they monitored the destruction of the target. I stopped reading at that point.

blacbird said:

My 27-year-old daughter does this too. She loves to count the number of times Horatio takes off/puts on his sunglasses. This mindset makes the show far more enjoyable.
caw

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Yes, it does!

Alexandra Little said:

Mom and I like to imitate Horatio's head tilt.

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Yeah, what's up with that? A definite source of jokes in my house.

And we also started noticing the way he says "Maybe"; he kind of drags out the word when he's trying to figure out what's going on. We started watching for him to say "Maybe" and then cracked up laughing whenever he said it.

Ergodic Mage said:

A particle weapon fired at a planet in another system. The next day they monitored the destruction of the target. I stopped reading at that point.

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Maybe the "other system" was centered around a brown dwarf orbiting the same star as the planet firing the weapon?

Hey, I tried

Just a question I had. The theme of research showed up in quite a few threads, but I wanted to know: only a search at Google is enough to write a novel, though?

I'm plotting a novel which will happen at an asylum in Virginia, already demolished, and while I know its history and what happened in asylums by the time of my novel, I have no idea how is like inside of it. Google won't tell me that, neither I can afford a trip to see it.

Sure I won't be any accurate in relation to this. Google never seems to be enough for me, but if I stop writing my novels because of that, I'll never finish one!

Persei said:

Just a question I had. The theme of research showed up in quite a few threads, but I wanted to know: only a search at Google is enough to write a novel, though?

I'm plotting a novel which will happen at an asylum in Virginia, already demolished, and while I know its history and what happened in asylums by the time of my novel, I have no idea how is like inside of it. Google won't tell me that, neither I can afford a trip to see it.

Sure I won't be any accurate in relation to this. Google never seems to be enough for me, but if I stop writing my novels because of that, I'll never finish one!

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My opinion: Work on your google skills. Search for articles and images separately. And use several different search terms. Do it often, too, because results will vary with general web traffic. You will find a lot of interesting stuff.

And if you don't, then there's a chance your topic is so obscure, it won't matter what you write.

I do this during the drafting process. I won't bother with hunting down experts until I am ready to polish and finish the story. I build up huge volumes of references, and I'll only go hunting for experts later on the most important or tricky points.

Now, if I needed info on that demolished building in Virginia and I couldn't find it by a simple google search, then I'd google the town or county in Virginia where it was located. I would look up the local government office that deals with property records -- Town or County Clerk, Registrar of Deeds, Tax Collector's Office, Zoning or Building Commission, usually -- and see if they have posted any public records about that building. Some local governments put old records online so they can get rid of the paper files and not have to maintain the storage spaces, if they have the money for such a project. I would also google local libraries to see if there are any posted archives of old images of the location. And if there is nothing online from such sources, I would contact the sources directly and ask a human being if any such information might exist.

And if I come up empty on that building, I would remember that abandoned hospitals all look alike after a few years, and I'd use descriptions or images from any building.

Anyway, since the building you are writing about no longer exists, maybe it's more important to get the sense of what abandoned asylums are like inside in general and not worry so much about that one particular abandoned asylum. It's not like anyone is going to go look at it to find the mistakes you made.

Persei said:

Just a question I had. The theme of research showed up in quite a few threads, but I wanted to know: only a search at Google is enough to write a novel, though?

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Experts of all varieties are very willing to help writers.
See if there's someone who was there at the time who you could talk with.
Is there someone near the site you're interested in who would be willing to be interviewed, either on the phone or by mail?

Is there a local historical society?

Google is nowhere close to being enough.

There are a LOT of people who make a hobby out of exploring abandoned asylums and posting the pictures on blogs and websites. Because I'm pretty fascinated by such things (and love wandering around abandoned buildings myself), I've spent countless happy, enthralled, and slightly creeped-out hours looking at them.

Don't just look for the asylum's name. Do a separate image search, like Muravyets suggests, but also more general searches: mental institution Virginia, abandoned mental institution Virginia, asylum Virginia, abandoned &c, urban spelunking Virginia...if you find the names of any members of staff there Google those, too. It's also good to look for things like "haunted Virginia" or "haunted asylum Virginia" or whatever, because a lot of urban legends spring up around places like that and the site owners often post not just abandoned-building photos but archival images. Some of these sites deliberately misspell or omit the names of the specific buildings, since, you know, illegal trespassing. Especially since in some places the penalty isn't just a slap-on-the-wrist fine, but can--depending on state/local laws, the condition of the building itself (is it abandoned or condemned? Did they have to break in or just climb a fence?), who owns the property, etc.--be pretty serious, like big fines or jail time.


I stumbled on some of these through pure luck; in one case I was looking for the asylum where a particular horror movie was filmed (wish I could remember the name of it, ugh, but it was creepy as heck and about three men hired to clean or do repairs to the building, and one finds tapes of a therapy session) and it led me to a bunch of other places, and in another I stumbled across a ghost story and ended up discovering that dozens of people had visited that particular place and posted tons of photos, including some of filing cabinets still full of files (which I used in the second Demons book, actually, the idea that the files were still there).

Abandoned buildings are beautiful and tragic. I love looking at them.


So it's definitely worth devoting some extra time to. I bet you'll turn up something (and I'd love to know what you find/the name of the place?).

Also, talk to your local reference librarian.

(And don't mind the sound of my head hitting the desk multiple times, it's one of the hazards of my occupation )

I have a bad research pet peeve which has showed up in at least four novels I've read now. Epically poor (like, no parents, lives with elderly jobless relative, works weekends at a diner) teenage character defied all odds and got into Stanford...but unless they get that big scholarship, they won't be able to go. Cue angsting over award of scholarship for entire novel. Sorry, but no. Stanford gives out need based scholarships to everyone automatically. So ole No-Income McGee ought to be doing dances of joy the second she gets admitted, cause she's guaranteed a free ride.

This is not secret information, and it's been the case for years that low income families don't pay tuition. I especially dislike it because it sets Stanford up as a socioeconomically elitist institution, when it is literally spending millions in financial aid every year in order to NOT be. *shakes fist at lazy researchers*

Stacia Kane said:

I stumbled on some of these through pure luck; in one case I was looking for the asylum where a particular horror movie was filmed (wish I could remember the name of it, ugh, but it was creepy as heck and about three men hired to clean or do repairs to the building, and one finds tapes of a therapy session)

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That'd be Session 9. Very creepy.

James D. Macdonald said:

Experts of all varieties are very willing to help writers.
See if there's someone who was there at the time who you could talk with.
Is there someone near the site you're interested in who would be willing to be interviewed, either on the phone or by mail?

Is there a local historical society?

Google is nowhere close to being enough.

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Last year, when I was doing a fiction column that had to reflect local history and interests, I went to the local town museum (even some quite small towns have these), talked to the lady there, looked up old pictures in the local library, and also looked around cemeteries. Found some interesting details on a historical marker in a graveyard. (As well as two rows of "Unknown Child" markers that made me picture a bus full of orphans being hit by a circus train.)

In the first edition of King Solomon's Mines, there was a full moon, a solar eclipse and another full moon on three consecutive days/nights. Sloppy astronomical research from H Rider Haggard there, but it was spotted by a careful reader. A lunar eclipse appeared in subsequent editions.

I make no claims for this being true, by the way, but I'm sure I read it in a Patrick Moore book about a million years ago, and surely he wouldn't fib.

LindaJeanne said:

Hey, I tried

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More than the author did. ha

Priene said:

In the first edition of King Solomon's Mines, there was a full moon, a solar eclipse and another full moon on three consecutive days/nights. Sloppy astronomical research from H Rider Haggard there, but it was spotted by a careful reader. A lunar eclipse appeared in subsequent editions.

I make no claims for this being true, by the way, but I'm sure I read it in a Patrick Moore book about a million years ago, and surely he wouldn't fib.

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I don't know if that story's true, but I have read astronomical references that indicated the author hadn't done research to the extent of ... looking at the sky at some point during their lives.

Basically, if the author is saying, I know this doesn't really work, but I wanted to see what happens if I work off the premise that it could maybe work, come and join me in this little experiment, I'm game. But if their attitude is one of trying to show off, or else you can tell that they just didn't bother to research, I'm seething all the way through. Unfortunately, I have to finish books once I started them, so there's a lot of seething going on, but at the same time I'm also taking mental notes on how not to write for myself.

EMaree said:

Brit here, and they definitely teach American geography in schools here, though not in huge detail. I think the sense of scale is lost to a lot of kids.

And you'd be horrified by the amount of Americans I've had conversations with who think England and Britain are the same place, or think that Scotland or the UK are an American state. (Obligatory Mitt Romney nod.)

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Not just Americans. I've had Poles conveniently lump the entire island together as "England" because "it's the way we speak." Mind you, this was one particular group of people, so I'm not speaking for the entire nation, but they were pretty well educated and well-traveled. And they had all been to the UK. A lot of them didn't even realize that there was such a thing as Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Considering all the American places that were named after towns in Europe and even some countries in America (I'm guessing also Canada, but I only spent less than a year there when I was a kid, so can't talk with any authority where that's concerned), I can understand why you'd get that immediate reaction of "which state is that place in?" We used to live in Bayonne, NJ for a while, and every time you mentioned Bayonne to my dad after that, he'd ask if you meant the town in NJ or the one in France. And to say he was well-traveled would be a gross understatement. But I can also understand how people feel put out if you get their hometown mixed up with something else that's more or less alien to them.

Like you said, the sense of scale is impossible to imagine if you haven't lived there. Until the age of nineteen, I spent half my time in North America and the other half in Europe. What got me were the prejudices and preconceived notions a lot of the teachers had about the U.S. at the schools I ended up in, the one where they asked me how come I couldn't play basketball when everyone played basketball in America was the nicest.

As an interesting aside, when I was in Germany, Romania was the country a lot of fellow students came from as they were ethnic Germans there. In the English-speaking countries, Romania was always associated with Dracula (no one at the school I went to in Germany even mentioned this, though I'm sure in other parts of Germany it would have gotten mentioned).

When I was at university in England, a lot of the students there knew their facts when it came to France, Germany, Spain, and the countries they came from and had friends in. In our group, no one really knew anything about Eastern Europe, so I'd get a lot of whispered "where is that place again" comments when some places in Hungary were mentioned, or even Bulgaria. And this was an international group of students. Someone once pointed out to us that sure we as Europeans know about all the European countries and their capitals, but do we have any idea how many countries there are in Africa and what their capitals are? That really got me thinking. In France (my native country so to speak), I went to a travel agent who dealt with international students and was located in a student district to book a flight to Budapest, Hungary (my specifications). When the travel agent printed it all out, I saw that she'd booked the ticket for Bucharest.

And to cap it all off, when a German friend told me she'd travel to Hungary with me "only if it's by the Black Sea", polyglot, multilingual, cross-cultural yours truly marched straight into the nearest travel agency announcing, "I'd like to book a flight to the Black Sea in Hungary, please." I realized later it was April Fools', but I still felt stupid as anything.

One case where the whole issue of sloppy research was really well spoofed was the episode in The Big Bang Theory (I think it was Season 2) when they enter the Physics Bowl against Sheldon and his "team". One of Sheldon's teammates answers the question correctly, and then tells him that he was a physicist at "Leningrad Polytechnica" before adding, "go Polar Bears." I heard from a lot of Finnish friends that they kept getting asked if they had polar bears in Finland, and I'm guessing it's the same for other places more or less close to the Arctic Circle, so bringing that into the show was a stroke of genius to me.

Ari Meermans said:

It depends, really. When I see something that is as factually wrong as the adoption age limit you cited, I tend to assume (at first) the character is lying for their own purposes. If that proves not to be the case, and it was indeed a research error, I become highly annoyed. I won't read that author again.

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This.

LeslieB said:

There is a historical fiction series I like that is very nicely done, but I always giggle when I get to one scene. It involves a kitchen, and it is remarked several times that the cook keeps a *wet* cloth for handling hot kettles.

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Maybe the cook had super powers and wanted to be sure everyone was aware of that. Or else Cook was into (subtle) S&M by stating, look at how tough I am, I can pick up a hot kettle with a wet cloth.

Lexxie said:

I sometimes get completely put off by inaccurate information too, but my big no-no is having and MC or another major character speak another language than English, and then have that other language be persistently wrong It shouldn't be all that difficult to get someone to check the French/Spanish/German or whatever other language (that often is not necessary for the plot) to at least have it correct, no?

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I so agree! It's getting to the point where I'm already looking for the mistakes, because I know they'll be there. And in most cases, I get the feeling that they're just sticking it in there to show off. I get that some phrases you just can't translate, and they really work better in the original. For some reason I'm thinking of Yiddish terms. But then, especially in the English-speaking world, we've been around enough Yiddish terms to be familiar with them. It's also true that people shift in and out of languages frequently. My brother and I used to do it a lot, because of the way we grew up, and I know a lot of people who do. But do it because it's natural, not because you want to show off how much you know (and then end up looking stupid). If you really want to convey what you know of the language, either write in it or else think in it while you're writing in English or whatever language you're writing in. You'll adapt the flow and feel automatically. There was one book about Hungary that really made me want to throw the whole thing across the room.

JSSchley said:

It depends on what the particular issue is and how much I otherwise enjoy the book.

On page 5 or so of FIFTY SHADES OF GREY, the main character gets in her car and drives from Vancouver, WA toward Portland to get to Seattle. She also gets to Seattle in under an hour. The only thing I can conclude is that the author didn't realize the United States and Canada are separate countries and mistook Vancouver, B.C. for Vancouver, WA. But surely, they teach North American geography in England the same way they teach European geography in the U.S.? I mean, even with the whole Great Britain thing, I think most Americans understand that Scotland is not England and vice versa...

But I was looking for a reason to fling that book against the wall.

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I always got the feeling with 50 Shades that she just wanted to see how far she could go, and how much she could get away with. Still not (entirely) convinced the whole thing isn't some kind of study of how much humanity can accept / buy before it starts yelling "foul." Haven't read it though, because from what I've picked up on so far, the whole thing reeks of arrogance to me (let's see how we can fool others, let's see how little research I can get away with, etc) and so not planning on it, so I'll bow out now. Although, if I'm spouting off on it, I really should read it.

LindaJeanne said:

I think it's interesting to watch trends in what monsters are popular and ask what it says about the collective fears of society. Zombies in their "modern" form seem, to me, to represent both the fear of global pandemics and the fear of the rise in extremist forms of fundamentalism (i.e. group-think mindless hordes that want to eat your brains and make you just like them).

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There was a part in one of the Burke novels by Andrew Vachss where he went to see a Voodoo priestess, and she explained to him how he was one of the living dead, because he was dead inside from being emotionless. I remember having this huge "aha" moment when I read that.

I loved the entire series, and for a while I was a huge fan (still love the books, but looked into other things). There was a moment though where he mentioned something about people and dinosaurs living at the same time. I tried to look for a way that he was doing it to make a point, but I remember thinking, really? Why did you have to do that? I had so much respect for you until now. I think I got over it, by using a similar situation in my WIP, but it took a while. And, to the best of my knowledge, that's the only case where I was able to forgive (but not forget), and he definitely dropped a few notches on my "hero" scale.

James D. Macdonald said:

Experts of all varieties are very willing to help writers.
See if there's someone who was there at the time who you could talk with.
Is there someone near the site you're interested in who would be willing to be interviewed, either on the phone or by mail?

Is there a local historical society?

Google is nowhere close to being enough.

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I usually google it first, then go to Wikipedia. In both cases it's to get a general idea. Then I start harassing the experts. A lot of them are more than willing to help you out, like you said. Funny thing though is, I've had people refer me to the internet as though that were the ultimate authority, ironically, usually not the experts but the people I needed to ask about the experts. Much as I love and respect the internet, I still prefer talking to people and seeing the places (which isn't always possible). But it seems to be a dying trend these days. I sometimes set assignments for my students that force them to ask people. It's good for their language skills, but I'm also hoping that it will make research more interesting so they pick it up again.

The CSI: NY episode that Danica Patrick guested on comes to mind. Beyond everything being wrong it was just horrible. They showed a professional racing league using plastic barriers instead of walls, the car was tube frame instead of carbon fiber... just everything was wrong.

MDSchafer said:

So I'm watching "Tomorrow,When the War began," and despite the fact it's essentially the Australian version of Red Dawn (Some scenes are almost shot for shot) there's just one massive plot hole I can't really get past... who would attack Australia?

Seriously? How messed up do you have to be to try conquer Australia? They're largely detached from the world politically, have a massive land area and America and England (Okay, so it would be mostly America but Britain would "Help") would essentially remove modern technology from your country via strategic bombing so fast you're population would think they always lived in the stone age. This plot hole is so large they don't even address it in the movie. The attackers are vaguely Asian, don't speak any recognizable language and seemingly have no motivation for attacking. At one point the writers hang a lantern on it when they say, "What difference does a flag make," and then never address the subject again.

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Australia is mineral rich. They produce 14% of the world's zinc - the second largest producer after China (thanks Wikipedia!).

Also, it's full of things which kill you, so if you are of a mindset to go around bringing death and destruction to everything you survey, it's a good place to get organic supplies.

Momento Mori said:

I agree - I thought that was a really good book that resonated with me for a while afterwards and I'm surprised that it's getting such a critical hammering in the UK. The science holes didn't bother me because it wasn't so much about the science as about the reaction of people to disasters they can't control or stop and I loved the central idea of the world slowly going out with a whimper.

MM

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I've just read that too! I finally feel like one of the cool kids. It was very good, but ... (not really spoilery but as this is a very recent book I'll err on the side of caution):

***... a bit light on actual plot. By the half way point I felt it began to drag, but I did like the idea a lot (even if the science went a bit wonky).***




The thing which enrages me to the point I've often considered setting up a Tumblr in its honour: Blood on the Sheets.

If. There. Is. Blood. The. First. Time. You. Have. Penetrative. Sex. With. Her. You. Are. Probably. Doing. It. Wrong. Here is some useful information about the vaginal corona (technically safe for work).

EMaree said:

Zombie rules vary a lot depending on the writer. There's no set of rules that every zombie show or book will follow to the letter, so as long as the rules have been established to allow fist-fighting a zombie I'm fine with it. Did they bother to establish any rules or just go straight to the punch-up?

Quite a few takes on zombies have it only spread by blood-on-blood, or blood contact is fine and only a bite will kill you. Some shows even have characters that are flat-out immune to infection and can do what they like in a fight as long as they survive it.

Personally, I prefer when shows depict zombies without superstrength -- just walking corpses (none of that running dead business), complete with falling apart brittleness.

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I guess what bothers me most if that in the previous scene of this book, the MC's girlfriend is infected by a small scratch in her ankle. The zombie that infected her had superhuman strength and whatnot, but when she was infected the same rules didn't apply.

This was in a short story and the writing was horrendous on top of everything else. I don't mind if people bend the rules of monsters (I actually enjoy this), but I HATE it when authors aren't consistent in their own story and that's what happened here. The rules I posted were set by the author in the initial scene and then he broke them throughout the story to make the "human" main character like some kind of James Bond superhero.

Theo81 said:

The thing which enrages me to the point I've often considered setting up a Tumblr in its honour: Blood on the Sheets.

If. There. Is. Blood. The. First. Time. You. Have. Penetrative. Sex. With. Her. You. Are. Probably. Doing. It. Wrong. Here is some useful information about the vaginal corona (technically safe for work).

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Ayup!