#am researching

[rosesutherlandwrites]

Today’s (final? Possibly?) research task is a trip to La Concergeirie and then along the path of Marie Antoinette’s final journey to Place de la Concorde. No doubt I will be stymied at the final intersection by something Olympics-related, which has been an ongoing theme of this trip, but it’ll be fine.

No I’m NOT planning a Marie Antoinette book. I’m setting something in the directorate era and the main character has a formative memory of being front and centre at her execution as a child, and I want to possibly prologue it—also something something thematic about how we build women up to tear them down.

[melanielocke]

Question:

I am researching for a new WIP. It's called You are not the Chosen One and is a subversion of the Chosen One trope. In this world, it's typical that every generation or so, the biggest threat is defeated by a chosen one, and I want those past chosen ones and conflicts be similar to how the trope often plays out in fiction. The story itself takes place as another big threat that's been around for some time becomes impossible to ignore, but the mc sees there is no chosen one this time. Because no one believes him, he convinces a girl who wants nothing more than to be the chosen one that she's the chosen one. She knows everything there is to know about chosen ones, but I am still working out what that is.

So, what are things you often see with chosen ones? What tropes are often repeated? What do you think of when you think of the chosen one trope?

@alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer @life-through-the-eyes-of @astriefer @justanormaldemon @ipromiseiwillwrite @a-dream-dirty-and-bruised @amchara @all-for-the-fanfiction @imsoftforthomastair @ddepressedbookworm @queenlilith43 @wagner-fell @cant-think-of-anything @laylax13s @tessherongraystairs @boredfangirl16 @artist-in-soul @aliandtommy @ikissedsmithparker

[chainofclovers]

“Dress shorts and skorts, no shorter than mid-thigh length, for women are permitted.“

-- the La Jolla Country Club clubhouse attire policy

I hate country clubs so much.

If you’re drafting a policy that includes a take on dress shorts and skorts, you’ve gotta stop and ask yourself what you’re doing.

[strange-particles]

I won’t even start official dissertation work until January but my secondary sources bibliography is already at almost 40 sources (articles alone).  So either I’m going to wow my dissertation committee when we talk comps prep this semester, or they’re going to think I’m outta my gourd.  

[rosesutherlandwrites]

Things I know about writing historical that I didn’t really get until recently: writing in times and places you have already learned loads about through osmosis (for me that’s Nova Scotia—and the early 1830’s, thanks Les Mis fandom?) is a lot easier than leaping a project set somewhere and when you don’t already feel in your guts (southern Auvergne, 1760’s)

It’s much harder to latch onto the rhythm and flavour of a place you only lived in for two months, while doing a hard core internship, without realizing you would one day want to set a novel there, the research and imaginative leaps involved are REAL

[rosesutherlandwrites]

Hey friends! A different sort of an ask from me today: An important character in a project I’m working on right now has epilepsy. I’ve done a fair bit of research, but I’m wondering if anyone I know who has epilepsy might be willing to talk with me a little bit and answer a few questions about your experiences living with and managing it? I’m hoping get a sense of folks’ lived experience (rather than just seeing what medical professionals have to say about it which is where my research keeps leading me)so that I can be both respectful and as accurate as possible.

I’m also hoping once I have this draft in a decent shape for beta readers, you might be willing to have a look at it specifically for the sake of calling me out if I do misstep, because getting this right is important to me.

If this sounds like something you might be interested in helping with, please feel free to slide into my DM’s and say hi. Thank you so much.

[rosesutherlandwrites]

Okay French Rev Tumblr, I could really use your help—I’m about to start in on researching a project that is set in 1798, which so far as I can tell given my very limited poking about so far, pretty much comes after all the events (and people) that everyone discusses a lot, and a solid bit of time before the next set of major events that I’m familiar with. 

So: can anyone tell me what the heck was going on in France by 1798? I would love any sort of book or resource recs to point me in the right direction, and especially anything that could give me any insight into the daily life of regular people. 

[rosesutherlandwrites]

I’m reading the best stuff researching my new WIP and it is just loaded with things I never knew about the history of the place I grew up in. Knock ´Em Down Row! Cold blooded murders in Taverns like the Bluebell and the Waterloo and the Black Dog. Prostitues having fistfights, then gamely going down the next day to bail the same girl who blacked their eye out of the lock up. Tragic and deadly poorhouse fires. Attempted suicide by way of smothering oneself in a snowbank (i...how..?). A Redcoat riot confronted by an angry mob of local tenement dwellers infuriated at the cost of replacing their broken windows. I am rolling in historical riches here!