As an chronic overthinker turned writer, I walk a delicate balance between attention to detail and spending too much time nit-picking things that the readers won't care about.
My brain is such, I need a degree of confidence to add anything into the narrative. This has led to long researchers sessions for my WIP (possible title changed to “The Odd-Job Wizard”). As I wrap up the second draft, my internet serach history had gotten very werid. Here are some of the highlights and an explaination for them.
Historical Building Design
The most notable example in the story are three 'sets' the water channel for the mill, assessors offices, smokehouses. Swindlers Bounty is a frontier colony. I needed a technology level that fit. Also, I had to see if it was possible for the characters to up-cycle the building. Leon's smokehouse was based of one from a Ante-Bellum plantation. They could cure multiple carcasses as once.
An invaluable resource were the illustrated 'If you lived in a __' books that were popular with Usborne and Scholastic in the 90's. The cutaways made it easier to get a sense of scale for the character. This helped with the water mill scenes. It also gave me the technical name for breakable-yet-could-be plausibly-repaired pieces.
How Big Is It?
Animals also required a bit of legwork. Mostly to check size and weight. My problem once again was getting a sense of scale. I ended up writing down numbers and pacing out the size with a tape measure.
The first draft had Celabramar's politically fraught snacks being cows and the ranchers more like old Western beef barons. This was changed to sheep as they were smaller and easier for a dragon of his size to lift off the ground.
I also fact checked the size of a moose head trophy through a taxidermist website. They are big, but surprisingly light. (Makes sense in hindsight.)
Unit Conversion and Geometry
The biggest time sink was converting units of measurement. I cracked open the old geometry book to figure out the size of Celabramar's horde. I used the length of the dragon as the diameter of a cylinder and figure out the average height of the treasure pile.
From there I made a guesstimate of the value, by creating three equations for treasure piles made of mostly gold coins, mostly silver coins, and most copper coins. For fun, I also looked up the market value of beef cows and calculated how many cows each would buy.
All this work was to figure out how much Celabramar was willing to spend on moving his lair. It also lead to the plot device of his horde having more value as an coin collection than raw metal.
There were also other equations. However, they were before I settled on the idea of hot air balloon travel.
Red Meat or White Meat?
One of the last, and perhaps silliest, bits of research was about meat.
Throughout the story, Celabramar hunts
several different prey animals for trade or food. I felt confident
writing about deer, goat, sheep, crab – I've eaten them. The two I
have not are rabbit, which is expensive if you don't raise or hunt it
yourself, and swan.
Swan used to be a commercial meat. However,
the bird was granted protected status in the U.S.A. Unlike with
rabbit, I had trouble finding repeatable and ethically sources
descriptions swan meat.
In my first draft, Celabramar declares that swan is “Good red meat, lots of fats for the brain.”
My editor Meg Dendler was very confused by this. She replaced the the line as white and lean, more in line with a traditional poultry. I can safely say she had never eaten swan either.
However, I have eaten duck. Duck is dark meat, darker than turkey. It's also lean muscle fiber but the skin has a protective layer of fat that keeps it moist when cooked. I assumed, correctly, that swan was as to duck as turkey is to chicken – bigger with darker meat. My researched backed it up.
Nevertheless, the goal of a editor is to help the story make sense to readers. Duck is not a common dish in the U.S.A. However, turkey is a holiday tradition. With this common ground, I reworked the description to
“Nice dark meat, good bit of fat too. Excellent for the brain.”
This one line took about an hour of fact checking and world building. There are more detailed descriptions of swan like 'rich,' 'moist,' 'gamey,' 'fishy mutton,' etc. However, it's mostly for cooked swan and varies by dish. The dragon is describing raw, uncooked swan. He'd cares more about its nutritious value than its optimal wine pairing.
This is why it takes me so long to write anything! My brain overthinks everything.
