morally questionable party

Chrysalid Hidden in the Leaf

Summary: Naruto had invented the Centrefold Jutsu for the soul purpose of causing mischief. However, when the Hidden Village of Konoha continues their neglect, Naruto decides that, perhaps, it would be better to just not be Naruto all together. Along the way, he discovers himself.

Links: Archive of our Own | Spacebattles | Fanfiction.net

Chrysalid Hidden in the Leaf

Summary: Naruto had invented the Centrefold Jutsu for the soul purpose of causing mischief. However, when the Hidden Village of Konoha continues their neglect, Naruto decides that, perhaps, it would be better to just not be Naruto all together. Along the way, he discovers himself.

Links: Archive of our Own | Spacebattles | Fanfiction.net

Another in my series of excerpts from my The Saga of Zero project. Hope you enjoy! Any comments, I'd love to hear. Particularly, I'm interested about y'all thoughts on the religious elements within the excerpt, but also anything else you can think of!

Writing Research - Viking Age

The Viking Age is the period from 793 AD to 1066 AD in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, following the Germanic Iron Age. It is the period of history when Scandinavian Norsemen explored Europe by its seas and rivers for trade, raids and conquest. In this period, the Vikings also settled in Norse Greenland and Newfoundland, and present-day Faroe Islands, Iceland, Normandy, Scotland, Ireland, Russia and Anatolia. [1]

Names

Society & Life

Commerce

Entertainment & Food

Hygiene, Health & Medicine

Fashion

Dialogue

Justice & Crime

Writing Research - The Middle Ages

Middle Ages (or Medieval period), lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: Antiquity, Medieval period, and Modern period. The Medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, the High, and the Late Middle Ages. [1] [2]

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Writing Research - The Renaissance

The Renaissance from French: Renaissance "re-birth", Italian: Rinascimento, from rinascere "to be reborn" was a cultural movement that spanned the period roughly from the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. Though availability of paper and the invention of metal movable type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century, the changes of the Renaissance were not uniformly experienced across Europe. [1]

Names

Society & Life

Commerce

Entertainment & Food

Hygiene, Health & Medicine

Fashion

Dialogue

Justice & Crime

Writing Research - Symbolism

Symbolism is the use of symbols to signify ideas and qualities by giving them symbolic meanings that are different from their literal sense.

Symbolism can take different forms. Generally, it is an object representing another to give it an entirely different meaning that is much deeper and more significant. Sometimes, however, an action, an event or a word spoken by someone may have a symbolic value. For instance, “smile” is a symbol of friendship. Similarly, the action of someone smiling at you may stand as a symbol of the feeling of affection which that person has for you.

Symbols do shift their meanings depending on the context they are used in. “A chain”, for example, may stand for “union” as well as “imprisonment”. Thus, symbolic meaning of an object or an action is understood by when, where and how it is used. It also depends on the reader as each person may have different interpretations of a symbol. [1] [2]

It is recommended that you take advantage of the CTRL+F (or Command+F on a Mac) function on your keyboard. It will make searching for a particular symbolism much easier.

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Researching Orphans and Orphanages

Well, don’t die. That’s the first thing. This is not even a little bit worth dying over.

I don’t know what time period you’re talking about, or where your story is set. That’s not so great news, since it makes helping you out very difficult. WriteWorld isn’t a research blog, but I’m willing to do a few Google searches for you because you seem a bit overwhelmed. In the future, please don’t ask us to do research for you. We’re not really into that.

As far as our opinion on orphanages and orphaned characters goes, I (C of WriteWorld) think that if you want to write about them and you can pull it off, then you should write about them. Orphans have always been popular in stories, especially stories aimed at young people for some reason, but just because an orphan is a popular sort of character doesn’t mean you can’t write about them. Popularity doesn’t necessarily indicate a cliche, though a popular trope can sometimes become cliche. Cliches arise when a lack of original or deep thought eats a hole through the heart of a particular subject, making it groan-worthy and/or disrespectful. You can read over the topics on the TVTropes page linked below and find clear examples of tropes that have become cliched. But I’ll leave you to that. For now, let’s talk research.

Where should you start? Well, how much do you know about orphanages generally? Did everything you know about orphanages come from stories in movies, TV, and books? Read these articles on orphanages, adoption, etc. to gain a very broad understanding of the subject.

Do you know the difference between orphanages and group homes? Yahoo Answers user Wildgrl explains the general difference very well:

These aren’t the only valid definitions for orphanage and group home, and both are worth exploring more deeply, but I understand that you just want to know more about orphanages. So, on that note…

I’m just going to assume that you’re talking about modern-day, privately-run American orphanages for children with no living biological parents. If that’s the case, I recommend that you check out these articles and resources as well as do research on your own:

Or how about actually visiting the websites of modern-day orphanages?

You could even look up an orphanage near you and volunteer! Ain’t nothin’ quite like going to a place and actually experiencing what it is like to be there.

And here are just a few articles, resources, and IAMAs on modern-day orphanages from around the world:

There are TONS more resources on this topic on the internet. You could also check your local library for resources on orphanages, group homes, adoption, foster care, etc. You could research experts on this topic and interview them. There might even be a few fellow writers here on Tumblr who could help you out, either with research of their own or from their personal experiences with orphanages and/or group homes.

Remember, you’re writing about real things that affect real people. Please do more research than this. Please. I’m begging you. I literally just pulled together some articles I thought were interesting from the first few search queries I made. That’s barely enough research to write a Tumblr post on this subject, let alone an entire book.

If you need some help learning to conduct your own research, check out our research tag. There are great resources there to get you started.

Thanks for your question, and I hope this helps!

-C

Writing Research - Bow & Arrows

The purpose of this research post is to be helpful, more importantly educational. I certainly don’t condone the use of this knowledge for malevolent reasons. I want to help writers with their stories and I figured this would make their search for such information easier. 

This is great for the stories that take place in ancient times, apocalyptic setting, and/or contains characters that are archers. Maybe you’re writing fanfiction and it’s about one of these characters: Legolas Greenleaf, Bard the Bowman, Kili and Tauriel (The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit), Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games), Kagome Higurashi (InuYasha), Oliver Queen/Green Arrow (Arrow), Princess Merida (Brave), Susan Pevensie (The Chronicles of Narnia), Link (The Legend of Zelda), Hawkeye, Robin Hood, Lara Croft, and so on. 

This information would help make them believable. For example, if they are teaching another character how to be an archer it would be difficult to write about it without first knowing how it’s actually done in real life. The same can be said about when they are wounded by an arrow, just how would they deal with it? Or if your character is a survivalist or prepper and their story is set in an apocalypse world, they would probably know how to make weapons (like the bow and arrows) from the things around them in order to survive.

So this post is meant to make a writer’s life a little easier by giving them a starting point. It doesn’t contain EVERY information about bows, but if you know what you’re looking for than I encourage you to look it up. 

How To Make A Bow and Arrows

How To Use A Bow

How To Treat An Arrow Wound/Injury

Enlisted Ranks: Army

There’s nothing I hate more than a story that didn’t even try to get its ranks right. Why is a major giving orders to a colonel? Why is a first sergeant working with a bunch of fuzzies? Why the hell did you just call the sergeant major ‘sir’? 

Military ranks are different across the branches, but if your story features the U.S. Army, here’s a breakdown of enlisted ranks and rank etiquette. (other branches coming soon!)

Basics Ranks in the army follow a numerical pattern, so if you’re ever not quite sure what the name of the rank higher is, you can reference them by nomenclature. E-series: E stands for enlisted. This refers to soldiers from private to sergeant major.  O-series: O stands for officer. This refers to soldiers from second lieutenant to general. O-series post coming soon! W-series: W stands for warrant officer. This refers to soldiers from warrant officer 1 to chief warrant officer 5. W-series post coming soon! In ACUs, (army combat uniform) the rank is worn in the center of the chest via a velcro patch. In class-A uniforms, the rank is worn on the shoulder. Each pay grade earns slightly more per month than the one before it. Officers make significantly more money per month than enlisted. Time in service also affects pay, meaning a sergeant who’s been in six years will make more than a staff sergeant who’s been in three years.

E-1: Private Most people who enlist come in at E-1 unless they were in JROTC, have a college degree, or performed some other feat with their recruiters prior to enlisting i.e. volunteer work, good P.T. scores, etc. This is the lowest pay grade and has no rank. Soldiers who are E-1s do not wear a rank.  also known as: PV1, fuzzy (because they wear no velcro rank, there’s a patch of bare fuzz in the middle of their uniform. You can buy a patch to cover it.) Title: Private, PV1 E-2: Private Yes, there are two ranks by the name of private. You reach E-2 automatically after six months of enlistment. If you enroll in the Delayed Entry Program or have an acceptable P.T. card with your recruiter, you can enlist as an E-2 instead of an E-1. At E-2, you more or less have no more power than an E-1.  also known as : PV2 Title: Private, PV2

E-3: Private First Class The final “private” class. You reach E-3 automatically after 12 months of enlistment, assuming you’ve been an E-2 for at least four months. If you were in JROTC for four years, you enter automatically at this rank. This rank still doesn’t have much power, but may be put in charge of other privates and may assist their team leader with tasks, and on occasion may be a team leader themselves. also known as : PFC Title: Private, PFC. E-4: Specialist/Corporal The last “junior enlisted” class. You reach specialist automatically after 24 months of enlistment, assuming you’ve been a PFC for at least six months. If you enlist with a completed four year college degree, you can start out as an E-4 instead of an E-1. Specialists tend to be team leaders and may be in charge of other specialists and privates. When no NCOs are present, the senior specialist is in charge. 

Corporal, while technically the same pay grade as specialist, is actually an essentially higher rank. It’s a special rank only bestowed on those who are in leadership positions and are awaiting the appropriate time in service/time in grade to be promoted to sergeant. Corporals are considered NCOs while specialists are considered junior enlisted.  Strictly speaking corporals and specialists are the same rank, but in most situations, corporals out rank specialists. also known as: shamshields, (specialist only) SPC, CPL Title: Specialist, Corporal —

Intermission!

Man, all of that text is boring. Let’s break it up a bit with some rank etiquette, shall we?

• Lower enlisted (E-1 thru E-4) tend to call each other by their surname regardless of rank. Even an E-1 will probably be calling a specialist just by their name. The exception is Corporals, who are considered NCOs and are referred to by rank.

• E-5 and above are referred to as “NCOs,” or non-commissioned officers. 

• NCOs with similar ranks might call each other by their surnames and will call lower enlisted by their surnames. When discussing another NCO with a lower enlisted, they will use that NCO’s proper rank. So a sergeant speaking to a PFC will say “Sergeant Smith needs you,” not “Smith needs you.” Freshly promoted sergeants who still hang out with lower enlisted might not mind their friends calling them their surnames in private, but formally and professionally they’re expected to address their senior properly. 

• Lower enlisted ranks are often called “joes,” especially when an NCO is addressing another NCO about their squad or platoon. “Have your joes had chow yet?” = “Have the soldiers directly under your command eaten yet?” 

• It’s considered inappropriate for lower enlisted to hang out with NCOs and it’s discouraged, especially in the work place. 

Are you all rested up? Great! Let’s get back to the ranks. 

—

E-5: Sergeant

Finally: the NCO ranks! Unlike the previous ranks, you cannot automatically rank up to sergeant. You must attend special courses and be seen by a promotion board where you’ll be expected to recite the NCO creed and have knowledge appropriate for an non-commissioned officer. From this rank on, lower-ranked soldiers will refer to you as “sergeant” and you will likely be a squad leader or in another leadership position. 

• Lower enlisted do NOT refer to sergeants by their surname unless it is paired with their rank. “Sergeant Smith,” not just “Smith,” or your private will be doing a lot of push-ups. 

• No one calls them “Sarge.” Like… just don’t do it friends. 

• Some pronounce sergeant in such a way it sounds as though the g is dropped entirely. Ser-eant, or phonetically, “saarnt.” 

also known as: SGT

Title: Sergeant

E-6: Staff Sergeant

Sergeant Plus. You probably will have similar responsibilities to an E-5, meaning probably a squad leader unless you need to fill in for a platoon sergeant. Don’t misunderstand; in lower enlisted ranks, private and private first class aren’t that much of a difference. E-5 and E-6 are a definite difference though. It is acceptable to call an E-6 either “sergeant” or “sergeant (name)” instead of staff sergeant. 

also known as: SSG

Title: Sergeant

E-7: Sergeant First Class

At this point the ranks become known as “senior NCO.” E-7 and above cannot be demoted by normal means. It actually requires a court martial or congressional approval to demote an E-7. Like, it’s surprisingly hard to demote people after this point. I once knew an E-7 who got busted with a DUI and STILL didn’t lose his rank.

Anyway, it’s still appropriate to call an E-7 “sergeant” or “sergeant (name)” instead of sergeant first class. SFCs may be platoon sergeants or in some circumstances may hold a first sergeant position. While positioned as a first sergeant, they should be referred to as “first sergeant.” Unless you work at battalion level or higher, this is probably the highest NCO rank you’ll interact with regularly, and in some cases interacting with an E-7 can be as big a deal as interacting with an E-8. 

also known as: SFC

Title: Sergeant

E-8: First Sergeant/Master Sergeant

Another dual-rank. First sergeants are the NCO in charge of a company and are usually the highest ranking NCO soldiers will interact with regularly. They run the company alongside the company commander. All NCOs answer to them and most beginning of the day and end of the day formations will be initiated and ended with them. It is only appropriate to refer to a first sergeant as “first sergeant” or “first sergeant (name).” Do not just call them “sergeant.”

Master sergeants are E-8s who are not in a first sergeant position. Typically these people wind up working in offices in battalion or brigade. It’s only appropriate to refer to a master sergeant as “master sergeant” or “master sergeant (name).”

also known as: 1SG, FSG, (first sergeant only) MSG (master sergeant only)

Titles: First Sergeant, Master Sergeant.

E-9: Sergeant Major or Command Sergeant Major

We finally reach the end of the list: Sergeant Major, the highest ranking NCO. Sergeant Majors will be found at battalion level and higher. Command Sergeant Majors are those that hold a leadership position in a battalion, brigade, etc, like first sergeant vs master sergeant. It is appropriate to refer to E-9s as “sergeant major” or “sergeant major (name).” Typically, a command sergeant major will be referred to AS command sergeant major.

In the U.S., the plural form of sergeant major is “sergeants major.” Outside the U.S., “sergeant majors” can be correct. 

also known as: SGM, CSM

Title: Sergeant Major

Now, for the most important announcement:

Soldiers NEVER, and I mean NEVER, refer to an NCO as “sir” or “ma’am.” Forget what the movies tell you; if your first sergeant is chewing you out, you do not say “ma’am, yes ma’am!” You’ll earn yourself some push-ups and some cleaning duty and probably a counseling. Do you see how under every rank I’ve provided a “title” section? That’s how your soldiers address that rank. Period. The only people who get called “sir” and “ma’am” are civilians and officers. Cannot tell you how many movies I’ve rolled my eyes into my skull because some snot-nosed private is calling their squad leader “sir.” Please cease this immediately. Thank you.

That’s all for scriptsoldier’s rank breakdown of enlisted ranks! Stay tuned for our breakdown of officers, warrant officers, and how your rank affects your standing in your unit!

Fantasy Biology Masterlist

It was about time I made a simple list of all the Fantasy Biology posts I’ve done so far, collected in one place. Some of the oldest ones are a different format, before I started doing them regularly, but I’ve included them anyway.

The species for these posts have been chosen by my wonderful Patreon supporters, from as little as $1 a month.

As an unrelated topic, I love seeing the comments and tags on the Fantasy Biology posts. I think every one has been someone’s favourite, except perhaps the unfortunate manticore. These are some of my favourite comments you’ve made.

I’ll let you figure out which comments go where

Q&A: How To Punch

The great irony, despite all media has taught you, is that two people of different heights, weights, and genders will actually fight (mostly) the same way if they are they are trained in the martial same style. Everybody learns the same move set, what makes the difference is how well they execute it and how disciplined they are when they start to flag.

The easiest are with people who don’t know what they’re doing versus people who do. For trained fighters, a lot of personality is going to get shed when they settle in and focus. You can have a cocky shit who talks a lot of trash outside the ring before the match and then say absolutely nothing inside it. Talk wastes air and you need oxygen to keep your endurance up. The person who talks during the fight gets punched, and should because they’re not focused. They deserve it.

No, they really do. Competitive fighters will take advantage of that kind of distraction. If someone’s talking in the ring, they’re doing it at a safe distance (at starting distance/outside arms reach) while both they and their opponent are searching for an opening.

The best fighters are the ones with the highest technical proficiency and the least amounts shits to give about their opponent’s future.

Let’s talk about technical proficiency for a second:

Technical proficiency relates to how skilled your character is i.e. how good they are at executing their techniques. What is technique?

It’s more than just a punch. It’s every minute movement involved in the movement of your body as it executes that punch. This includes

A) Your stance: the width of your feet in comparison to your shoulders, the degree at which your knees are bent, creating a centralized point of balance as you move.

B) The twist of your hips as you punch. This is, in combination with your shoulders, is your main generator of momentum i.e. power. (Yes, this has nothing to do with how many muscles you have.)

C) The position of your hands in relation to their distance from your face before you throw your punch. (This would be part of the fighting stance.)

D) The twist of your shoulders in time with your hips. Did they move together or are they out of slightly sync?

E) The position of your elbows. Were they inside or outside the body, is your arm in line with your shoulder when it extends?

F) The extension of your arm. Did you overextend past that front foot in your stance and put yourself out of balance?

G) Did you properly lock your fist when you punched? This is all five fingers clenched together when you punch, locked by your thumb. If your thumb is inside your fingers or outside your hand, you’re at risk of breaking your fingers. (Yes, beginners do this.)

H) Did you lock your wrist in line with your fist and your elbow and your shoulder? (Yes, beginners also do this.)

I) Did you do lock up at the fraction of a second before you struck your target? Thus applying maximum force? Momentum = movement + speed. If you lock too early, you slow down in the critical instant before striking and blunt your force/create more opportunity to be blocked.(Yes, beginners do this. They also flinch.) Punching a target, even a soft target, hurts. It will hurt when you do everything perfectly. That’s before we get to the psychological aspect of hurting someone else and the affect of that indecision on your physical body.

J) Did you return to resting or flow smoothly into your next combination/strike? Or did you just stand there like an idiot?

K) How quickly did you manage it? Again, this entire move happens within a fraction of a second, often too quickly for the untrained eye to follow. It’s fast. (Fun Fact: film cameras lose frames of professional martial artists/martial arts actors like Jet Li and Jackie Chan when they go full tilt.) Most of the time, audiences at professional matches mistake and respond to the secondary, follow-up strikes rather than the actual winning hit.

These are only some of the considerations toward basic technical proficiency, there are more and more ways you can screw up a simple, basic punch. When we say someone has “flawless technique,” we mean they can execute every aspect of the technique flawlessly from start to finish. The best contenders will all be in that range, especially when looked at by outsiders. A strong technical foundation is essential to success. In fact, it’s necessary. Strong foundations aren’t just needed for strong defenses, offenses, or executing your techniques successfully, they’re also energy efficient. A fighter with an excellent foundation and high technical proficiency continues when the their opponent with a shoddy foundation flags. You can win when you’re opponent is tired.

If you have a poor foundation, you are poor in everything. You’re technique is inefficient, you’re slower, your defense has more openings, your movements are bigger and thus have more tells, wasted movements means you’re wasting more energy. You’ve essentially hobbled yourself.

Now, poor foundations can be fixed. Technique is tightened with practice. The more experience a fighter has, the more they’re willing to address their flaws and work toward improvement then they have a chance to become better. Martial arts is skill based, not talent based. The person who works the hardest, the longest, and is the most determined is one who eventually stands among the best.

The best way to address this in your writing is to start looking at different how to videos on YouTube from martial arts masters discussing how to perform different techniques. You’ll be able to see the breakdowns, have them explained, and see what it looks like when a person with experience does it right. If you’re trying to write a character describing another character as inexperienced, it helps at least get a window into what the technique is supposed to look like.

I must say though, that even with a technique as simple as a single punch (whether front hand or backhand) there’s a lot of variation in technical detail between different martial styles. So, different characters could punch in different ways depending on their backgrounds.

-Michi

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Q&A: How To Punch was originally published on How to Fight Write.

How to Write Characters in Realistic Polyamorous Relationships

Earlier this week, an anonymous follower asked: Any advice for writing a REALISTIC poly relationship?

Friend, you are in luck. As a polyamorous person, I’m always looking for more stories that include good poly representation! So first, we’re going to dig into some information about what poly is and what it isn’t, go over some vocabulary, and discuss how polyamorous relationships function in the real world, and then I’ll get into some dons and don’ts for writing polyamorous relationships. Read on under the cut!

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WQA’s Guide to Internet Research

One thing I hear a lot here at WQA is, “I Googled such and such topic and I didn’t find anything.” Regardless of what the topic is, I know that’s not true because there’s a ton of information about every topic imaginable on the internet, all of it accessible via a simple Google search. So what’s happening here? Simple: people aren’t sure what they’re looking for, don’t know how to find what they need, or they’re overwhelmed by the pages and pages of results. But, honestly, researching your topic via the internet isn’t that difficult. Here’s what you need to do…

1) Know what you’re looking for.

The first thing you need to do is create a small summary of exactly how your topic fits into your story. For example, “My story is about a woman who survives a laboratory accident, but she becomes permanently blind due to eye trauma experienced in the accident. Now she must learn how to cope with losing her eyesight and learn how to navigate her world without it.”

2) Break it down into sub-topics.

Now that you have your topic sorted out, break it down into sub-topics that will make the research easier to do. In the above summary, there are three obvious phases of this woman’s situation. There was the initial trauma where the eyesight is lost, there’s coping with learning that her eyesight is lost, and there’s learning how to live without her eyesight. So, the sub-topics would be:

- losing eyesight due to trauma

- coping with lost eyesight

- learning to live with lost eyesight

3) Identify keywords, key phrases, and key questions.

The next thing you want to do is boil your topic summary and sub-topics down to keywords, key phrases, and questions that will help you find information. Start by underlining the important things in your summary:

My story is about a woman who survives a laboratory accident, but she becomes permanently blind due to eye trauma experienced in the accident. Now she must learn how to cope with losing her eyesight and learn how to navigate her world without it.

Keywords:

Blind/blindness eye trauma eyesight loss Key Phrases:

Coping with loss of eyesight Living with blindness Key Questions:

How do people learn to live with blindness? What happens when someone becomes blind? What is it like to permanently lose eyesight? What is it like to be blind? How do you adjust to being blind?

4) Go to Google and search.

Go to Google and type in your keywords, key phrases, and key questions. Not all at once, obviously, but one at a time. It works best if you tackle one sub-topic at a time. Sift through the first few pages of results and use “right-click, open in new tab” to open the most promising links.

Keyword: blindness (click here for example)

Keyphrase: living with blindness (click here for example)

Key question: What is it like to be blind? (click here for example)

5) Sift through the results.

Here are some of the results for “what is it like to be blind?”

Just on the first half of the first page there are already resources that would be very handy, including videos, an in-depth article, medical information, and a forum thread which may have some firsthand experience.

6) Read, watch, and take notes.

Now it’s time for the hard work. You need to go through the most promising results, read through them, watch the videos, and take notes. Remember to focus on one sub-topic at a time. You may want to get a multi-subject spiral notebook with folder dividers, which will allow you to organize your notes by sub-topic, and if you want, you can print out any interesting articles and highlight the important details. Be sure to take notes while watching videos, too. You may want to create a folder in your browser where you can bookmark articles/sites/videos you’ll want to refer back to.

7) Resources to look for…

Articles - online newspapers, magazines, and news sites often post in-depth articles about a variety of topics. These articles often boil topics down to their most important elements. Sometimes they zero in on specific points of a topic, which can be really helpful when doing research.

Reference Sites - there are lots of different online references that cover a variety of topics. Encyclopedias, like the Encyclopedia Britannica, are available online. There are also wikis like Wikipedia, and topic specific wikis like TV Tropes and recipe wiki.  Educational Sites - lots of topics, especially those having to do with health, lifestyle, and medical issues, have web sites dedicated to educating the public about that topic/issue. For example, the American Heart Association has a site dedicated to teaching people about heart disease and heart health.

Enthusiast Sites - sometimes, enthusiasts of a particular topic will put together a whole website dedicated to delivering information about that topic. 

Blogs - blogs dedicated to a particular topic can be an incredible resource. For example, if you’re writing about a character who is living on their own for the first time, I guarantee you can find blogs written by people who are living on their own for the first time, all about their experiences and the ups and downs.

Forums - forums are another great place to find information. Not only are there forums dedicated to just about every topic imaginable, but if you have a question about that topic, odds are good someone has had a similar question and asked it. When you can find a forum dedicated to your topic, you can do a search there on your keywords or your specific question and see if someone already posted about it.

Videos - YouTube, Vimeo, MetaCafe and others offer videos on every topic imaginable. Sometimes you can find actual documentaries on your subject. Other times you can find overview videos. You can also find panels, exposes, lectures, and other videos about various topics.

Google Maps and Google Earth - if your topic relates to a place, viewing it in Google Maps or Google Earth can give you lots of interesting information. Not only can you get a street view of the location, but you can also get pictures and other important information. Some places like museums and historical sites even have online walk-throughs.

Online Exhibits - if your topic is something related to arts, science, or industry, there’s a good chance you can find an online exhibit relating to your topic via a museum online. For example, the fashion and textile museum has a digital collection you can look through. The Dittrick Museum of Medical History has several online exhibits an photo collections.

Digital Books and Magazines - sometimes you can find digital books and magazines dedicated to your topic. For example, if you’re writing about an 1800s whaling captain, you may be able to find digitized books about whaling, sailing, and life in the 1800s.

8) Other places to look.

Although this post is about doing internet research, remember that there are other places to look for information about your topic. Here are some to keep in mind:

The Library - whether it’s your school library or your local library, libraries are still one of the best places you can go to get information about any topic. Not only are the chalk full of books, references, and other resources, they’re staffed with knowledgeable people who are trained to help you find the information you need. Even if you plan to research your topic online, don’t hesitate to stop in your local library for supplemental information. Librarians want to help you! That’s what they’re there for!

People - the people in your life have had a variety of different experiences and learned all different things. Look for people in your life who might have firsthand information about a particular topic. For example, maybe your friend’s grandfather is blind. Perhaps you could ask for an interview, or talk to her family members about what they know about his experience. 

Books - obvious, I know, but you’d be surprised how rarely people think of finding books about their topic. The library is obviously a good place to start, but sometimes you can find pertinent information in books already on your shelves. If not, see what’s available on Amazon. Sometimes you can get used copies at a reduced price. Or, go see what’s available at your local bookstore.

TV Shows and Movies - while you should certainly never assume something you see on TV or in a movie is real or accurate, they can still be a great place to go to get a general overview about a particular topic. Watching a movie about a blind person can give you insight that will help make your research a little easier, because the topic will be more familiar to you.

Museums, Historic Sites, and Other Locations - if you can learn more about your topic by visiting a place, and if you can get to that place, go! If you’re writing about a noble woman who lives in a big manor house, nothing beats visiting an actual manor house for an idea of what that might be like. Even if the manor house (mansion, estate, etc.) you have access to isn’t quite like the one you’re writing about, just being there can still give you vital details that will help make your story more authentic.Or, your museum might have an exhibit on furniture from the Edwardian era. Getting a look at all that fancy furniture will help you recreate those details in your story’s manor house.

The most important thing of all is to not get frustrated. Take the time, do the work, and research can be the most rewarding part of writing your story! :)

Research For What Did People Use Before Toilet Paper?

The reason this post on What Did People Use Before Toilet Paper? came to be was because I wanted to know how in the ancient times did people do their business so that my story would be more accurate.

This of course led me down a rabbit hole and I ended up finding out a lot more. I thought to myself I should make this a post because I might need this info again. It’ll also be convenient to have it all in place. However, at the time I forgot to include sources so I can’t recall all of them exactly.

But I do know that it was a mixed of articles on artifacts, historical documents and old texts, such as literature, personal accounts like journals and so on, because they contained brief mentions of what the people used as toilet paper in them, etc.