Even More Fun With Research
Having turned in the manuscript for the next Hollywood murder mystery just before Christmas, I've been putting together outlines for what I hope will be the next Ben January book (# 21!) and the next Hollywood book (which will take place mostly in the film industry in New York, which was just as much a center of motion picture production in the mid-'20s as Hollywood was, and a lot more fun after hours). Writing up an outline is like pre-writing the book. I, at least, have to figure out what happens, and how; who's the villain, who gets killed, and why. Any murder mystery is actually two stories: the story of the crime itself, and then the story of how Mr. Holmes or Lord Peter or Professor Tamar figures out whodunnit. And, in my case at least, to give a picture of the world, the society, in which such events take place, which is a large part of the fun.
It's one reason I love historicals. How do you tell whodunnit if fingerprinting hasn't been developed? Or if it'll take three months to hear back from Scotland Yard about the guy you suspect is really a serial murderer on the other side of the Atlantic? (Well, the other reason I love historicals is that I just love research. What song WOULD you have been dancing to at a speakeasy on Broadway in November of 1924?)
And because I'm on medication that is making me VERY tired, I've been spending a lot of time doing research-for-fun that has nothing to do with either the Battle of New Orleans or what Long Island looked like in 1924. (F. Scott Fitzgerald never once mentions what the place looked like, in a book that takes place pretty much ENTIRELY on Long Island in 1922). I've added Lucy Worsley's If Walls Could Talk to my list of books to tell me what was going on in the background: Did these people have an icebox or a refrigerator or a clay jug buried in the ground in a corner of the kitchen? Was there a servant sleeping in the bedroom? At what point would there have been indoor plumbing? (Sir Paul McCartney's kid brother writes - not in this book, naturally - of the McCartney house still having an out-house in the 1940s). Would a modern house in Hollywood in 1924 have a shower? (Yes). I love this kind of stuff.
So, If Walls Could Talk gets added to the list of Bill Bryson's At Home, Lesley Lewis's Diary of an English Country House, and Lisa Picard's excellent series about London - not to mention Krista Ball's wonderful What Kings Ate and Wizards Drank, and the whole BBC Farm Series.
In other news, I will be a guest at the Gallifrey Dr. Who convention in Los Angeles in 3 weeks (!), Feb. 16-18 at the LAX Airport Marriott, and at the Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Collectors Show, March 17 (a Sunday), at the Glendale Civic Auditorium.
In the meantime, be safe out there!
Hello Mrs. Hambly I love your books and would like to know if the stories and novels in digital version will be printed as real physical books to? I really don´t like digital books, music and other art. I prefer to feel it in my hands like a paper bag or a vinyl LP etc. I think it loses the soul if it is only digital and also I kinda can enjoy the reading much better if I can smell and feel the books. I wish you a very good day. Bye, Liz
ReplyDeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteI was working on the Wookieepedia and I was wondering if you could clarify a few things for me.
Question 1:
I was wondering if you could tell me anything more about the alien race called the "Modbrek" from "Nightlily: The Lovers' Tale"???
In Chapter 9 of "Children of the Jedi" you wrote:
"According to the Will, there are no aliens on this ship," said Luke, with a kind of wry weariness. ”According to the Will, concentrations of bodies with internal temperatures of a hundred and five degrees--Gamorrean normal--don't exist, either. Or those with temperatures of a hundred and ten, or one-six, or eighty-three, which means there aren't any Jawas, Kitonaks, or Affytechans around. But I have found a way to get up onto the upper decks without—was…”
Question 2: Were those body temperatures in Fahrenheit or Celsius???
Thank you in advance for your help.
Frank, thank you for your questions. After thirty years, I don't recall whether the Modbreks were a race I found in one of the Star Wars planet handbooks from West End Games, or a people I made up because I needed an alien female whose distress would illustrate what an s.o.b. Trevagg the Gotal is. I apologize - I simply don't remember. Question 2, regarding body temperatures - Since Farenheit and Celsius are both local Earth designations, I assume that Luke was thinking in terms of some kind of Imperial Standard measurement. (I'm assuming Luke and his family are colonists on Tattooine, or descendants of colonists. The local inhabitants - the Jawas and the Sand People - don't appear to be sufficiently technological to establish or even think about such measurements).
DeleteThank you so much for your answers.
DeleteOne more question, if I may, as I'm am reading, "Children of the Jedi", and trying to expand Wookieepedia articles.
We know a great deal about what the appearance of the Affytechans look like from your writings but because they were under the mind control of the Eye of Palpatine, we know little about the alien race's culture and personality. The Affytechans remind me of the talking flowers in, "Allice in Wonderland". Is there anything else you can tell us about these sapient plants?
I know its been 40 years but do you remember which episodes of "Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors" you wrote?
ReplyDelete'Fraid not. It was, as you say, 40 years ago - and a gig job. I do recall they put all the writers' names together as a gang credit at the end of each episode, rather than individually credit who wrote what.
ReplyDeleteAs to the Affytechans, research about them is difficult because they adapt to the cultures of the researchers, and display whatever cultural traits the researchers themselves possess. In the unlikely event that the researchers would be, for instance, Gamorreans, they would act with Gamorrean aggressiveness (not that Gamorreans would undertake such research). Should a research party consist of Jedi knights, the Affytechans would assume the cultural characteristics of the order and display wisdom and compassion. Galactic researchers find this extremely frustrating to deal with.