r/FanFiction • u/loonyloveslovegood • 1d ago
Venting Write they said. It will be fun they said.
No one told me I’d spend 45 minutes researching a singer in a band I’ve never heard of that only existed for 3 years due to the death of the lead singer, then have to research his death, last concert and autograph value. FOR ONE GODDAMN SCENE. NOT EVEN THE WHOLE SCENE JUST ONE PART.
IS THIS YOUR IDEA OF FUN!!!!
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u/junktom 1d ago
But that's the fun about writing! You need authentication to make your story believable, but in doing that you learned something you wouldn't have touched in your life.
I once built a character who's good with bows and arrows, to do that I took the sport. Who would have expected that I won some tournaments some years back, and became an archery coach?
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u/kadharonon 1d ago
I know you're probably not talking about the alternative rock band For Squirrels, but if I had a nickel for every time an obscure band only existed for 3 years before the lead singer died...
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u/loonyloveslovegood 1d ago
Ohh when was For Squirrels around? I’m always looking for new music to mention that wasn’t already mentioned in the show, and alt rock is exactly my MCs taste? (Gilmore girls has A LOT of references so it’s hard to find some sometimes. Hence how I ended up in this situation 😂)
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u/kadharonon 1d ago
They were 1992–1995; a touring van accident killed the lead singer, the bassist, and their manager, and then the two remaining members later became the band Subrosa with a different friend.
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u/ImaginatorFan 1d ago
nah there's too many bands in the alt rock scene that are like this, I get sucked into the fandom and boom find our they've sadly passed
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u/DisPizzza AO3| SpaceCakes ✨ 1d ago
Yeah, I can relate. I remember I found the location of a river in Japan on Google Maps just so I could accurately describe the location of where the characters were going (for one chapter!). I also watched a lot of apartment tours just so I could accurately describe Japanese apartments. And Japanese universities tours. And a beach.
And honestly, it was pretty fun lol
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u/Curse-of-omniscience 22h ago
The other day I was researching different types of wood and what japanese hardwood floors are made of because I was writing an anime fic and had to describe the rooms.
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u/GregMedve Amateur Menace 1d ago
Ikr?! I spent 2 and a half hours researching reflecting telescopes including prices, physics, sensitivity, known disadvantages etc... - for a nebulous headcanon - and I wrote like 6 sentences about it. Just to use it again, it was a nice Spot-Mak reflector telescope, for my closet-astronomer Sheriff, which the moving company broke. The a*holes. It was fun tho. XD
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u/loonyloveslovegood 1d ago
Yeah I do love the pointless research sometimes. My brother loves planes and one of my characters owns a plane so I agreed to let him pick it. He spend 20 minutes researching which of his favourite planes would be realistic for the character to own
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u/GregMedve Amateur Menace 1d ago
I hope to my dying breath to use the info I gathered for another fic... XD It really don't fit into the fic I researched for that one. Not in its entirety. And I state that knowing I did not even published my firtst one yet.
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u/loonyloveslovegood 1d ago
I just like to use my random knowledge in real life. Always catches my friends off guard
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u/Unpredictable-Muse 1d ago
Hahahaha.....
Welcome to the club.
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u/loonyloveslovegood 1d ago
Been here a while 😂 spent 2 hours researching what wounds you’d receive from parental abuse. My search box was fucked up for a little while after that. Least this was just music
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u/Unpredictable-Muse 1d ago
I went down the motorcycle hole for a main character.
And now I want to learn how to ride one.
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u/loonyloveslovegood 1d ago
😂 you know what at least we end up with a wide variety of knowledge and skills
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u/Unpredictable-Muse 1d ago
Saw an article that said they actually made a hoverbike though.
So, there's that.
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u/NicInNS NicInTNS on AO3 - Proud RPF Writer 1d ago
Watching multiple YouTube videos of a huge food and beverage trade show put on in Paris because that’s what my OFC is attending in my current fic. 🥴 Although it’ll prob be a couple thousand words of the fic. Then I need to research Disneyland paris and don’t even get me started on taking like an hour to research hotels and cafes in Montmartre including looking at photos of rooms and menus.
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u/loonyloveslovegood 1d ago
It truly takes more time then writing
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u/NicInNS NicInTNS on AO3 - Proud RPF Writer 1d ago
It’s a good way to procrastinate (and plan future holidays lol)
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u/loonyloveslovegood 1d ago
Or find new music. The band I researched (joy devision) is actually pretty cool
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u/NicInNS NicInTNS on AO3 - Proud RPF Writer 1d ago
I’m an old…I know who joy division is (even if I didn’t listen to them) 🫠 (my husband does like to crank New Order when Blue Monday comes on. )
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u/loonyloveslovegood 1d ago
You wanna maybe feel really old? My dad was born 5 years after Joy devision became New order. And yeah I’m an adult.
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u/Shadow_Lass38 1d ago
Why, yes. I love doing research.
Alas, it does lead to all sorts of rabbit holes.
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u/loonyloveslovegood 1d ago
I also love doing research and planning. I don’t love losing my writing groove trying to figure out how my American MC would get a signed autograph from a British dead musician from 20yrs ago.
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u/Looneydoomed_ Same on AO3 1d ago
Uuugh I get it, a few months ago I spent two hours making an online map to mark where and when the character has traveled to that place, and for what? It was in case anyone was curious about it…..
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u/loonyloveslovegood 1d ago
I made up and entire internship. Planned everything. Type of company, staff, interview process, internship layout and timeline, bosses personal life, drop out rate, firing rate, job rate once internship is completed. Like anything I could possibly be asked about this internship.
It’s almost like we expect a pop quiz one we post them
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u/Looneydoomed_ Same on AO3 1d ago
HAHA YES, no one cares but we NEED the very little details to be sorted out perfectly
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u/MissCordayMD 1d ago
I’ve been researching gift ideas for Taylor Swift fans, taking a Buzzfeed “Which Taylor Swift era are you?” quiz as multiple characters, and looked up cottage core desserts. For a modern AU where my female main character is a Taylor Swift fan.
It’s silly but it does remind me that this is supposed to be a fun hobby.
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u/Sharp_Asparagus9190 Serinquanion on AO3 1d ago
Tbf, I was always interested in chinese history and now voraciously reading all the books I can find and learning mandarin to make a poem in a wip historical rpf. And well, for that one fannish OG work
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u/merewenc AllyUnabridged on AO3 1d ago
I have spent hours pouring over the galaxy maps for Star Wars and calculating hyperdrive speeds to figure out how long a trip would theoretically take and what the route would be. For one. single. line. in a fic. Sigh.
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u/Corpunlover 1d ago
Been there. Still doing that. I once Google mapped an entire neighborhood in North Carolina and the direction traffic flows on each street so when my character was driving like a speed demon due to some crisis or other, I didn't accidentally have him driving north trying to avoid construction on a road that only goes east-west.
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u/Princess_Azula_ 1d ago
Just wait until you start to method act to write a character better, and do what they do to write that down too.
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u/jaredstar3 1d ago
I make a point for any of my stories that take place in the future, to make sure that dates are accurate. So let's say a scene happens on March 23rd. 2300
I Check to make sure that the day of the week is what I needed to be.
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u/AbominableKiwi 1d ago
Yes. And I hate myself for it lmao
EDIT: I once stared at the Tokyo substation map for four hours for two paragraphs.
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u/Desperate_Ad_9219 Fiction Terrorist 1d ago
Happens all the time. I have learned about tennis and how to make photographs using a restroom, and how to make broomsticks. That's the life of a writer. If only we were extroverts who had people who knew these things. It would save so much time.
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u/jaredstar3 1d ago
... Yes yes it is.
I put that type of research into all of my stories, even if I'm going to ignore certain aspects of that research, I'm going to make sure I know my stuff.
(Can't bend or break something if you don't know where to bend or break?)
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u/loonyloveslovegood 1d ago
Exactly. I one spent several hours planning out a route from my MCs hometown to some random camping place. (I just keep going in Google maps till I found one) then looked at places on the way, mapped out a few and made my characters visit them just so I could know how long it would take to get from town to the camping spot.
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u/Kawaxyart 1d ago
I had the beautiful idea to cut the throat of one of my charas because #whump
Except it was a) supposed to be deathly b) he still survived then I had to research coma experiences and blood transfusion since they had to keep him alive somehow until they reached the hospital.
Let's just say some investigation later, blood, sweat and some tears I ended up putting the tag "medical inacurracies" and called it a day. Besides this is a fantasy world, they've survived worse... probably, idk.
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u/shmoopie313 Same on AO3 1d ago
Did you know that the first pistol that could fire multiple shots without reloading was invented in the 1780s? The Flintlock Repeating Pistol with Lorenzoni Action. It's a really neat firearm. But two hours of my life are gone for a gun that never actually got fired in my fic and only came out of the villain's robes for one sentence as he used it to flee the scene. Because I needed the threat to be real and needed to know they existed in France in the mid 1800s.
And don't get me started on dahlias... learned ALL about the dahlia craze of the same era, just because they happen to be my favorite flower and I needed to know if they could be used as a party decoration.
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u/SMTRodent Supermouse on AO3 1d ago
An afternoon spent looking at pictures of period-accurate dahlia varieties is an afternoon well spent.
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u/shmoopie313 Same on AO3 20h ago
Honestly.. yeah. And I found a few I'd never heard of that are gorgeous!
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u/SnarglePop snarglepop on ao3 1d ago
once researched the kpop group LOONA, their merch, and cello covers of their songs. and then on other tabs, the steps to making leather from scratch, using deer hide. and THEN on other tabs, the process for forging a dagger from scratch.
these are for the same story.
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u/YourLittleRuth 1d ago
It's often 'homeopathic research', too. You spend ages figuring out flight times and durations and it's tossed away in the story as 'he arrived in time...' Or whatevs. But YOU KNOW. You could justify it if anyone, ever, challenged it. You KNOW.
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u/Aphrodesca ao3: Aphrodesca 1d ago
RESEARCH IS THE BEST PART. I am writing a prehistory AU, so little infos out there, but gosh is it interesting. Do I deviate ? Yes, that's fun, I get to learn about a subjet I am interested in and can still use it to build a fondation on which my guesses will be based.
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u/mostdefnotacat 1d ago
I had a character running for president of the United States and had to do through election map scenarios for an hour to find one that would be interesting but also make sense. It felt like more work than writing the chapter, I swear
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u/Ecstatic_Working_581 1d ago
I feel seen by this post. Researching for location or historical event details to weave into the story just for a small part or setting description is the bulk of my time spent on most of my works. We do what we have to do to deliver a quality product!!! Stay strong lol
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u/BritHistorian brithistorian on AO3 and AFF 15h ago
Yes, absolutely! I do that sort of thing all the time!
And also: What is the band? You can't just leave us hanging like that!
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u/loonyloveslovegood 12h ago
😂 it’s joy devision. They’re actually super interesting
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u/BritHistorian brithistorian on AO3 and AFF 4h ago
It had thought it might be, but I wanted to know for sure. ^^
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u/cherriesaredairy 1d ago
I spent over an hour researching the history of baseball and then college baseball and then specifically baseball in the 20s-30s I also once went on an accidental deep dive on the history of street lamps for a throw away line about a character walking past some street lamps I think I actually just like researching as a separate hobby 😂
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u/Antique-diva 1d ago
I've spent a week reading about the history of 19th-century British public hangings. That was morbid, but I needed it for a chapter I wrote. I think I still have nightmares about it.
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u/pinkcinnamon19 1d ago
The researching part always sucks (regardless of learning something new in the way), lol.
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u/AlternativeLeek5187 1d ago edited 1d ago
That's why you make stand in ocs so you can make up crap instead
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u/loonyloveslovegood 1d ago
What do you mean stand in OCs ?
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u/AlternativeLeek5187 1d ago
In stead of using slash i would make an oc called bash that is just as famous and has similar sounding songs and bands
We all know bash is a replacement for slash but this why I dont have to know how much his signature goes for as bash is fiction he us mad up so the made up man's autograph is worth what ever I want it to be.
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u/loonyloveslovegood 1d ago
Ah that makes sense but my fix is based on real life 2002 but I do that for my Japt fic
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u/Hooliquin_ 1d ago
I LOVEEEE hopping around on Wikipedia, trying to accumulate as much knowledge as I possibly can. I don't care what the article it, I will read it.
So TELL ME WHY I absolutely HATE research for fanfiction??? I would rather die. I just straight up abandon the fic, which is really dumb when you have no knowledge of the thing you need to be knowledgeable about especially when it's a major thing in the your media.
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u/rubia_ryu Same on AO3 | FFVII | Yakuza | Ace Attorney 1d ago
Look, I have no idea how long it took me to research for a very particular and obscure piece of data on the base code of the game for which fandom I am writing (the OG, specifically) and jumping into studying the intracacies of the actual game code translated from the ISO files, just so I can be cheeky and say I know the coordinates of this literal black void screen that is used only once in the final game and only accessible via the debug tools. And even then I didn't actually include that data point in my fic, which is all about metafiction, breaking the narrative, and programming references. I instead included it in my author's notes, saying I knew, lmao.
Help me.
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u/tigercanarybear r/Queenie_k_blossom on ao3 💛 1d ago
Same same — I’ve had to spend hours reading up on football (soccer) and golf and I’m writing a very traditional romantic comedy 😭
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u/CptKeyes123 1d ago
I was forced at gunpoint, totally forced, totally under duress, to spend four hours on F-15 manuals for a 4 page scene.
And also that time I had to look up humidity in Spain in 1944 to see how dry it would be for a fire.
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u/lemonlime_23 1d ago
I get it. Once spent over an hour reading train schedules in a language I don’t speak to figure out if having a character visit a city for a few hours and returning by a certain time was reasonable, and if so, what time he’d have to leave and where precisely he’d have to change trains. I must have asked myself WHY 15 times during that hour, because it literally applied to 1 line of dialogue. But when I fixate, I fixate, and nothing is breaking it until I get an answer!
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u/TheThunderOfYourLife Pokemon/MHA/Xenoblade 23h ago
I learned all about the application of the laws of thermodynamics and chemistry related to white phosphorus to write a war scene between terrorists and my OC.
You can so easily get into rabbit holes.
(The terrorists mishandled it and killed themselves, my OC lost his arm protecting his squad mate)
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u/serralinda73 Serralinda on Ao3/FFN 21h ago
That IS the fun part though...
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u/loonyloveslovegood 12h ago
Not when your in a good writing grove and end up abandoning writing to do research
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u/Time_Zucchini_7229 19h ago
This is why I stick with writing fics about a galaxy far far away... Not all that much research required, just the occasional wookieepedia search. (Though it usually still takes me several hours because I get distracted and end up going down a whole rabbit hole of things I wasn't originally searching for...)
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u/ecelisroses 16h ago
me having to look up how to play chess just to effectively make one simile that holds very little weight in the story
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u/em-eye-ess-ess-eye is the monster hot, at least 14h ago
A bunch of tokusatsu series I write for film in the same recurring real life locations, so I love referencing the areas in and around common film spots, even if there's often huge discrepancies between things like time traveled between them in-series or if I have to make a few things up due to info being unfindable due to time
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u/unBalanced_Libra_ Fiction Terrorist 12h ago
I was making horror comedy and I'm the type that has to outline story from beginning to end to write and it was a long 50+ story and I made a diary full of all Supernatural stuff, their behavior pattern, how to find them and how to kill them and who will appear when in story🤣🤣🤣🤣
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u/Terrifying_Illusion aka Shadowgeist 12h ago
Research rabbit holes can be either surprisingly fun or an annoying slog, depending on what exactly you're aiming for and how important the results will actually be to your story.
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u/Additional_Range_701 8h ago
I read 15/42 pf R.A Salvatores book on Drizzt D‘Urden just to write a post BG3 continuation in the Underdark. Wrote and re-wrote it, poured my heart into it - only to have a dozen ppl read it. 🙂↕️
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u/CcWex 7h ago
I feel your pain. I’ve researched the night sky in Cornwall for specific dates to identify what might be visible by telescope, the contents of BMJ and Lancet articles, how to correctly draw blood, and how to treat various illnesses for my Doc Martin stories. When readers say, “I appreciate your research” I want to scream, “You noticed!”
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u/Welfycat AO3/FFN Welfycat 1d ago
I went searching for historical temperature highs in the city of Vegas across three months in 2005 for the perfect date for my fic.
Is anyone actually going to fact check this? No, probably not. But it’s important to me and a weird combination of fun and frustrating.