September 7, 2022: Introduction to my forthcoming Scientific Tidbits posts

Daily Diary, Day 736:

My historical mystery series frequently sends me off on short forays into research into the past to pin down a detail as I am writing. That research is to make sure I have my facts straight. For example: Would there be a telephone system set up between San Francisco and Los Angeles in 1882? What livery stable would someone use if they were staying in the Palace Hotel?

My rule of thumb for research and historical accuracy is that I try not to make any details up, unless I can’t find any definitive information, one way or the other. For example, if I have learned that there was a company providing electric street lights at a certain date, in a certain city, but I can’t find anything that says there were definitely electric street lights at a certain address, I get to decide what I want to say. Sometimes, I decide to say nothing, if I am worried about being inaccurate.

This means these little research trips (which I call going down the rabbit hole) can take hours, generate a tiny detail in one sentence, or even lead me to delete something I’ve written and can’t verify. However, these research trips are fun, whether I use the information or not, and I enjoy sharing some of what I have discovered with you—in posts I have started calling Historical Tidbits.

However, six weeks ago, I decided to make my next writing project be a continuation of the science fiction series I did as part of the Paradisi Chronicles, a shared world with multiple authors and multiple publications.

With this science fiction series, the process of doing research has some similarities to my historical research. For example, when the founders of the Paradisi Chronicles universe decided that the people who journeyed from Earth to New Eden would bring 3-D printers with them, I spent some time researching this technology (which is rapidly evolving) so that I when I mentioned these printers I was accurate in terms of what the realistic capabilities of this technology would be in a near future time period.

On the other hand, sometimes I was looking into theoretical, not actual technologies. As we constructed the narrative of space travel for the Paradisi Chronicles, we decided that our space ships were going to use a theoretical method of propulsion, called an Em-drive.

In this case, I wasn’t looking for scientific accuracy, since there is no such thing as an Em-drive…and most probably won’t be. But here the goal was to sound plausible.

Finally, sometimes the science research comes first, when something I read causes me to try and figure out how to use what I learned in the story line I am writing.

In all of these cases, not only does this research improve what I write, but it also has had a significant impact on encouraging me to be a more informed person about what is going on in science in general, thereby increasing the quality of my life.

I am not trained in the sciences, at all. I barely remember my high school biology, and the only science class I took in college was geology. And since that is the class where I met my husband-to-be, I am not sure I took in a lot of the details in the course (smile.)

However, my husband, as a librarian, is much more of a generalist than I am in subjects--essentially he is interested in everything. As a result, for decades we have gotten a weekly magazine called Science News and a monthly magazine called Discovery both filled with articles on cutting edge science.

Once I started writing my science fiction series, I noticed that I started reading these magazines from cover to cover. This, in turn, has kept producing idea that I turn around and incorporate in my writing.

For example, last week, I read an article in Discovery Magazine about a pod of sperm whales and a dolphin. This prompted me to add a whole new thread to the plot I was working on in my current work in progress. This, then, caused me to do additional research on sperm whales and dolphins. And as with my historical research, I thought it would be fun to share with you some of what I learned. So, tomorrow I will post my first Scientific Tidbits.

As a post script, the heat has continued to be brutal, I have been pretty good at getting out and getting walks in early, but have not even attempted to work on the novel. Instead, I’ve been pecking away on these posts, been taking lots of phone calls, had a lovely long visit with my niece who was in town, and have been doing some light reading. Here’s a lovely rose that actually had some dew on it during my walk this morning.