Being Creative With Research

I often see someone post a message online looking for help with research on a particular topic.  They state they’ve run of search of everything they could think of and couldn’t find anything useful.

Since I’ve routinely had to conduct searches like this, I know this isn’t necessarily true unless the topic is pretty obscure.  At work, I’m always having to hunt down images.  If you’ve never had to do this, it can be really tough to find the right image.  It means not just searching for one term, but coming up with variations that might yield an image.  For example, crowd shots of people in an auditiorum.  Search terms: Auditorium, theater, speaker, speech, presenter, conference, meeting.

Creativity is important because general search terms may not find what I’m looking for.  Since setting is very important in the next project, an urban fantasy/gotchic story, I have to dig out a lot of information on the setting, Morro Bay.  Searching for the town name yields the expected results:  The official website, tourism, hotels, restaurants, a co0l historical site, estuary (Morro Bay is known for its birds). 

So I searched for other criteria to see what that yield, sometimes with interesting results:

• Cayucos (this is a town next door to Morro Bay.  They have a fireworks show in July every year here.  There’s also a cemetary, which is likely to get mentioned in the story).  The name is pronouced Kay-U-Cus.
• San Luis Obispo.  That’s the county Morro Bay is in, but it’s also a nearby city.   There’s also a prison in the area if I want to research that.
• Morro Bay Sea Shells.  I was figuring that I might get a list of types of shells that are found in Morro Bay.  I landed on a Monterey aquarium website that listed the sea life.  What was really interesting was that I found a diver’s site, and he got into some details about the waterfront that might be very useful.  I also didn’t know there was diving in Morro Bay, so that was a cool find.
• Google Maps.  This one gave me a nice, simple map that showed the main roads and where the two signficant landmarks were–Morro Rock and Black Hill (both these are part of a chain of nine volcanic plugs called the Nine Sisters).

Every search can yield to other search terms,  In searching for Morro Bay beaches, I found an article on jellyfish that washed ashore.  That gave me the name of the jellyfish (moon jellies) to search on.  So I can have the character walk on Morro Strand beach after high tide and find jellyfish washed ashore.  When I went to Morro Bay, and also to the Puget Sound in Washington, I often found jellyfish washed ashore.  They were two different kinds, though.  The California flavor looked like a  pile of clear jelly; the Washington flavor were more solid looking and had a “sail” projecting from the top (they were called Sail Jellyfish that apparently floated on the surface).

Be creative when searching for research.  Sometimes the oddest terms turn up the most useful information!

Researching Googie

No, that’s not the well-known search engine.  It’s an architectural style from Southern California (with a sister style of Tiki).  I researched for a chapter I was working on because I wanted to use a Jetson’s style restaurant I remembered going to.  I tried search for space-age architecture and came up with Googie.

Most of them are torn down now.  Just last year a large car dealership in Virgnia in the Googie style was demolished after the owner decided to sell.  The dealership was nicknamed the “spaceship” because it looked like one. 

Here’s a picture from Webshots of a Denny’s in Googie style.  Just click on the photo to view the larger size.

Research a Place for Free Online

Phyllis A. Whitney used to go to the locations where her novels were set to research.  Now, it’s expensive to travel, so it may not be possible to go to a location to research.  If the budget is tight, here are some tips for researching a state or city for free.  No travel required.

State, County, and City Web sites

The first stop is the official resources online.  Many of the sites offer free material for tourists (please note: the material often takes eights weeks to ship).  Make sure you check not only the state and city Web sites, but also the county and any adjacent counties.  I was researching Morro Bay and checked on San Luis Obispo county.  They had some nice promotional material that listed annual events.

If you run across any other official government sites, like a State Park or National Park, check those out, too.  You may be able to find out information like types of animals or trees.  When I co-wrote a thriller during the Civil War, we mentioned the names of the trees in Virginia when appropriate.  Surprisingly, that little detail added a lot value to the story, according to critiquers.

Newspapers

Newspapers are a great resource because they give you events that go on that are specific to that location.  You can find most newspapers online and at least access the current day’s stories.  Some may allow you to subscribe to the daily headlines via a newsreader.  However, please note that some newspapers do require require registration to view even the daily news.  For a list of newspapers around the United States, check out NewsVoyager.

Photo Sharing Web sites

Next stop are photo sharing Web sites.  People often post their photos online, whether it’s their vacation photos or what they’ve taken locally to share with everyone else.  Start with a place like Webshots.   But don’t forget to check out any private Web sites someone may have posted.  I found a very nice photo site of historical photos for Morro Bay.

So be creative.  Think about where you might find information online to help you with your research.

Thanksgiving Traditions

Different places make for different traditions.

I grew up in Southern California.  Palm trees, desert, hot.  Sometimes for Thanksgiving, we’d go to our neighbor’s house, and he’d have a potluck dinner outside.  Yes, outside.  We’d eat in the driveway in front of the carport under nice sunny skies.

It’s 56 degrees in Southern California right now and 31 degrees in Washington, DC.

The Rose Parade

Since I grew up in Southern California, the Rose Parade was a yearly tradition.  We never went to Pasadena to see it in person, though.  What happened was that maybe a week out, people would start setting up tents on the street to reserve their spot.  You can do that in Los Angeles.  Right now, it’s only about 50 degrees there (20 in Washington, DC without wind chill).

Here’s an article on the history of the Rose Parade.

Happy New Year!