Imma gonna do a thing
I've been asked How do you research before, in particular for when I do writing research, and since, well, right now I'm getting distracted every three sentences with the need to research something else, I thought I'd give an example of what I research and what comes out of it. If it interests people enough, I might make it a semi-regular thing.
But since they might be spoilery for anything I might be writing, or too long for people to scroll through, I'm going to put them behind cuts.
First up would be my maybe-ACBB sign-up, assuming I hammer it down properly first.
I have a setting, but I don't have a setting, if you know what I mean. I need a map. I need a good map. I need a map that doesn't exist. Googlemap is of no use, because typing "Medieval England, AD 500" doesn't work --
Wait. I didn't actually try that. Hold on.
Well, that gave me Gainsthorpe Medieval Village in Hibaldstow, UK, and clicking on the link provided leads me to -- huh, interesting. It's recorded to have been a den of thieves, occupied at least fifty years after the Black Plague, and the reason for its (apparently sudden?) desertion is unknown. Not what I'm looking for, but fascinating, and I have to stop myself from Googling more.
My hind brain is tucking this tidbit of information away for later use, because I might be able to weave this in, somehow. But that's for later.
Anyway, back to my original search. I have about 8 tabs open after entering "Arthurian maps of England", because what I'm really looking for is some sort of idea of where the different areas mentioned in Merlin (TV) were located compared to Camelot, because I really need this information, okay?
First link in that search is the Google Images version with a bunch of maps, a lot of which I've seen or used before in one context or another, but none of which are relevant to my actual needs and purposes. I will say that I opened about a dozen of those Images for a better look, but, yeah, not what I need.
The links that followed are neat. Someone put together a compendium of Arthurian maps for a game they're working on, which is pretty neat because there's some nice resources. But not what I'm looking for. The next link has stuff on Arthurian lore and Arthur's Knights, and there's a map, but, fuck, is it ever flimsy for my purposes. Wikipedia has a list of locations associated with Arthurian legends, which, score! Except -- I need a fucking map.
I skip the dictionary entry, the Pinterest hit, and the rest of the links on the page, because a dictionary is not a map, Pinterest and I are not on speaking terms, and the remainder of the links are historical. I love history as much as anyone, but I avoid them because I have a drill-down tendency to keep clicking links and reading and reading and the next thing I know it's 4 AM and I'm no closer to the actual answer to my question.
I go back to the search box and enter, "Merlin TV show maps". Don't get me wrong, I will pillage the more historical Arthurian Maps, but later. Right now, I just want to correlate fiction with reality, even if it's just ballpark, because of reasons.
First two links are for the Merlin Wiki. The first one is a map of Camelot, which, nice, but not what I need. The second one is an entry for Albion, with a list of Kingdoms and rulers (useful, keeping that one for later), but I'm afraid not what I'm looking for either. MAP. I need a map, people.
Google Images is third on the link list, and some of them are lifted from the first two links. Some of those Google Images are from people's best guesses of where everything is located, but I can't tell if this is based on actual information in the TV show, or if the artist/cartographer used both whimsy and deductive reasoning to mark everything down.
Then guess what I find: versaphile's Kingdoms of Albion on AO3, which has a disclaimer allowing people to use this as a fannish resource. In the second chapter, there's demographics, which, holy shit, okay. Please and thank you, I will be using this as a base, because this is awesome on so many levels and I can't even begin to say how much more easy my life has become right there.
Excuse me for a second, Imma gonna leave a thank-you comment, because, really, SO USEFUL. I appreciate the work that went into this, and yowza, I love people who do maps and stats stuff, because, just, wow. Ok, and that's done. I've moved the tab over to the "don't close this tab on penalty of death" side of my browser. I have the link saved here and bookmarked, so I won't lose it.
My next step here will be to pull a map from both historical medieval England and the modern British Kingdom, then to build a new map that will more accurately represent the one I'll be using.
I'll be honest here. The odds that I'll actually USE the map in the actual story are slim. At most, I'm using it for the cardinal directions of everything ("Okay, Stonehenge is down this way") and for determining realistic travel time over certain distances, terrain and methods. I'm not going to spend a great deal of time on this -- at most, I'll print out some maps that are roughly the same size, superimpose them, and trace over them with a blank sheet, marking the boundaries and landmarks.
And that's one thing for research down. About 1,000 other ones to go.
.
But since they might be spoilery for anything I might be writing, or too long for people to scroll through, I'm going to put them behind cuts.
First up would be my maybe-ACBB sign-up, assuming I hammer it down properly first.
I have a setting, but I don't have a setting, if you know what I mean. I need a map. I need a good map. I need a map that doesn't exist. Googlemap is of no use, because typing "Medieval England, AD 500" doesn't work --
Wait. I didn't actually try that. Hold on.
Well, that gave me Gainsthorpe Medieval Village in Hibaldstow, UK, and clicking on the link provided leads me to -- huh, interesting. It's recorded to have been a den of thieves, occupied at least fifty years after the Black Plague, and the reason for its (apparently sudden?) desertion is unknown. Not what I'm looking for, but fascinating, and I have to stop myself from Googling more.
My hind brain is tucking this tidbit of information away for later use, because I might be able to weave this in, somehow. But that's for later.
Anyway, back to my original search. I have about 8 tabs open after entering "Arthurian maps of England", because what I'm really looking for is some sort of idea of where the different areas mentioned in Merlin (TV) were located compared to Camelot, because I really need this information, okay?
First link in that search is the Google Images version with a bunch of maps, a lot of which I've seen or used before in one context or another, but none of which are relevant to my actual needs and purposes. I will say that I opened about a dozen of those Images for a better look, but, yeah, not what I need.
The links that followed are neat. Someone put together a compendium of Arthurian maps for a game they're working on, which is pretty neat because there's some nice resources. But not what I'm looking for. The next link has stuff on Arthurian lore and Arthur's Knights, and there's a map, but, fuck, is it ever flimsy for my purposes. Wikipedia has a list of locations associated with Arthurian legends, which, score! Except -- I need a fucking map.
I skip the dictionary entry, the Pinterest hit, and the rest of the links on the page, because a dictionary is not a map, Pinterest and I are not on speaking terms, and the remainder of the links are historical. I love history as much as anyone, but I avoid them because I have a drill-down tendency to keep clicking links and reading and reading and the next thing I know it's 4 AM and I'm no closer to the actual answer to my question.
I go back to the search box and enter, "Merlin TV show maps". Don't get me wrong, I will pillage the more historical Arthurian Maps, but later. Right now, I just want to correlate fiction with reality, even if it's just ballpark, because of reasons.
First two links are for the Merlin Wiki. The first one is a map of Camelot, which, nice, but not what I need. The second one is an entry for Albion, with a list of Kingdoms and rulers (useful, keeping that one for later), but I'm afraid not what I'm looking for either. MAP. I need a map, people.
Google Images is third on the link list, and some of them are lifted from the first two links. Some of those Google Images are from people's best guesses of where everything is located, but I can't tell if this is based on actual information in the TV show, or if the artist/cartographer used both whimsy and deductive reasoning to mark everything down.
Then guess what I find: versaphile's Kingdoms of Albion on AO3, which has a disclaimer allowing people to use this as a fannish resource. In the second chapter, there's demographics, which, holy shit, okay. Please and thank you, I will be using this as a base, because this is awesome on so many levels and I can't even begin to say how much more easy my life has become right there.
Excuse me for a second, Imma gonna leave a thank-you comment, because, really, SO USEFUL. I appreciate the work that went into this, and yowza, I love people who do maps and stats stuff, because, just, wow. Ok, and that's done. I've moved the tab over to the "don't close this tab on penalty of death" side of my browser. I have the link saved here and bookmarked, so I won't lose it.
My next step here will be to pull a map from both historical medieval England and the modern British Kingdom, then to build a new map that will more accurately represent the one I'll be using.
I'll be honest here. The odds that I'll actually USE the map in the actual story are slim. At most, I'm using it for the cardinal directions of everything ("Okay, Stonehenge is down this way") and for determining realistic travel time over certain distances, terrain and methods. I'm not going to spend a great deal of time on this -- at most, I'll print out some maps that are roughly the same size, superimpose them, and trace over them with a blank sheet, marking the boundaries and landmarks.
And that's one thing for research down. About 1,000 other ones to go.
.