Research for origfic
Holy crap, what happened to LiveJournal? *skitters away to safe space*
Doing extensive research for two projects: one is based on The Little Mermaid, and one is a not-quite-sf story in which special abilities can be engineered, resulting in children called Gifted.
Research for the merboy story is mostly visual, except for some Spanish history, but the other one is a lot more demanding. More emotionally than mentally.
The two main characters are: Sara, the daughter of the doctors who created the Gifted program, and James, an angry kid from a marginalised background who is a natural genius. (Like, awarded a scholarship when he's thirteen, genius.) She's Eurasian, from Hong Kong, and he's Native American. I wanted him to hail from Montana, and worked out that the Flathead and Lake County Areawas a good place for him to come from. He's born in Kicking Horse and moves to Polson.
What I wanted for this kid, at least in the first part, is bitter, seething resentment against his circumstances, knee-jerk and sometimes not entirely rational, that is still justified.
I found this:
Map of Native American reservations in Montana
Flathead Indian Reservation "After allotments of land to individual households of members on the tribal rolls, the government declared the rest "surplus" and opened the reservation to homesteading by whites." ARE YOU KIDDING ME
Treaty of Hellgate "Tribal people came to the meeting assuming they were going to formalize an already-recognized friendship. Non-Indians came with the goal of making official their claims to native lands and resources."
Flathead Lake
Flathead County
Lake County
Polson
Kicking Horse (Note the Caucasian & Native American populations, and the poverty statistics as compared to Polson and the rest of Lake County)
Pablo
Anyway, if I wanted him to be angry, the fact that he's 13 and in high school would be bad enough. A 13-year-old Kootenai in an AP program at a largely Caucasian high school? Start your engines!
A lot of the feelings and situations in this story are going to end up being very close to home, despite the fact that I've never lived in either HK or Montana. Also, most of this is just for character backstory--the story itself is going to be relatively short (I hope).
Doing extensive research for two projects: one is based on The Little Mermaid, and one is a not-quite-sf story in which special abilities can be engineered, resulting in children called Gifted.
Research for the merboy story is mostly visual, except for some Spanish history, but the other one is a lot more demanding. More emotionally than mentally.
The two main characters are: Sara, the daughter of the doctors who created the Gifted program, and James, an angry kid from a marginalised background who is a natural genius. (Like, awarded a scholarship when he's thirteen, genius.) She's Eurasian, from Hong Kong, and he's Native American. I wanted him to hail from Montana, and worked out that the Flathead and Lake County Areawas a good place for him to come from. He's born in Kicking Horse and moves to Polson.
What I wanted for this kid, at least in the first part, is bitter, seething resentment against his circumstances, knee-jerk and sometimes not entirely rational, that is still justified.
I found this:
Map of Native American reservations in Montana
Flathead Indian Reservation "After allotments of land to individual households of members on the tribal rolls, the government declared the rest "surplus" and opened the reservation to homesteading by whites." ARE YOU KIDDING ME
Treaty of Hellgate "Tribal people came to the meeting assuming they were going to formalize an already-recognized friendship. Non-Indians came with the goal of making official their claims to native lands and resources."
Flathead Lake
Flathead County
Lake County
Polson
Kicking Horse (Note the Caucasian & Native American populations, and the poverty statistics as compared to Polson and the rest of Lake County)
Pablo
Anyway, if I wanted him to be angry, the fact that he's 13 and in high school would be bad enough. A 13-year-old Kootenai in an AP program at a largely Caucasian high school? Start your engines!
A lot of the feelings and situations in this story are going to end up being very close to home, despite the fact that I've never lived in either HK or Montana. Also, most of this is just for character backstory--the story itself is going to be relatively short (I hope).