Research Responsibilities

[e_moon60]

This was 'ported over from the Paksworld blog, on the grounds that it might interest others who don't read fantasy.   If you read it there, it's pretty much the same.

Ritual disclaimer: nobody gets through a long writing career without some mistakes.  You will sometimes trust the wrong research source (even if it’s someone who should have the

Comments

[e_moon60]

And lo...the LJ cut finally worked again, at least on highlighted imported material. That's nice.

[klwilliams]

Thanks for posting this. This makes very good points. Also, if you still have that info handy, where did you get your information on how longbow usage affects a body over time? Thanks.

[blueeowyn]

My guess is something like this http://www.the-tudors.org.uk/mary-rose-longbows.htm and http://thesebonesofmine.wordpress.com/category/the-mary-rose/

I have a friend who does re-enacting and makes his own bows to shoot (not the full period draw though!). If you want I can ask him for more information, just send me an email (username@livejournal.com).

[e_moon60]

Oops--you said it and I didn't read yours before I answered. Same source. For me, that came through my friend who makes crossbows but has the Mary
Rose books.

[blueeowyn]

Is your friend up here in Maryland or do we know independent people who make bows and studied the Mary Rose books? Granted my friend does the longbows and yours does crossbows. At our Ren Fest they shoot a variety of longbows as a demo/competition/education piece and my friend narrates about the longbow and its affect on war (and how/why muskets eventually took over). I could probably get about 75% of what he says down accurately having heard it a lot.

[redvixen]

*nods* I've started reading stories that seem very interesting only to give up on them because of too many mistakes

[kk1raven]

I can ignore quite a few errors if the story is good enough but sometimes even small errors in an otherwise good book will distract me quite a bit. I don't know much about horses or swords so authors who don't do their research there can probably put one over on me, but I know about birds and computers and boy do I see plenty of mistakes where they're concerned. I read a book a while back that had a vulture nesting up in the branches of a tree. That kind of ruined the book for me. Finding out that vultures, at least the ones in the US, nest on the ground or in cavities would have taken a few minutes with Google or Wikipedia.

[gifted]

Though wiki's not a reliable source of info (just sayin').

[shockwave77598]

Well, if you need help from an EE at Nasa, feel free to ask me.

[e_moon60]

Thanks. I'm always looking at ways to have things go wrong (from small annoyances to major disasters) and an EE to pester...er...beg for help...would be very helpful.