Researching prior to fic writing

I know that this is very important when you write fics, regardless if it's fanfiction or original.

I wanna engage in discussion with you guys/gals on how much research you do. I've read fics where authors say that they did little to a lot of it, depending on the genre and the type of fic they're writing on.

Well, with my first fic, Zelda's Honor (complete and found here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10082472/1/Zelda-s-Honor), I was already well versed in Legend of Zelda lore and mythology and the events of all the games prior to writing. Despite this, I still kept Hyrule Historia by my side as a close companion as I wrote to make sure I did not go completely off the tracks but at most, tweaked what I saw to surprise readers while still within the confines of the Word of God.

My second fanfic, Fate Deceived (in progress and found here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11501485/1/FFVIII-Fate-Deceived), the last time I played Final Fantasy VIII was over 4-5 years ago, yet I still retained a lot of the general scope of the story and characters. Despite this, it was over 4-5 years ago! I don't trust my memory that much! So I hit up all the wikipedia sites, dedicated FF 8 sites, read the entire game script, looked up translated copies of Ultimania FFVIII and tried to get my hands on as much material as possible so I could write the most believable extension to the game. So yes, my second fanfic took a lot more research than my first.

So it really just depends on how much I trust my internal level of knowledge of a franchise that ultimately dictates how much research I do.

I look stuff up if I need to - stuff like "what was this town called?" or "was this character's dog male or female?" or "did this event happen before or after this other event?" But mostly I just use what I remember. I have a really good memory for facts in general, so I don't usually need to look things up unless it's been a while since I played/watched/read the source material.

That's why there are all those wiki's. For research.

Lots and lots and lots of research. Moving from research onto writing is the challenge for me.

If I set things in a world, it is contingent upon me to know as much about that world as I can. If the world in question is our world, or supposed to be, that makes it even more important.

True. But there are cases that certain series/franchises don't have wikis, which is a sad thing.

Research is tough (sometimes I just want to get to writing the story) but necessary these days.

It is a bitch when you come up with an idea for stuff in a story, only to find out after researching it that it wouldn't work in the universe you want to write about (my idea for scavenging technology from aliens to create Powered Armour in a DBZ story for one, since if you don't have Ki, your pretty much powerless, and no amount of tech can close that gap). But still knowing your facts is important, and adds that extra bit of nuance to the story.

It can make an average story into a great story if used properly.

Uh, I'm usually very familiar with said source material. If I'm trying to add something to canon, I make sure it fits the lore and it's NOT OP AS FUCK.

I've found that "overpoweredness" per se isn't something you really need to worry about. For one thing, you're not writing an RPG or a game where you need to balance various players against one another; for another, it can be a lot of fun exploring the consequences of what happens when someone introduces something new and everyone else scrambles to adapt. (That's human history in a nutshell for you. Something new, whether it's a technology or a crop or a political/social development, allows some people to gain a large advantage, ushering in intended and unintended changes. Usually it's the social and political changes that really change the balance of power, since technology can be copied or bought but restructuring a polity is much more difficult.)

It's easy to misuse it in a story, of course, but the issue then is with the writer.

edited 19th Oct '15 10:29:11 AM by SabresEdge

Well, if physical conflict is the focus of your story, and the tension is supposed to come from wondering "Can our hero win this fight?", then making your hero too powerful will completely undercut that tension.

A character who's massively more powerful than the rest of the universe is a perfectly valid character in a story where you can find some other source of tension. Like "How does the most powerful person in the universe use their powers ethically?" or "How does the most powerful person in the universe deal with problems that can't be punched into submission?" Or just stick them in a comedy.

Well said.

Mind, I'm used to stories where gross physical power isn't a valid solution and the focus is on characters and the choices they make in a rapidly-changing world, so the issue just doesn't come up often.