Hello, I'm a very active book reader and recently decided to see If writing is my talent. My most enjoyable books are fantasy and mystery/crime, so I was thinking on writing a small (or short) story in a detective - style narrative, adding a few mythological creatures and magic related crime, but as mentioned in the title I have no idea how to start researching for useful topics. I've watched a few videos on the subject, but they just made me more confused about the whole thing. In one of them it suggested getting a second opinion from other writers or writing fans. So, if you can share any tips or tricks that help your research, I would appreciate it a lot!!!!
For me, the most important aspect of research is knowing how to filter through crap and pull out good stuff. This is especially true in genres like sci-if where misconceptions are common simply because people are taught heuristically how things work first before delving into the deep stuff. First thing I look at is the host of the source. Is it pre or post peer review? Arxiv is a good one (pre peer review.) Be weary of .edu sites. Like I said, teaching something to undergrads may not be accurate. Last, look at the author. Usually a good article will have at least one author with the suffix Ph.D. But look carefully at their degree though. There is a long list of Ph.Ds who don't believe in climate change. None of them have degrees in science though.
I'm confused. Are you looking to expand the idea you have into a story and need resources to do so? Or are you looking for sources on mythology? Or similar stories in the genre? What exactly are you hoping to gain from this?
It helps to have a purpose for your research. Here's a link that has been very helpful to me: http://thewritepractice.com/how-to-write-a-short-story/ Research is Step 5. Creating a scene list has really helped me a lot because it it gives my research purpose and direction.
The big thing that helps me is: googling "misconceptions about X" gets better results than just googling "X" When you google "X," you get a lot of people who talk about the subject but who have no idea what they're talking about, but when you google "misconceptions about X," you get the people who've looked at two different perspectives with an eye towards figuring out which one is more valid. Still not 100% accurate 100% of the time, but it's a lot closer For a Fantasy crime thriller, for example, you would want "misconceptions about detective work"
I never thought of it that way, when I googled it, it really showed some amazing viewpoints I would have totally missed. Thank you for helping me.
I have a small idea, but the problem is I have no idea how to expand my knowledge in that area in order to make at least a good story. In school, my main problem with short stories is that I barely had any available resource/knowledge on the particular subject. I was really bad in finding useful materials or just simple facts in general. So what I hoped to gain is a more effective way of searching for useful or interesting sources for current or future stories.
Ah, I see. Well, what Simpson17866 said is great advice. In that vein: always look for the primary source. If, for example, you're reading up on crime stories, always keep digging until you get as close as you can to first-hand accounts. Remember that every step between the source and you adds a filter. Primary sources are the gold standard. A good way to get to them is to always ask yourself "how do you know that?" That question should come up every time you read a statement of fact. This is so important if you're going to dig into beloved media topics like true crime and detective fiction, but the same goes for any source of knowledge. Don't just read the Wikipedia article, check their sources and do your due diligence on those. If someone makes a claim without citing sources, mark that claim down as suspicious and in need of verification. That being said, you're not a journalist, so as long as you're not perpetuating any harmful stereotypes you are absolutely in your right to write just whatever. When it comes to the more creative side of research, inspiration and whatnot, I would suggest looking into RPG books. If you're not familiar with these games, there are a lot of settings beyond D&D, there is no end to the list of "story seeds" (good term to google) and some of them may fit your idea pretty well.
