1. Thomas Larmore

    Thomas Larmore Senior Member

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    Have you ever found in a novel that the writer did his research but must now show off about it

    Discussion in 'Research' started by Thomas Larmore, Jun 18, 2021.

    I read a book where in the Epilogue the writer gave every detail about the Chinese banking system in the days before an economic collapse that would precede the Japanese invasion that led to World War II.

    Meanwhile, a bunch of American Marines were on a truck evacuating. But we didn't hear much about them, mostly we heard about the Chinese banking crisis.

    It happened again in Chapter 1 when the writer introduced young mathematicians based on real historical people and the writer told us all the minutest details of the advanced mathematical concepts they were researching, though we were told as an aside that one of the men made a pass at the other, and was rejected.

    I realized at that moment the writer had done a lot of research and it was more important to him to show off his research than to tell the story.

    And I stopped reading the book.

    Anyone else read a book with this problem?
     
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  2. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    Ah yes, the ever-dreaded info dump, aka unnecessary exposition. All too common unfortunately.
     
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  3. Thomas Larmore

    Thomas Larmore Senior Member

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    It was worse than unnecessary exposition. It was like the author was so determined to tell us about all these Chinese banks moving money around that he did not consider we might be interested in the American Marines getting the hell out of China before the Japanese came and killed them all.
     
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  4. Lazaares

    Lazaares Contributor Contributor

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    It is far too common for Historical Fiction I'm afraid. It's largely what put me off from Steven Saylor's Roma sub Rosa books. Then again - I am not all that much a Rome fanatic and I know people who are and who did enjoy the series.

    I'm more a Napoleon fanatic but I prefer throughoutly researched non-fiction because it's often more exciting & less predictable than fiction.
     
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  5. Friedrich Kugelschreiber

    Friedrich Kugelschreiber marshmallow Contributor

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    ever read Patrick O'Brian's sea novels?
     
  6. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    I guess this is technically what Melville did in Moby Dick. In fact parts of it are highly detailed non-fiction inventories of the tools and techniques of the whaling trade at that time. But his talent and skill made it exquisite (for me and many others). I doubt many authors could make it so compelling and use it to create such a spell-binding atmosphere.
     
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  7. GraceLikePain

    GraceLikePain Senior Member

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    I don't come across this often, but there's a Starcraft novel where one of the characters mentions the fact that injuring the enemy can be worse than killing him. If you kill a man, he's out of the battle, but if you injure a man, him and anyone trying to help him are out of the battle.

    The only problem was in the novel, the enemies are the Zerg -- nonsentient beasts that fight until they die. There is no helping the injured in their race, and they're not intelligent enough to use this strategy against humans. So the author was literally only bringing this up to show off.
     
  8. Lazaares

    Lazaares Contributor Contributor

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    Very good example; I'm not much a fan of his - my father is, who is also an age-of-sail fanatic and he swears his works are one-of-a-kind.

    I am using the charts from the beginning of his books as reference for my navy-talk / ship descriptions.
     
  9. Friedrich Kugelschreiber

    Friedrich Kugelschreiber marshmallow Contributor

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    I think they are
     
  10. JRTomlin

    JRTomlin New Member

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    It easy for historical fiction writers to fall into. I was once warned by an editor about my love of what she referred to as 'armour porn', a need many of us have to show that we know exactly what every piece of armour is called and how it functioned. But other genres can be prone to it as well.
     
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  11. Seven Crowns

    Seven Crowns Moderator Staff Supporter Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    I've got some of these on my list. After reading "The Terror" and "Cloud Atlas," I wanted more sailing stories.
     
  12. Friedrich Kugelschreiber

    Friedrich Kugelschreiber marshmallow Contributor

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    they're great as sea stories but they're also some of the best novels I've ever read. They're pretty humorous and they're extremely erudite. I think O'Brian 100% nailed the Napoleonic/Regency period.
     
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  13. Seven Crowns

    Seven Crowns Moderator Staff Supporter Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    Yeah, that's kind of what I heard. I was so impressed with Simmons (The Terror), and he kept bringing up O'Brian as the king of genre, the guy who has complete authenticity and knows how to drive home a story. It's exactly what I want to read. I'm going to scoot that title higher in my queue. I'm reading "The Three Body Problem" right now (by Cixin Liu), so maybe when I get done with that I'll move on to O'Brian.

    That's for bringing him up! You know, you see some of these titles and then you get distracted by others and kind of forget the plan. haha. I probably wouldn't have read him until 2022. I'll make sure it is much sooner.
     
  14. Friedrich Kugelschreiber

    Friedrich Kugelschreiber marshmallow Contributor

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    It makes me want to go back and re-read them myself. I only made it to book 16 or so before drifting away to other things, but those novels are the sort of book you could re-read 5 times. Remarkably consistent, too. The first one is the best but there's not a bad book among them, that I read at least.
     
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  15. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    Kinda, it was a murder mystery that took place in Florida, I think.
    Lots of crazy infodumpy stuff about whales and tracking them
    and such. Boring stuff, even though the camera the planted in the
    whale was the witness to the crime (I still don't know if they really
    do plant cameras in whales or not when they track them).
    But it did have a bit with a drunk old guy plowing his golf cart
    type vehicle into a bar on a pier.
    But for the most part it was really boring, tracking a whale
    with satellites and the internet stuff. I gave up about half way
    through cause it would either be dull like that, or cut to some
    rando who didn't seem to have any point in aiding the plot and
    moving it forward.
     
  16. Accelerator231

    Accelerator231 Contributor Contributor

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    I remember this. I believe that it was to show how little information the person had, and how strange the zerg were compared to human.

    Or maybe its to show the dysfunction in the Confederacy system to have idiots like the above commanding officer in charge.
     
  17. Gravy

    Gravy Senior Member

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    NOTHING! Because who can stand to read and write at the same time?!
    It is far too common. I write historical fiction as well, but I also know that bogging the reader down with useless info is a one-way-ticket to the nearest trash can. I also dislike when historical fiction writers do this and also have to explain anything in MASSIVE detail that's not important to the plot. Plot first. Details later. If it's relevant, research it. If not, don't.
     
  18. JRTomlin

    JRTomlin New Member

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    I very much disagree that you should only research things that you already know that you will include. I have also put down HF that had paper-thin research that did not bother to find out basics about the period and then made a serious mistake. They did not know. I did. They lost any future sales.

    Often the devil is in the details. A woman using a spinning wheel in 13th century England. Wrong. Everyone eating full-English breakfasts in medieval England. Also wrong. Sloppy incomplete research because they did not bother to check things that they 'might not need'.
     
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  19. ISOPOD

    ISOPOD New Member

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    20,000 leagues under the sea, queue endless descriptions of fish along with a side character whose only existstence is to spew the classifications and latin names of all these fish ha
     
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  20. off

    off Banned

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    Currently Reading::
    Obstructed by Lightning; Unsalted Boundaries; And: The Separation of Nouns, verbs and Adjectives in Prehistoric Languages
    Hence: Write what you know about.

    Alternative: if you don't know what you are writing about, pre- or post-apologize to the reader. Explain in the footnote that it's fiction, for crying out loud; and indeed, the Marble Fish in the river Danube near Augsburg has three breasts, mainly the males, and that it is hard, almost impossible, to get a decent haircut on Alpha Centauri and in Dorsett, England.
     
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  21. off

    off Banned

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    I figure if you do 20,000 leagues under the see, you just might become a tad obsessed with fish.

    To the relief of the reader. With a little bad luck Verne could have written a book with 20,000 pages of describing water. And his book be made required reading in grade 7, because educators, in their infinite wisdom, think that children are ignorant, Verne is stupid, ergo, children must enjoy Verne's books.
     
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  22. JBean

    JBean Active Member

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    I have not read too many books but have found myself both impressed (and discouraged) by the well written exacting detail like wow, I would NEVER have thought to describe all that but also like... it sounds good but why do I need to read this? As a novice who reads other works to help build my own writing skills, I find it very conflicting. The old adage is to "write what you know" and maybe for that author that was what they really knew a lot about and needed a story to drive it or way to apply that knowledge? In my case I feel handicapped in my story in that I feel pressure to write everything in similar flowery great detail. So much so that I know I cannot and often feel like my story is crap because i can't spend pages explaining specifically which subway stops or stores the character is in etc etc.

    When I read Brideshead Revisited I was like OMG!!!! I can't. Not that Evelyn Waugh did it to the level you are describing, but where do you draw the line with how much detail to include? I have interior decorating books from the 1970s and let me tell you- you would never have ANY idea your room looks that way ever until you read an entire page of masterful description. Or you throw a couple black and white descriptions in and leave it at that?

    It seems to depend on the writer and/or the reader. I had heard volumes about a book that was written by a local writer who went into nauseating detail (in one specific scene that I was told about, anyway) describing play by play the entire commercial district of the town he was from, naming every single business and store he passed as he ran down the street... stuff like that. So maybe he wanted you to really know the town because it was his pridepoint but is it relevant?

    Likewise I can make up any number of fictional places in my story since it is neither a biography or true story and for me, while novels like The Dancer in the Dance describe in such beautiful detail the littlest nuances you'd feel like you're there that I cannot include in my novel, because I really wasn't, I know *enough* to at least fudge it well. So maybe it was blah blah blah at 42nd and 8th Ave but to know you weren't a fashion designer with a boutique on 42nd Street, etc, seems about all a story needs. For me, personally.

    But I hate to judge a writer for showing off their expertise on any particular subject only because it seems so many readers would be annoyed if they did NOT express a true knowledge on something- if that makes sense. I love Studio 54 and could imagine what a night there would be like but other than knowing from going to see an Off Broadway show there once--- I can't describe step by step where the bathrooms would be or maybe that one secret one that is less crowded or how one would have gotten to the VIP lounge... maybe some readers would expect to know, but why does it matter or is what is happening more important? Depends on the person. Given my experience with Civil War reenactors and millennial Italo disco enthusiasts - to some people it is the flaunting of their knowledge and knowing the most on any topic that is more important than the thing, itself.
     
  23. JBean

    JBean Active Member

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    :superlaugh:
     
  24. JBean

    JBean Active Member

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    True but I often argue.. what difference do certain oversights really make unless you are writing a history book about a topic and just writing a fictional novel? I bet there is a lot of that in many movies that are fun but if you were doing a study on that period not so much... irrelevant. And if writing is about the imagination and the imagination is the only place where a person is truly free and that is how they imagine that world/scene... why not? But this comes from someone who is not trying to write something for the sake of making the most sales on it. Sure, if you are relying on the approval of a paying audience be prepared to deliver what they expect. But writing for yourself for creative expression? Go for it. It's no worse than all the zombies and dark knights and aliens and seemingly endless array of bogus fairy tale stuff that is TOTALLY made up. I get it, though. To an extent I agree, too. I can't tell you how often I watch modern actors attempt roles from the past but don't seem to be very cognizant of their own mannerisms, speech patterns, attitudes, etc and that they are all very current and wrong.
     
  25. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    Bingo!! I was actually surprised at how well they were able to do in Dazed and Confused, but it still was off by quite a bit. I think for one thing people are just so much more self-aware today than they were in the 70's. Largely because everybody carries cell phones now and can be recording anything at any time. So it's like the whole world has become Candid Camera. Look at concert footage from then and now—then the audience was an audience, but now everybody (unless they all have cell phones raised) thinks they're the show. There was a cultural innocence then that's gone now.

    That's American actors. I'm frequently astonished at what English or Australian actors can do, including perfect American accents and mimicking different time periods. Generally when I'm really impressed by an actor these days it turns out to be English or some colony of theirs. Besides America.
     

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