My oddest bit of research was probably the google search, "What's the fish that crawls into the penis?"
It largely comes down to characterization/narrative voice, I'd say. If you're writing from the POV of a dendrologist then maybe you need to include details about tree species. If you're writing from the POV of an astronomer, they'd know the names of the stars. But otherwise, it's actually a narrative intrusion, throwing in information that your character wouldn't have or be thinking about.
Wow... I'm not sure readers will pay attention to those details or not but good on your part. If you were a journalist you would get to consume doughnuts and coffee for breakfast instead of the shit you'll get for all the details people nitpicked for. For my novel, I'm researching Spanish Civil War, gypsies, astral travel, Santeria, Catholicism, shamanism, Spanish towns, military life in 1930's and witchcraft. The awkward thing is, I'm using real places to create a fictional story around. The story starts right after the Spanish Civil War so it's awkward and naked.
I suppose you can go too deeply into a subject, but I've never felt any research went to waste, to be honest. It doesn't hinder my writing; it gives me ideas I wouldn't have thought of by myself. You never know when a tidbit of information can open new windows onto the world you're creating. Yes, it can also slam a few of them shut as well. But that isn't a bad thing. It just makes you look for another, better way to construct your story.
With respect, I think you're wrong. You can't assume that readers won't notice a mistake, no matter how small. Some will and some won't. But if readers discover anomalies when reading a piece of historical fiction, or any other kind of fiction that isn't fantasy, they WILL notice them—and not in a good way. Accuracy matters. There is a limit to suspension of disbelief in a supposedly 'real' setting or era. That potato thing would certainly have stopped me. It's as out of place in a Viking-era novel as an 18th century aristocrat would be, if he was zooming around his estate in a Porsche. I don't know what year Porsche was first made, but I know they didn't exist in the 18th century. If I wrote a supposedly 'realistic' book about a love affair happening in 1740, and gave the hero a Porsche, I doubt if many readers would be able to just go with the flow and suspend disbelief. I couldn't tell you exactly when potatoes were introduced to Europe from the new world either, but it certainly wasn't centuries before the new world was 'discovered.' And most people know that potatoes are a new-world vegetable. So that's a stick-out mistake that would make me question everything else that writer introduced to the story. If I was writing a Viking-era story, I would certainly research what they ate during that period. And how they cooked it, and preserved it, and how plentiful or scarce these foodstuffs were. And who produced them, and how. It's all grist for the story mill, and even if certain facts don't actually get used directly, you, the writer, knows them, and you'll be able to better understand the world you're writing about. Nothing is really too trivial to know. I write historical fiction, and I occasionally make mistakes. But I NEVER ...and I repeat NEVER ...knowingly let a mistake stand. If somebody points out that thus and such couldn't have happened, I will change it. No matter what it takes. That's just me. Procrastination is bad. However, so is careless research. One keeps you from writing. The other keeps you from writing stories that people will take seriously.
@jannert and @LostThePlot - honestly, I agree with both of you. I think it depends on how grave the mistake was. LostThePlot's example was silver vs metallic grey. Jannert's example was a Porsche in the 18t century. I do not think these two are equivalent examples. The more subtle the mistake, the fewer people will notice it - and if it's a mistake that other people can reasonably see could happen to anyone, then the mistake is more likely to be forgiven. The Porsche and potato examples are not such mistakes. The silver vs metallic grey detail is. Also, it surely depends on the genre. People may forgive less in historical fiction vs simply a regular romance or drama. Period romance readers are also not reading for the history or historical accuracy but rather the focus really is on the romance. I highly doubt most females of Victorian era would truly behave and act the way some of them do in period romances, but no one cares. Wolf Hall got numerous negative reviews because the typical historical fiction readers that went for it was expecting something far less focused on history and its accuracy - but Wolf Hall is a prize-winning book and delighted my historian ex-boyfriend precisely for its accuracy. It probably just depends on what sorts of mistakes these are, what genre you're writing - if the mistake is relevant to the genre's focus - and really, what kind of story you're telling. And while good research is never wasted, people do often use research as a way to procrastinate from writing. Here it's really more about motive, and it's more difficult to speak into this without knowing the individual writer doing the research. As with editing, there comes a point when you just have to stop or you'll never finish. I think it's rather more about that sort of wisdom in judgement, as opposed to saying definitively whether research is good or bad. When balanced with progress in your novel, research is great. When you end up just researching for the next decade and still feel you can't start, it's probably not so great.
I am basing one location of my fantasy book on northern Spain and now I'm email buddies with hunting resort there. I would say one of the oddest things was researching the history of air conditioning. Yes, there is a history and it goes back a long way. That said, I live in fear of the day 'paperclips' are featured in one of my stories. Godspeed!
Got a thing for parasites, huh? I haven't hit the oddest thing researched yet, nothing really shocks or surprises me. There are things I will absolutely not look up for anyone. Mainly due to the fact that they are too disgusting or too disturbing for the other to really want to know the truth.
Of course you're right in many of the things you say here. And 'silver' versus 'metallic grey' might be in the eyes of the beholder! I think what gets me annoyed is when writers decide that details don't really matter, and that mistakes are okay because it's fiction and you're supposed to suspend disbelief. Nobody is smart enough to never make a mistake. But to let a factual mistake go, when it's been pointed out to you? Nah. That's where I take issue with the subject. That's just ...lazy. If you want to make up a story, and make up facts to go along with it for the sake of your plot, then write fantasy. Call it fantasy, and nobody will turn a hair. It might be a wonderful book. You can write fantasy that's very close to reality, if that's what you want to do. But if you're using a real setting, make an effort to get it right. Small details that are accurate will convince the reader who 'knows' that you know your stuff. A lot of us who enjoy reading historical fiction—by that, I mean fiction set within a known historical period, be it a thriller, romance, mystery, etc—read these stories because it's a chance to 'experience' that time and place. We actually may know a lot about the period, so screwing up details WILL affect our enjoyment. And many of us read certain authors because we know they get the details right. It makes the stories more believable, because the characters have to deal with the reality of their time. The same goes for stories set in modern times. If somebody were to write a story set in Prague, because they 'love' the pictures they've seen of Prague, and don't bother to do much research—because after all, it's fiction and the reader needs to suspend disbelief—I'm sure you'll be less than impressed if they write about Prague as if it were Detroit with fancy buildings.
There's a balance to be struck between being accurate and crippling yourself with needing to get every tiny detail exactly right (the silver vs metallic grey kind of details). Alison Weir is a respected historian who wrote many non-fiction books about the Tudors before writing two novels, one about Elizabeth I and one about Lady Jane Grey. Even though she believes as a historian that Elizabeth I truly was a virgin, in her novel The Lady Elizabeth she runs with one of the great myths; that Elizabeth in fact had a stillborn child in her youth. I think she was right to go with what she thought made a better story rather than what she thought was the truth. But if she had decided to have them driving Porsches because that would help her plot... well, I don't think that would be right. And I still trust that her books are historically accurate. Everything that is known for sure she presented in the correct way - she just allowed herself artistic licence over the parts of history that we can never know one way or the other. Not me. The character was a veterinary parasitologist, so it was important to get the details about the penis-dwelling fish correct.
Yeah, I think you've hit on the difference between artistic license and simply not doing accurate research. Indeed, many historical writers take the 'what if,' approach. Nobody knows for sure about stuff that happened outside of historical records, so if a queen might have had a baby they told nobody about, that's fair game for a story line. Incidentally, the 'virgin' queen idea is because Elizabeth I refused to marry and share her throne with somebody whose lust for power in their own right might have compromised it. That was pretty much unheard-of in her day, for a female to take that position. Of course it also meant she would never have a direct heir either, but it would make for more power in her hands during her lifetime. I suspect it's probable, considering her history of having favourite men, etc, that she was not technically a virgin. The men in her life probably also realised it was a good idea not to trumpet it about, if they were carrying on some kind of sexual activity with the queen. She was, after all, her father's daughter—and heads would likely roll. She was probably quite careful not to get pregnant, though.
She was also an expert at playing men off against each other - making them think she would marry them if they helped her do X, Y, Z, and then professing shock when they proposed to her afterwards. And, IIRC, she didn't reveal who she would name her heir until she was dying, to keep everybody buttering her up. Fascinating woman.
@Tenderiser - any idea how she managed not to get pregnant? Like, was there really such effective contraception back then??
I think they used to make condoms out of some kind of animal material... I want to say pigs' bladders but that's probably not right. And I heard something about men squeezing an orange onto their knobs because the citric acid kills the sperm, but I didn't check that out so it could well be a myth. IDK really. Quite likely they relied on the withdrawal method a lot more than we do! ETA: I just remembered in Ken Follett's books, set in the twelfth and fifteen centuries, they didn't use any contraception. He did a lot of painstaking research and was meticulous about historical accuracy so I'm inclined to think that was the normal way of doing things. Whether that had moved on by the sixteenth century is another matter...
And as he lowered the crustaceans into the boiling pot, their tiny shrieks of horror and pain were music to his hungry stomach. Salivating as each cried their last into the bubbling water. With out mercy he filled the pot with them. Their soft flesh began to blister inside their soft shells, as he mixed the scampi sauce in a bowl. They will bring him much pleasure as he shucks their soft bodies from their shells. Dipping the first peeled prawn into the sauce, salivating eagerly awaiting the first taste. The flavor and texture an explosion on his tongue, as he savored them. He was feeling most content the more he gorged on the small sea creatures. Each just as delicious as the first. He ate until they were nothing but husks. Lapping his fingers in memorial to their sacrifice to his large appetite. He sat leaning back with a smile on his face, and a full belly. Sucks to be so damn delicious, he thought of them in eulogy.
