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To research or not to research?
Here is the transcript of the non-fic/guide/meta piece I recorded for EVP 5: Hunts & Creatures (gen). Follow the link to download the edition. Otherwise, below the cut!
I'm really interested in what listeners think about this kind of non-fic piece in the podcast. No one else stuck their hand up for this kind of thing, so it's really a test run. So, if you listened - feedback!
To research or not to research?
It’s a question that undoubtedly pops up for most authors in the fandom.
Supernatural is a text that both begs and subverts the extensive research required to construct accurate plots within its universe.
More often than not the creatures and the tools used to fight them aren’t taken necessarily from a common folklore – rather from other pre-existing texts, leaving the fanfiction author with the problem of staying in continuity with the ‘verse wherein there are no set rules to research.
One such example is the use of salt in Supernatural. In vampire lore, what we know in Supernatural as the ‘salt line’ or the practice of laying a barrier of salt across doors and windows to prevent evil from entering, has its own logic to it – that vampires are prevented from crossing a salt line because they are required to count each grain. In fact, this lore isn’t even specific to salt – rice or grain can be used instead. The impossibility of this task of counting each grain thus prevents the vampire from entering.
But salt is also used as ammunition within Supernatural – with the salt-cartridges in the shotgun, used to disperse spirits. It’s a little more difficult to find the folkloric origins of this practice – In Christian religions, salt is considered a symbol of wisdom. More secular uses of salt in magical folklore seem to make use of it as a talisman against evil, or as an ingredient when casting spells. Perhaps, then, the use of Salt as ammunition in Supernatural is just a riffing by the writers on the ‘anti-evil’ theme.
The liberty taken by Kripke & co in this respect, however, don’t necessarily excuse the use of salt in fanfiction outside these parameters. Because the canon of the show does set parameters – most demons are unable to cross a salt line. Ghosts are dispersed by salt cartridges. No where is there evidence that corporeal beings are effected in such a way.
As an author, at this juncture, it’s worth asking yourself that question again – to research or not to research? Possibly I’m just a picky reader, but that’s also something you have to take into account when writing – some of the people reading your story are going to be picky. Their enjoyment and thus the success of your story is going to be effected by the story’s ability to maintain the suspension of disbelief that is supported by a well researched, believable premise.
The subsequent questions for a writer of course are when and where to research. Especially with stories that are based around hunts & creatures, you need to get your facts straight before you start integrating these kinds of elements into your plot.
Firstly, you need to decide on your creature. Is it something they’ve come across in the show before? Is it something they’ve only referred to? Is it another folkloric figure that you’ve heard of outside of the show?
If it is something acknowledged as existing within the Supernatural ‘verse – either fought against or spoken of – the show itself is your first port of call for establishing the creature’s canonical characteristics within the ‘verse you’re writing in. What has the variety of canonical material told you about this creature?
A good place to start to research this kind of information is the Supernatural Canon & Fanon Wiki, which lives at supernatural.oscillating.net. The Wiki here documents all the canon from the Supernatural ‘verse – when it comes to creatures and equipments, the official Supernatural website has provided in their “Pad of Definitions” some basic explanatory information on practically all supernatural terminology used within the show. As well as a transcription of that information, the Super-wiki holds fan-researched information that details the folklore surrounding the item in further detail.
But what if the creature you’ve decided to use isn’t referred to in the show? This doesn’t mean you’re off the research hook; if you want your fic to be successful and taken seriously, one of the most basic elements of it needs to be an attention to detail in this respect of the same caliber as the show itself. Don’t trust yourself to wing it; the people reading it are possibly going to have heard of this creature as well, and quite possibly know more about it than you do! Even if they don’t – you’ll need to maintain the continuity of your premise in order for the story to fit believably within the Supernatural ‘verse.
Monstrous.com is a great place to start your creature research – just on the home page the main categories linked include ghosts and ghouls, dragons and fairies, witches, zombies, vampires and werewolves. It’s a great starting point.
But don’t underestimate the sheer volume and diversity of information provided by – you guessed it – wikipedia.org. The benefit of the wiki model is that the people who know the most about these things are going to go to wikipedia share their information. If you’re frustrated by the conflicting lore surrounding your creature that’s turned up in your google searches, go to wikipedia – it’ll probably document each of the theories, and tell you were they diverge or come together. Wikipedia.org will give you the straight-up; through it you’ll be able to pick a path and stick to it.
Not all hunt stories are based around creatures, though – urban legends and other folklores seem to crop up just as frequently in the show – think the woman in white, bloody mary, hookman… You might make up your own one of these premises, but there’s a whole wealth of them documented already.
Paranormaldatabase.com is an incredibly extensive that “contains over six thousand stories of Irish and UK ghosts, hauntings, monsters, UFO reports, myths, legends, shuck reports and other strange and paranormal occurances”. Any number of these could provide an excellent spring board for a premise in your fic, as well as providing the background information for each that you’ll need to maintain believability and continuity when you’re documenting the occurrence as you use it in your fic.
If it’s your goal to bring to figurative life an urban legend, head straight to snopes.com, your one-stop-shop for all urban legends, their backgrounds and their variations. Of particular interest is the ‘horrors’ section, which include “supernatural tales”. Your story will benefit hugely from extrapolating on an urban legend – which is contemporary folklore, really – that the reader recognises.
If ghosts are more your thing, head over to theshadowlands.net/places for a huge documentation of haunted places, primarily in the USA, but with a reasonably large collection of other countries as well.
Okay. So what if you don’t want to riff on a creature that’s come before, and want to create your own one? The successful outcome of this practice lies once again in your maintaining continuity and adherence to detail – just as with your characters, flesh out your creatures; give them characteristics of the caliber you’d see in the show, or risk your readers losing interest or enjoyment in the story.
I’ve spoken a lot about researching and constructing creatures here, which leaves little time for the hunting aspect – which is nonetheless just as important. The weaponry used to hunt, fight and vanquish needs to stick with a continuity and attention to detail as much as the next character or creature.
General research is also required – if you’re setting a story during Sam’s time in college, you’ll need to know where that was, geographically speaking, his living arrangements – in dorms or apartments? – the calendar of his school year… If you’re setting a story twenty years earlier than that, you’re going to need to know all about the stage of development a two-year-old is at.
When it comes down to it, researching for a fic can seem like a mammoth task, especially when not all of us can approach it with a great deal of relish. But help is here.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
spn_possession is a support community for Supernatural fic writers doing research. The great thing about this community is that it has a substantial body of members who love research – chances are if you post a question here asking for supernatural information – be it paranormal things or show things – you’ll get an answer.
spn_possession isn’t only valuable for its question-answering capacity, though – researchers use this community to post information they’ve found useful in the course of their own researching, posting useful links or even putting together extensive guides such as how to make silver bullets, how to create home-made explosives, how to pick locks, how to make your own EMF meter…
With this kind of resource, you won’t have an excuse for not doing your homework.
I'm really interested in what listeners think about this kind of non-fic piece in the podcast. No one else stuck their hand up for this kind of thing, so it's really a test run. So, if you listened - feedback!
To research or not to research?
It’s a question that undoubtedly pops up for most authors in the fandom.
Supernatural is a text that both begs and subverts the extensive research required to construct accurate plots within its universe.
More often than not the creatures and the tools used to fight them aren’t taken necessarily from a common folklore – rather from other pre-existing texts, leaving the fanfiction author with the problem of staying in continuity with the ‘verse wherein there are no set rules to research.
One such example is the use of salt in Supernatural. In vampire lore, what we know in Supernatural as the ‘salt line’ or the practice of laying a barrier of salt across doors and windows to prevent evil from entering, has its own logic to it – that vampires are prevented from crossing a salt line because they are required to count each grain. In fact, this lore isn’t even specific to salt – rice or grain can be used instead. The impossibility of this task of counting each grain thus prevents the vampire from entering.
But salt is also used as ammunition within Supernatural – with the salt-cartridges in the shotgun, used to disperse spirits. It’s a little more difficult to find the folkloric origins of this practice – In Christian religions, salt is considered a symbol of wisdom. More secular uses of salt in magical folklore seem to make use of it as a talisman against evil, or as an ingredient when casting spells. Perhaps, then, the use of Salt as ammunition in Supernatural is just a riffing by the writers on the ‘anti-evil’ theme.
The liberty taken by Kripke & co in this respect, however, don’t necessarily excuse the use of salt in fanfiction outside these parameters. Because the canon of the show does set parameters – most demons are unable to cross a salt line. Ghosts are dispersed by salt cartridges. No where is there evidence that corporeal beings are effected in such a way.
As an author, at this juncture, it’s worth asking yourself that question again – to research or not to research? Possibly I’m just a picky reader, but that’s also something you have to take into account when writing – some of the people reading your story are going to be picky. Their enjoyment and thus the success of your story is going to be effected by the story’s ability to maintain the suspension of disbelief that is supported by a well researched, believable premise.
The subsequent questions for a writer of course are when and where to research. Especially with stories that are based around hunts & creatures, you need to get your facts straight before you start integrating these kinds of elements into your plot.
Firstly, you need to decide on your creature. Is it something they’ve come across in the show before? Is it something they’ve only referred to? Is it another folkloric figure that you’ve heard of outside of the show?
If it is something acknowledged as existing within the Supernatural ‘verse – either fought against or spoken of – the show itself is your first port of call for establishing the creature’s canonical characteristics within the ‘verse you’re writing in. What has the variety of canonical material told you about this creature?
A good place to start to research this kind of information is the Supernatural Canon & Fanon Wiki, which lives at supernatural.oscillating.net. The Wiki here documents all the canon from the Supernatural ‘verse – when it comes to creatures and equipments, the official Supernatural website has provided in their “Pad of Definitions” some basic explanatory information on practically all supernatural terminology used within the show. As well as a transcription of that information, the Super-wiki holds fan-researched information that details the folklore surrounding the item in further detail.
But what if the creature you’ve decided to use isn’t referred to in the show? This doesn’t mean you’re off the research hook; if you want your fic to be successful and taken seriously, one of the most basic elements of it needs to be an attention to detail in this respect of the same caliber as the show itself. Don’t trust yourself to wing it; the people reading it are possibly going to have heard of this creature as well, and quite possibly know more about it than you do! Even if they don’t – you’ll need to maintain the continuity of your premise in order for the story to fit believably within the Supernatural ‘verse.
Monstrous.com is a great place to start your creature research – just on the home page the main categories linked include ghosts and ghouls, dragons and fairies, witches, zombies, vampires and werewolves. It’s a great starting point.
But don’t underestimate the sheer volume and diversity of information provided by – you guessed it – wikipedia.org. The benefit of the wiki model is that the people who know the most about these things are going to go to wikipedia share their information. If you’re frustrated by the conflicting lore surrounding your creature that’s turned up in your google searches, go to wikipedia – it’ll probably document each of the theories, and tell you were they diverge or come together. Wikipedia.org will give you the straight-up; through it you’ll be able to pick a path and stick to it.
Not all hunt stories are based around creatures, though – urban legends and other folklores seem to crop up just as frequently in the show – think the woman in white, bloody mary, hookman… You might make up your own one of these premises, but there’s a whole wealth of them documented already.
Paranormaldatabase.com is an incredibly extensive that “contains over six thousand stories of Irish and UK ghosts, hauntings, monsters, UFO reports, myths, legends, shuck reports and other strange and paranormal occurances”. Any number of these could provide an excellent spring board for a premise in your fic, as well as providing the background information for each that you’ll need to maintain believability and continuity when you’re documenting the occurrence as you use it in your fic.
If it’s your goal to bring to figurative life an urban legend, head straight to snopes.com, your one-stop-shop for all urban legends, their backgrounds and their variations. Of particular interest is the ‘horrors’ section, which include “supernatural tales”. Your story will benefit hugely from extrapolating on an urban legend – which is contemporary folklore, really – that the reader recognises.
If ghosts are more your thing, head over to theshadowlands.net/places for a huge documentation of haunted places, primarily in the USA, but with a reasonably large collection of other countries as well.
Okay. So what if you don’t want to riff on a creature that’s come before, and want to create your own one? The successful outcome of this practice lies once again in your maintaining continuity and adherence to detail – just as with your characters, flesh out your creatures; give them characteristics of the caliber you’d see in the show, or risk your readers losing interest or enjoyment in the story.
I’ve spoken a lot about researching and constructing creatures here, which leaves little time for the hunting aspect – which is nonetheless just as important. The weaponry used to hunt, fight and vanquish needs to stick with a continuity and attention to detail as much as the next character or creature.
General research is also required – if you’re setting a story during Sam’s time in college, you’ll need to know where that was, geographically speaking, his living arrangements – in dorms or apartments? – the calendar of his school year… If you’re setting a story twenty years earlier than that, you’re going to need to know all about the stage of development a two-year-old is at.
When it comes down to it, researching for a fic can seem like a mammoth task, especially when not all of us can approach it with a great deal of relish. But help is here.
spn_possession is a support community for Supernatural fic writers doing research. The great thing about this community is that it has a substantial body of members who love research – chances are if you post a question here asking for supernatural information – be it paranormal things or show things – you’ll get an answer. spn_possession isn’t only valuable for its question-answering capacity, though – researchers use this community to post information they’ve found useful in the course of their own researching, posting useful links or even putting together extensive guides such as how to make silver bullets, how to create home-made explosives, how to pick locks, how to make your own EMF meter… With this kind of resource, you won’t have an excuse for not doing your homework.
no subject
i haven't had much feedback on them, though. for all i know, everyone fast-forwarded this section!
no subject
only thing might be that more general meta's easier to listen to (i.e., i loved how you described the various info pages but if i actually were to look for a specific page, i'd have to go back to the shownotes...in fact, that's my main problem with the HP podcast where they have this LJ news section and it's more confusing than helpful, esp. listening )...
but yeah for the meta!!!! and amazing jobn on this entire enterprise (i haven't feedbacked before, b/c i just d'kloaded all the available eps and listened to them back to back...i think i might need to reference this in my upcoming podcast paper *g*...seriously, it's one of the coller podcast experiments i've seen in fandom)
no subject
*nod* point noted!!
I'm glad you like the podcast :D
it's one of the coller podcast experiments i've seen in fandom
ooer, really? to be honest, I don't really listen to podcasts myself... just the occassional recommended edition. I downloaded one edition of the HP podcast to get an idea of how it was usually done before I put together EVP, but haven't listened to any others!
What are they usually like? like the HP one?