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Lurking Musings

~ Musings of a newly published writer

Lurking Musings

Tag Archives: Roleplaying games

[AW Blog Chain] Thirteen

11 Friday Jan 2013

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings

≈ 29 Comments

Tags

Absolute Write, action roleplay, Agatha Christie, aliens, Babylon 5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, classical cultures, Doctor Who, Farscape, Featherstone Castle, Jane Austen, Joss Whedon, Masquerades and Massacres, Mayan Prophesy, Odyssey LRP, Photography, Predator, Roleplaying games, roman priest, Serenity LRP, Star Trek, Stargate, Steampunk, Strange and Norrell, Temeraire, Thirteen, Victoriana LRP, Waypoint LRP


With the year we are just starting having a ’13’ in it it is probably of no surprise that January’s Blog chain topic would link to this rather maligned number. It occured to me that every single article in the chain will mention Triskaidekaphobia so I thought I would get that out of the way now and not mention it again. There would also likely be many many discussions on bad luck, evil spirits and maybe even a Mayan prophesy or two (apparently, this is also the 13th Baktun which contributed to the recent ‘end of Mayan calandar means end of the world’ debacle). With this in mind, I decided not to go with the obvious topics.

Instead, I would like to celebrate the number 13 by posting here 13 photographs of something I love… Live Action Roleplay. Some of these are photos I have taken, others are taken by other more talented people. Full credit will be given where needed.

dying in the arena

First up is this shot I took at a Mythic Age LRP game called Odyssey in summer 2012. The concept behind that game is that there are a number of classical cultures (Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Persians and Carthiginians initially but there is another one now) who coexist and in order to maintain peace on earth, the gods have restored the sunken city of Atlantis to act as a place where territory disputes can be settled in an arena rather than on the battlefield. Before each contest, the priests of each nation perform a blessing, dedicating the fight to one of their gods. Here we have the wonderful Lizy Townsend as a Roman priest sacrficing herself as she screams out a dying curse on the enemy.

side by side

From the same system, here we have two Romans fighting side by side against some Carthiginians and finally for Odyssey we have a photo that gives you some indication of how large some of the arena battles can be.

roman line up

Another system I played this year was called Masquerades and Massacres or M&M (or, fairly often, Jane Austen and Aliens). This game is set in the Regency period (1820’s to be precise) and incorporates elements of Jane Austen, Strange and Norrell, Naomi Novak’s Temeraire stories, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Alien/Predator universe among others (seriously, there was a character who was an industrialist arms manufacturer by the name of Sir Anthony Stark, recently escaped from a Turkish prison…). It is a bizarre mix but it strangely seems to work and allows a lot of ballgowning… Here are some photographs from several events taken by the inestimable Oliver Facey

RnR-1154

wounded

Waypoint was a LRP game I ran for a good few years, up until 2008 when I stopped because I needed time for other things. It was a Sci Fi system which largely riffed off a lot of things like Star Trek, Babylon 5, Farscape and similar and also inserted some elements of Doctor Who and Stargate.

DSC00657 Gate 1 assassination

The top photo shows some sci fi post apocalyptic gangsters apeing the Reservoir Dogs walk. The middle one show some techie types trying to repair a hyperspatial gate while defending themselves from attakc and the bottom one shows an assassination attempt on one of the characters…

Another game I am involed in is called Victoriana LRP which is, predictably enough, set in a Steampunk world. Here are two photos from that game:

IMG_4281

This shows the aftermath of a fight with various injured characters being patched up with bandages.

This next one shows a scientist demonstrating a steampunk weapon….

194

The patch of dust on the ground is actually not the remains of someone who has been shot by the big gun. That was there for an entirely different purpose.

The next two photos are from a system based on Joss Whedon’s Firefly universe – Serenity LRP. These are all taken by the talented Ali Hancock, who was able to take them because she was playing a journalist in the game. All done in glorious black and white.

serenity medical

This first one is me helping to perform surgery. The second shows some players stalking through the woods looking for trouble.

serenity soldiers

Finally, a few years ago we went to a 1930’s themed event called An Uncommon Affair. There was intrigue, Egyptian Archeology, an Agatha Christie style murder (which we had to cover up for the good of the crown) and Nazis (who had the audacity to disturb dinner). There was also a photographer with a modern digital camera subtly hidden inside the body of a box brownie. This is their portrait of my character from that game…

doctor benton and dog

Of course, for this game it was possible to take our dog along. He even had a character. He was a dog. It was a bit of a stretch for his thespian talents to play this character. The location, by the way, is a Youth Hostel called Featherstone Castle which is a gorgeous building set in the wonderful wilds of Northumberland.

So, there you have it. Thirteen photographs of Live Action Roleplay to celebrate the thirteen in this year… And at no point did i mention bad luck or the day Friday… Feel free to check out the sites I have showcased above as there are more photographs to be seen on all of them…

The usual rules of the blog chain are in force. So, you have to go check out the other members of the chain or else I will send copies of those photographs we discussed on the phone last week to you know who… you do not want anyone to find out about *that* do you?

Participants and posts:
orion_mk3 – http://nonexistentbooks.wordpress.com (link to post)
Ralph Pines – http://ralfast.wordpress.com (link to post)
SRHowen – http://srhowen1.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
areteus – https://lurkingmusings.wordpress.com/ (link to post)
bmadsen
– http://hospitaloflife.wordpress.com/ (link to
post)
pyrosama – http://matrix-hole.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
angyl78 –
http://jelyzabeth.wordpress.com/ (link to post)
gell214 –
http://gelliswriting.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
randi.lee
– http://emotionalnovel.blogspot.com/ (link to
post)
ConnieBDowell – http://bookechoes.com/ (link to post)
writingismypassion –
http://charityfaye.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
Araevno –
http://www.simonpclark.com/ (link to post)
Briony-zisaya –
http://fantasywriterwannabe.blogspot.com/ (link to
post)
Kewii – http://kellyneeson.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
katci13 –
http://www.krystalsquared.net/ (link to
post)
MsLaylaCakes: http://www.taraquan.com/ (link to post) [Jan 9-10,
24-]
Amanda R.: http://www.twoamericansinchina.com/ (link to post) [Jan
14-]

Fantasy photoshoot update

18 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Photos

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Druid, elves, gaming, photographer, Photography, Photos, Photoshoot, Realm Fantasy Wargame, Roleplaying games, undead, Zombies


The undead empress

You may remember this post from not very long ago https://lurkingmusings.wordpress.com/2012/06/03/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-fantasy-photostudio/

Well, the photographer has now posted his account of the day:

http://quattrofoto.co.uk/2012/06/12/the-druid-and-the-empress/

Hopefully soon we will be able to organise the second part of this complicated arrangement and hie ourselves to a woodland to shoot zombies (with cameras) and maybe show off some Roman elves… We are also hoping to soon have the edited photos with the magic of photoshop used to make them even more awesome (these are only roughly edited). In the meantime, enjoy the shots showcased on the above link.

Guest post: What has LRP ever done for me…

11 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Guest posts

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

#amwriting, guest blogging, guest posts, LARP, Live Roleplay, LRP, Roleplaying games, writing


Over at the Am Writing blog I have reflected on what writing skills I have acquired thanks to having been a LRPer for all these many years…

I think there is a lot there to think about for LRPers, writers and LRPers who are writers… so feel free to pop over and have a read and also feel free to disagree or agree with anything I have said in comments both here or on the Am Writing site.

 

A day in the life of a Fantasy Photostudio

03 Sunday Jun 2012

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings, Photos

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

action roleplaying, Druid, Empress, gaming, live action roleplaying games, maelstrom games, Photography, Photoshoot, profound decision, Realm, Realm Fantasy Wargame, Roleplaying games, Scholar, Secret Project


While I was in the middle of writing the background material for Realm, there was a discussion about the need for more artwork for the website and I wondered if it was possible to use photographs to achieve the same visual impact as drawings and colour art in a roleplaying or wargame. I knew that they had been used to great effect by live action roleplaying games – particularly the rulebooks and websites for Profound Decision’s Odyssey and Maelstrom games which make great use of the medium – and in theory there was no reason why it should not work for fantasy games in other formats.

The lighting set up around Andy as he plays Edvard

The main objections to the use of photos seemed to revolve around the old ‘LARP does not look as good as what you can imagine when playing a wargame or tabletop game’ argument. This is a fair argument, though one which is becoming increasingly stale in light of improving kit standards across the board at UK based LRP events over the past decade. The other main argument seems to be tradition – wargames and roleplaying games have always had artwork rather than photos. Why change what people expect to see?

There is nothing which can be done about the latter opinion other than to be a trailblazer and let people see what you have done and decide based on that. I am not trailblazer though hopefully others might follow my example here. For the former, I could take more direct action and attempt to set up a photoshoot to try to achieve something as good as what can be achieved with artwork.

The lights and fans around Jess as she plays the Empress

My initial plan was to take my camera, a couple of models drawn from the LRP community and a load of kit to some locations in and around Manchester and take some photos. However, a photography keen friend by the name of Lucy put me in touch with a professional photographer (Ste Manns of Quattrophoto) who was interested in doing some fantasy themed shoots to expand his portfolio. Suddenly, my modest plan became a complicated operation and we had access to a studio…

So, yesterday saw myself, Lucy and two friends by the names of Jessica Newey and Andy Mason travelling to a small town near Dewsbury to meet with Ste and his family at the studio he uses – a small corner of an industrial estate modified with the equipment and other requirements of a professional space.

It was a long, tiring and very educational day. Both myself and Lucy learned a lot about photography using a proper studio set up and I got to play with a 50mm Prime lens belonging to Ste and see the difference in the quality of my shots with it. Andy and Jess may also have picked up some information about lighting but mostly they seemed to get an education in patience and how to follow direction (specifically how difficult it is to convey an emotion or action on cue).

The plan for the day was to create images of two characters I had written into the Realm background history. One was the Empress of Onryo – the undead Necromancer who was trapped by a curse to live forever in the caves beneath her palace on the Island of Onryo. For this we needed a vague mythical Japanese theme. The other character was Edvard Vermogen of Hohle, the author of several important magical texts in the game. For Edvard, we needed to get the idea of a civilised scholar who had headed off into the wilderness to research his books.

A compromise: Turn the photos into a pencil sketch, using photo processing software…

We decided to start with the Empress so Jess got dressed into her kimono* and made herself up to look undead. There was then several hours of test shots – trying to get the exact lighting effects that were desired. As this was largely an experimental shoot, there were no standard lighting set up guidelines for this so there was a lot of trial and error. Once the correct conditions were achieved there was even more work to try to get the right poses and facial expressions to ‘tell the story’ of the character. Fans were used to make the kimono flutter and many attempts (some more successful than others) were made to try to time Jess making a movement to coincide with the shutter on the camera being activated. Each shot was transmitted to two laptops (one connected directly by a wire, the other using a wireless internet card in a slot on the camera) and critically appraised by all involved before the next shot was set up. To my limited technical experience, almost every shot looked fantastic (yeah, ok, quite a few were amusing due to mistimed movement or inappropriate facial expressions) but to the experienced professionals there were minor flaws with almost all of them which needed to be corrected with either another adjustment of the lights or a new set of instructions to the model. By the end of it, Jess had sore muscles from holding poses and was a little chilly from standing in front of a fan in a flimsy kimono.

The Empress

We began photographing sometime between 11 and 12. We finally finished with the first model at around 4. That’s a lot of time to be standing in a big white space with lots of people telling you what to do. When we finally got round to shooting Andy, I think Jess was pleased to be able to sit down and relax.

For Edvard Vermogen, I had brought along a selection of wool and fur clothing – including a heavy wool cloak covered in a patchwork of fur**. I also brought along a selection of props that a magician or scholar might happen to have on his travels such as a staff topped with an antler, a small chest and a selection of bottles and stones. Andy then posed with these while there was another series of lighting changes and more critical appraisal of the results. Tricks used this time included hiding a wireless remote flash filtered with a coloured gel (first purple, then green) inside the box so that it appeared as if a magical light was coming from it. Andy’s main hazard here was looking down at the wrong time and getting an eyeful of flash. There was also an issue of his hair being too clean and brushed. This was resolved with some backcombing and a handful of leaves and twigs.

If you look closely, you can see the wireless flash in the box

Lucy and I spent the time when we were not helping with the shoot or making sure the models were ok (including finding a drink that could be drunk without spoiling make up) taking photos. Some of Lucy’s can be seen on the blog post linked above and are fantastic. Some of mine are shown on this post, the rest can be seen here. Our main focus was not to take phenomenal quality shots of the models with great artistic quality (we both left that to the Pros) but rather to take photos of the process – behind the scenes footage of the equipment used and the people involved. I hope that between  us we manage to convey the way the day went.

Sometime in the next few weeks, once Ste finishes doing whatever arcane things he intends to do to them with computer software, I will hopefully be able to share some of the final processed photos from the actual shoot and show you all the dramatic difference between the shots taken in ‘ambient light’ and those taken using the special lighting rigs…

Also, in a few weeks time we should be getting prepared for ‘part two’ of this shoot where we take some models to the woods and get some images of some other fantasy characters… One of these will hopefully be the second half of the Empress shoot, involving some undead samurai in a woodland.

*She made this herself. She is a talented seamstress.

** This belongs to and was made by Sarah, my wife… yes, I know a lot of talented people who can do wonderful things with material… It was originally made for a norse based LRP character but has been used several times since. The furs, by the way, are all second hand and some of them date from the 1950s. They were acquired from a re-enactment market.

Second Chances [AW February blog chain]

21 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings, Wierdness

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Absolute Write, Absolute Write Anthology, AW, MacAllister Stone, productivity, Publication, Roleplaying games, Waypoint LRP


So, the topic of this months blog chain for the AW forum is Second chances. I had to have a bit of a think about this topic as I actually could not think of an occasion where I could honestly say I remembered my being given a second chance. I am sure there were actually lots of occasions but my memory was not presenting them to me in an easy to access way. I suppose I could have talked about how I realised that I had actually met my wife several years before meeting her ‘for the first time’ but that seems a little too personal for a writing blog and, besides, I am not sure it quite fits the topic as intended. So, I was a little stuck…

Then it occured to me that this is the AW blog chain and late last year the AW moderators announced an anthology for members to submit to and I remembered that I had a second chance right there in that process.

First, some history…

Macallister Stone, the overall owner and moderator of Absolute Write announced a call for submissions for a speculative fiction anthology by members of the AW Forums. This thread became one of the longest forum posts in history* and currently stands at 3244 posts. I talk about it in an earlier post Mistress of Suspense. Flush with recent success in publishing (i.e. one short story published…)I decided to risk my luck against the no doubt thousands of really very good writers and see if I couldn’t get a story into that anthology. So, I tidied up Dances with Drums, a story set in a world I created for the LRP game Waypoint. It was SF(ish) and I was rather proud of it, though it had yet to be picked up. I sent this off and hoped for the best.

It got rejected.

But there were some rather nice comments given, including one which said that the world building was interesting and very well done. I had some problems with trying to give too much information in one sentence, however…

Given that the deadline was still far away and the rules allowed for this, I decided to throw another hat into the ring and sent off An Element of Desire, my contemporary fantasy which had also not yet found a home.

This, my second chance, fared somewhat better. I got a response saying that they really, really liked this and that it was being put forward to the ‘second round’. At this point, it basically came down to what space there was available for the stories to fit in the anthology. I was tentatively optimistic…

At this point MacAllister showed the world how she was a Mistress of Suspense (see the thread and my post for the full story) as she kept us all on tenterhooks for ages while, slowly, the second rounders were whittled down to a list that fitted into a normal sized anthology.

I didn’t make the final cut. Sometimes second chances don’t come out either. However, this showed me that there was a market for the things that I write. All I need to do is polish it up – tidy up some issues with grammar, for example. The one sale was not just a random fluke. Both stories went out to beta readers as soon as they were rejected and I am in the middle of revising them both for submission to other markets sometime in the near future. In the meantime, I am writing other things…

If you want to read the final anthology, it is now available for you to buy from a number of locations, all of which are linked from this url:

http://absolutewrite.com/absolute-visions/

When you buy it and read it, remember that these were the stories which beat my exceptional efforts. Therefore, they must be absolutely phenomenal…

*Well the longest I have ever seen…

If you want to follow and comment on the other posters in this blog chain, feel free to click the links below…

Turndog-Millionaire – http://turndog-millionaire.com/ (link to this month’s post)
orion_mk3 – http://nonexistentbooks.wordpress.com (link to this month’s post)
Ralph Pines – http://ralfast.wordpress.com/ (link to this month’s post)
magicmint – http://www.loneswing.com/ (link to this month’s post)
Tomspy77 – http://thomaswillamspychalski.wordpress.com/ (link to this month’s post)
LilGreenBookworm – http://themayhemofwritingsahm-style.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
LiterateParakeet – http://lesliesillusions.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
AFord – http://af12.webs.com/ (link to this month’s post)
writingismypassion – http://charityfaye.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
SuzanneSeese – http://www.viewofsue.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
Bogna – http://bemaslanka.wordpress.com/ (link to this month’s post)
kiwiviktor81 – http://storygenerator.net/ (link to this month’s post)
randi.lee – http://emotionalnovel.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
These Mean Streets – http://ohno-anotherwritingblog.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
areteus – https://lurkingmusings.wordpress.com/ (link to this month’s post)
Domoviye – http://living-working-in-china.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
pyrosama – http://matrix-hole.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
julzperri – http://www.fishandfrivolity.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
Nissie – http://www.paperheroes.net/ (link to this month’s post)
in_one – http://quirkythomas.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
sambgood – http://www.samanthabagood.com/ (link to this month’s post)

More secret project goodness

05 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings, Secret Project of Secretness

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

artwork, Roleplaying games, Secret Project


My dropbox has just flashed up with a notification telling me that a new file has been uploaded into it. This is not an unusual occurence. I have several people who share dropbox folders with me and who routinely upload different files to them at all times of the day and night. However, this file was a special one. It was an image file of artwork for the secret project I am working on and it looks wonderfully cool.

Unfortunately, I can’t share this artwork with you because I haven’t got explicit permission from the artist to do so. Once I properly announce the secret project and get that permission (maybe by the end of this month) then maybe I will be able to show you some of the art. After all, what is the point of having a secret project if you go and tell everyone about it 🙂

In the meantime, I am posting to find out if any of you have ever had the same sense of squee on seeing art work based on your writing. Did you find it to be as great a feeling as I have at the moment? Feel free to tell us all about it in the comments…

The Hobbit

21 Wednesday Dec 2011

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Film

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Aidan Turner, Being Human, Benedict Cumberbatch, Doctor Who, Film Trailer, Gandalf, Legolas, Lord of the Rings, Orlando Bloom, Peter Jackson, reviews, Roleplaying, Roleplaying games, Sauron, Sherlock, Sylvester McCoy, The Hobbit


Today it seems as if the internet has been infected with a fairly bad case of ‘Tolkienitis’ as the trailer for the Peter Jackson version of the Hobbit has hit it quite hard and is spreading all over the place. We even have a release date of the 14th of December 2012! Which is annoyingly almost a whole year away…

For those who haven’t seen it yet, here is the trailer:

I have to say that there is a special place in my heart for Tolkien. The Hobbit was the first ‘proper’ fantasy book I bought and read. In fact, I bought it with a gift voucher I got from school for ‘being good at History’ which was annoying because I wanted it for ‘being good at Biology’ but someone else got that. Luckily, I did get the Chemistry prize in a later year so my scientific credentials were confirmed (though I cannot for the life of me remember which book I bought with that…). The only reason I remember getting the Hobbit with the History voucher (because you know, my memory is terrible…) is because I still have the actual book on the shelf behind me, still with the bookplate from the voucher stuck into it.

I also, bizarrely enough, also have a copy of it in German. Despite not being able to read German all that well or ever having been to Germany. You can find some weird things when browsing charity shops in University towns and I have a love of seeing books I have read in English in foreign languages (I also have a copy of Neil Gaiman’s ‘Death: The High Cost of Living’ in French from when I visited Paris a while back).

Anyway, because of my love of the original source and the fact that Peter Jackson has proven himself worthy by doing such a great job with Lord of the Rings, I am quite looking forward to this release. Not only because it will relive a classic story but because, from the buzz I have heard in and around the internet, they are planning to add extra material to the story – padding it out to two films. Some may say this is a bad thing – tampering with a classic, daring to assume something about Tolkien’s great vision! However, I am of the other opinion. While I enjoyed the Hobbit as a child, I remember thinking about the bit where Gandalf buggers off midway through the book.* It seemed to me to be a bit of a cop out, especially when he reappears and talks about ‘fighting the Necromancer’ with his other wizard chums. I was thinking ‘What? WE missed that! I want to see Gandalf and a bunch of other wizards fighting a Necromancer!’. While Bilbo wandering around in Mirkwood and finding the Ring and tricking dragons was interesting, I still felt cheated that we never got to see Gandalf’s encounter with the being we now know was Sauron. Jackson is promising to give us that scene and a lot of extra stuff to boot.

There are other misgivings out there in fanland. News that Orlando Bloom was back to play Legolas had some up in arms. Legolas does not appear in the Hobbit! Was the cry that went up. To be honest, the cry could probably be translated as ‘we don’t like Orlando Bloom!’ because there are actually good reasons for why Legolas could be in The Hobbit. He is, after all, the son of Thranduil, the King of Mirkwood, and there is nothing to say that he is not present among the numerous, nameless elves. Ok, he didn’t *do* anything in the book but I personally have nothing against him being there and I like the idea of riffing around the concept rather than word for word repeating a story from a novel. I’d have more of a problem with John Rhys Davies playing Gloin (which could have happened, his character Gimli in LOTR was the son of Gloin and there’s a chance of a family resemblance) because that is just a tad too cheesy for my liking. Overall, I am actually quite hyped about the cast list because it has some very nice actors in there – including Sherlock’s Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug and the Necromancer, Being Human’s Aidan Turner as Kili and Doctor Who’s Sylvester McCoy as Radaghast the Brown.

So, suffice it to say I am quite enthused by this trailer and feeling confident that this will be as good a film, if not better, than any of the Lord of the Rings films…

*The roleplayer in me, even then, put this down to the fact that Gandalf was a high level PC and Bilbo and the Dwarves were only low level and the challenges ahead were clearly for a lower level party so Gandalf had to go otherwise he would munchkin the hell out of all the spiders and wood elves and thereby remove all conflict and tension….

[Guest Post] 5 Ways of Getting Good Information Cheaply

30 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Guest posts, Reaearch

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Blogs, Forums, Google, guest blogging, guest posts, Interviews, Libraries, Museums, Research, Roleplaying games, Schools, Volunteering, Wikipedia


This guest blog comes to us courtesy of Dan Clarke, who writes blog articles on how to do public speaking among other things. Here he talks about something which is close to my heart as a former scientist, a teacher and a writer – research and how to do it effectively without resorting to Wikipedia all the time.
5 Ways of Getting Good Information Cheaply
One big problem some writers have, is finding all the necessary details to make their story work. Most writers, I hope, have never been arrested, many can’t explain the newest computer programs in any great detail, and nuclear physics is beyond most peoples general retinue of skills.
So how can writers find the information for their stories or articles, without spending lots of money, taking a college course, or doing something illegal?
It’s actually fairly easy, if you use any of these 5 methods.
  1. Interview People
    Most people like talking about themselves, their jobs or their hobbies. When you need to know how something works, how a job gets done, or an interesting fact, look around your community and find people who can help.
    You’re planning a romance story involving firemen? Ask the fire department, if you can have an hour long tour and ask firemen how they do their jobs, what’s the most dangerous thing they’ve experienced and anything else you can think of.
    You want to learn about hacking into a computer for a mystery, go to the local high school or better yet, college or computer security firm, and ask for a basic idea of how to do it, along with any computer jargon you’ll need. They probably won’t give you step by step instructions, but it will be enough general information for most readers.
  2. Visit Museums, Schools, and Libraries
    If there is a museum nearby, consider visiting and asking the curators some questions. Museums are full of interesting facts and people that generally enjoy talking about them. When you have to know about ancient and not so ancient history, or technology and animals, call up the museum and ask if you can talk with an expert.
    Colleges and universities are like museums, although actually meeting the professors can be a bit harder. Either phone or send an email to the office that you need, be it history, sciences, math, etc, and politely ask if you could meet a professor. Be sure to explain what you need, and if its by email, provide a list of questions you will be asking.
    Reference libraries are another great resource, that are sadly underused. Most large libraries and all university libraries have reference librarians. These people, or computer systems in cheaper libraries, and point you in the right direction for various facts and statistics. All you have to do is ask.
  3. Volunteer, Learn By Doing
    If you live in a city or even a small town, you can learn a lot of useful things for your book by volunteering. You may just do it for a week, or you could do it on a full time basis, either way first hand experience can be vital to making a book seem real.
    If you want to know how an election is run, volunteer with a local political party you support, or at least like. You can watch how they plan meetings, get a bit of an insiders view of what is happening and its a good way to make new contacts.
    Want to know what its like to be homeless or a runaway, volunteer at a food bank or safe house. You can do some good for your community and learn how people survive on the street.
    For stories about actors, join a local acting group, even if you have no acting abilities you can see things from behind the scenes as you work the lights, make costumes or other things.
  4. Read Blogs and Forums
    Many people will post on blogs and forums about their trails and experiences at work, hobbies and life. If you spend a few days going over the various blogs and forums related to what you’re researching, you can find lots of useful information.
    Web forums can be even better than blogs, as you can ask questions directly, and often recieve useful answers.
    The important thing is to not just focus on one or two forums or blogs. You could easily get bad information, you need to back check and confirm through other forums, blogs and resources to make sure you have the right info. But simply knowing what to ask after reading a blog, is better than flailing around blindly.
  5. Table Top Role Playing Games
    Bear with me here.
    I’m a role player, I love table top games, and own many RPG books. Some of them, many of them actually, are inaccurate, unscientific and try for cool rather than accuracy.
    However there are a few RPG companies that focus on realism. Science fiction, military, and horror RPG companies often have a few books that deal with the realities of various era’s, sciences, tactics and groups.
    More importantly its done in an easy to read manner, that’s easily understood by laymen. So if you’re too shy, or unable to talk to experts, and don’t want to pay lots of money on thick reference books, buying a 10 or 20 dollar RPG book, that focuses on realism can be the answer.
If you’ve searched the internet, looked through the books on your shelves, and mined your family members for information, remember there are other sources of information. Get out and talk to people, do interviews, join groups and look in unexpected sources. Don’t rely entirely on easy research via Wikipedia and Google (use them at first then expand), do some footwork and get what you need.
Biography
Dan Clarke, is a teacher, freelance writer and occasional public speaker in Nanjing, with five years experience at finding information and faking being an expert. He currently blogs at Speaking in Public, providing information on public speaking from the very first step to the last.

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