 Mystery: August 28, 2013 Issue [#5856] |
  Mystery
This week: How Stuff Works Edited by: Jeff  
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"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."
-- Carl Sagan
Mystery Trivia of the Week: Writers use pseudonyms for a variety of reasons. Some write in different genres under different names, some disguise their prolific output with multiple pen names... Margaret Yorke, however, assumed that nom de plume because her real name (Margaret Nicholson nee Larminie) was too similar to another family member who had already established a name of their own in the publishing world.
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HOW STUFF WORKS
This week, I want to talk a little about writing resources for mystery writers, and in particular a website called HowStuffWorks.Com. I've found this website invaluable for both research and inspiration. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the site, the title pretty much says it all. Whether the topic you're curious about is automotive, cultural, entertainment, home improvement, financial, scientific, or technological in nature, the people who run this website have dedicated themselves to creating a site on the internet where you can learn how the object of your curiosity operates. There's even a "random article" button on the site that brings up one of its thousands of helpful articles arbitrarily. In preparation for this newsletter, I clicked the button a few times and was linked to the following articles:
 "How do oil and air filters affect your engine?"
"Does proper spelling really matter?"
"How fusion propulsion will work."
"How does a ball point pen work?"
"How biological and chemical warfare works."
"5 items you should bring on a long hike."
"What is the history of stock car racing?"
"How to choose a good campsite."
Now, I'll admit that I'm a total info geek and I love to learn all kinds of little tidbits of knowledge. But even in looking at those eight random articles that were generated, I can see applications for my writing. If I need a character to sabotage someone's car, learning how an oil and ail filter works might give me some ideas about how those car parts can be manipulated into causing a malfunction. Reading about how biological and/or chemical warfare works can give me needed information to fill in backstory or even methods if I'm writing a story with military characters. Leaning how to choose a good campsite can teach me the traits of a bad campsite for that story I've always wanted to write about people being stuck out in the woods. And the history of stock car racing might drum up some ideas for an article or essay or story somewhere down the line.
In addition to the website full of articles, HowStuffWorks also has a variety of audiovisual offerings, including video and audio podcasts. Two of my favorites are the "Stuff You Should Know" podcast, and the "Stuff You Missed in History Class" podcast. Both are released once a week, run about 30-60 minutes depending on the topic, and have two hosts that discuss the topic in a conversational manner. I like to listen to them on my drive to work. Recent "Stuff You Should Know" topics included: "How Broken Bones Work," "History's Greatest Traitors," and "How Ejection Seats Work." And recent "Stuff You Missed in History Class" topics included: "The Flannan Isles Disappearances," "The Chesapeake Bay Oyster Wars," and a two-part podcast called "The Mysterious Hope Diamond." There are also several other podcast offerings on the site, including the "Stuff Mom Never Told You" podcast, the "Stuff to Blow Your Mind" podcast, and the "Stuff They Don't Want You to Know" podcast.
As writers, it's our job to be experts on the stories we create. Our words have to be realistic and believable, even when we're writing about superheroes, alien worlds, or fictional characters. And in order to accomplish that feat, we have to do enough research to pass muster. We don't have to know enough about cars to be an auto mechanic, or have an advanced degree in astrophysics to write a story about NASA. But we also can't expect to write stories that our audience will buy into if we don't provide them with some degree of plausibility. If your plan to sabotage a character's car involves slicing one of the hoses connected to one of the pistons (HINT: pistons themselves don't have hoses connected to them), you're going to get a whole lot of people in the audience rolling their eyes and checking out of your story. And if you write a story about a space shuttle launch and have the launch scheduled for three days after your hero is told he needs to go into space, you're going to get a lot of people saying, "Hey wait a minute. Doesn't it take months and months to schedule a launch and train a crew?"
Research is the key to successful, believable writing. Utilize websites like HowStuffWorks (and the many, many others out there) to give yourself a general idea about how to accomplish a task your characters are faced with. You may always have to do more in-depth research in certain circumstances, but start with a resource that can give you the basics and make sure you're not overlooking anything obvious.
And hey, if you're like me and rummage around articles and essays for fun... you might even find some inspiration for your writing somewhere down the line. 
Until next time,
-- Jeff
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I encourage you to check out the following mystery items:
Silently, in the cross-hairs of my takedown safari rifle, I watched the white hunter in the distance, kneeling in the high savannah, the scope of his .338 Winchester fixed on the sleek leopardess some fifty yards away. He sat patiently in the sun, perfectly still, while she warily divided her attention between the herd of buffalo drinking at the small watering hole up range, and a nearby stand of Acacia trees where her three young cubs kept a close eye on her from their passing refuge.
“Sir?” I had felt a cold hand on my shoulder; I could tell it was the annoying flight attendant from earlier. “Excuse me, sir?” She wasn't about to give in so I decided to open my eyes, I was already awake by now anyway. I managed a smile and replied “Yes, ma’am?” “The plane has landed sir.” She was trying to be as polite as possible. I looked around to find only empty seats, so I had been asleep a while. Oh great, forced to go on a boring school trip to Paris and now I was going to be the laughing stock of the plane ride. Not that it mattered anyway, no one noticed. They all thought I was a teacher’s pet, awkward and stand-offish. I’m not really a teacher’s pet; I just like learning because it isn't hard for me. And that’s more than I can say about making friends. My best friend is Max. He’s my dog. But I do come from an intelligent family so it’s in my genes.
It was just a fish in the ocean. Yet that was significant enough to the captain and crew of Explorer I, the first ship from Earth to land on Europa, one of Jupiter’s four Galilean moons and the only one with an ocean. What made this ocean special was the fact that it was located beneath a miles-thick sheet of ice. But Explorer I was ready for that, and in fact it was designed for that very purpose--to drill through the ice and send a probe into the vast Europan ocean. They detected one fish, and that was an anomaly--a very big anomaly. Because they detected a fish where no fish should have been. No other life was detected by life sensors, not even bacterium. It was a fish in the ocean, all right, but it might of well have been an alien ship from the future with advanced technology beyond Andromeda.
My wife has many obsessions; the worst is her dustbin fetish. Yesterday evening, she went outside to retrieve the eyesore.
Lyle Brooks, 31, writer in San Francisco sits at his desk as he does every night. What he doesn't know is that tonight will be like no other. Lyle has always had a passion for writing. Throughout school, writing was the only thing he was good at. He was the kid who sat alone at the lunch table with a black eye his father left him for not taking out the trash. Lyle would fill a report card with bad grades, except for one class, Writing. Life for Lyle was never was easy. He never had many friends, any heroes, not anything to ever look forward to. Lyle had a younger sister, Lilly, the only person he loved. Their parents were never really there. They left Lyle to guard his younger sister, home alone, in one of the most dangerous areas in Detroit.
Why do the high notes excite and the low notes give a feeling of comfort and rest? She listened to Antonio Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" and fluttered around the room lilting with the violins and flutes. Suddenly, the deep thrusting of the bass took her away and threw her down on the sofa where she spent the next several seconds just thinking.....where was he? What was he doing?
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