Writers write—except when we're staring into space or out the window, at a blank screen or an unfinished sentence.
From first draft to final draft, we spend a lot of our time looking for help, info, inspiration. Which is why the right list at the right time is a writer's best friend.
We are living in the information age. Just about anything a writer wants to know or needs to find out is just a few keystrokes away. No more trips to the library. No more scrolling through hard-to-read microfiche. No more searching through heavy tomes to find that one piece of information you're looking for.
We need—
- a name—or a job or hometown—for a character
- character traits, good and bad, for a hero, a villain or someone in between
- a great setting for a book or a scene
- to know what a lawyer, brick layer or middle manager actually does all day long
- where a stripper buys her pasties and g-strings or an expert mountain climber stocks up on crampons and ice axes
- a way for the bad guy to blow up a fishing shack or the hero to go beyond first aid to save a life
Research—the World Beyond Google
- Which president came before Theodore Roosevelt?
- How does your macho, orchid-loving PI revive a dying phaleonopsis?
- What does SPECTRE stand for?
- Which cities have the highest murder rates?
- How many times has Tony Bennett sung I Left My Heart In San Francisco?
Google and
Wikipedia and
YouTube are the basic go-tos but there are many other sites (just about all of them FREE) that will answer your questions and, even better, give you answers to the questions you didn't even think to ask.
Here is a brief round up of sites
I have found indispensable for reference/research including a few that aren't usually thought of as reference sources.
The New York Times maintains a massive searchable archive containing more than 13 million articles dating from 1851. You can search by author, section, or time periods from past 24 hours, past year or by specific dates.
The Washington Post maintains a searchable archive dating from 2005. (For dates prior to 2005, there is a paid archive search.)
USA Today, New York's
Daily News and the
BBC also offer valuable search options.
Time magazine's archive extends from 1923 to the present and includes the weekly's covers for a visual look at what made the headlines week by week during most of the 20th Century and all of the 21st.
The Pew Research Center offers a searchable database covering everything from demographic data and scandals to international affairs and global religious beliefs.
RefDesk.com is a fact-checker for the Internet.
Fashion, fads, pop culture:
From hair dos to manicures, grunge to prep: If you need a clue about what your characters are or were wearing or detailed info about their grooming routines,
Vogue is the place to go.
Need to jog your memory about books, TV, movies and music? Try
Entertainment Weekly.
The dish on celebs? Need inspiration from human-interest stories? What about The Sexiest Man Alive?
People is the place to go. And not to forget:
James Bond trivia.
For the raciest in bathing suits or a who's who and what's what in the locker room and on the gridiron, the skating rink, the baseball diamond or the tennis court,
Sports Illustrated will clue you in. Writing for a younger demo?
SI Kids has the deets.
Hung up for a movie or TV series quote?
This site will probably know.
Want to ask an expert?
Sign up with
Quora where you can choose from over 400,000 topics to create a feed of information tuned to your interests.
Google Plus has communities devoted to just about any subject you can think of.
Messing with the Mafia? From
Omertà to
La Cosa Nostra, from Al Capone to John Gotti, the answers are
here.
Not the usual suspects:
Pinterest,
eBay and
Etsy are usually not considered research sites but they are gold mines of ideas presented visually and, in the case of eBay and Etsy, items described in detail—a big help when you don't know what this or that knicknack or collectible is called or when you want to find a popular hobby or off-beat interest for a character.
Need a name for a Catalan or Chinese character? Want a name for a hillbilly, a witch, a rapper? A name with ancient Celtic, Biblical or literary allusions? Try the
name generator at Behind the Name
Looking for location but maps don't do the job? Travel blogs offer lots of ideas and lots of quirky info. Here are a few to start you off: Top 50
travel blogs. 25 top blogs for solo
female travelers.
Huffington Post's choice of
best travel blogs.
Language and lingo:
Consult the
Oxford dictionaries in a variety of languages including: British English, American English, German, French, and Spanish. The
Oxford biographical dictionary contains bios of almost 60,000 people, English and beyond.
A dictionary on steroids,
WordHippo tells you the meaning of a word and also finds synonyms, antonyms, words that rhyme with it, sentences containing it, other words starting or ending with it, its etymology, and much more. Type in what you are looking for, choose the appropriate category and WordHippo will come up with the results, as well as give one-click links to other data for the word.
Streetwise slang? Here's the guide to current lingo:
urban dictionary.
The specialists:
Contemporary art? Try
MOMA in New York City or the
Metropolitan Museum. In San Francisco, try the
SFMOMA, or
MOCA in Los Angeles.
Renaissance art,
Pop art, and
Asian/Oriental art
From the Congo to the Côte d'Ivoire:
African art
Folk art? From Grandma Moses to Amish quilts.
Science? Get information about Mind & Brain, Plants & Animals, Earth & Climate, Space & Time, Matter & Energy, Computers & Math, Fossils & Ruins at
ScienceDaily.
Health and medicine? Rely on the experts at
the Mayo Clinic.
Jobs and careers? Here are 12,000 to choose from.
Need more ideas for occupations? Try this
A-Z list.
Stuck? Clueless?
Don't even know what to look for next? Give this site a vague idea of what you're interested in and they will recommend websites/photos/videos:
StumbleUpon.
Characters and character traits:
Nasty girl or boy wizard? Villain or hero? Damsel in distress or burnt-out cop on the beat? Characters need to be complex and sometimes contradictory.
Here's a list of
638 primary character traits.
Here's another
list of 443 character traits organized especially for fiction writers.
A third list, simple and bare bones, highlights
basic character traits
Custom lists:
These are the lists you make for yourself. They can comprise any subject or field of reference and can be kept digitally, in pen and paper notebooks or on spreadsheets. They can include inspirational quotes and motivational videos, the names of formatters, editors and cover designers, notes of deadlines and promo dates.
These lists are personal and custom-crafted. Because they arise from your own requirements and interests, they are 100% certified organic and pesticide-free.
