Research help?

[zinnith]

Dear smart people on my f-list!
When writing a story set in Victorian London in the late 19:th century, where is one most likely to fail in regards to gender/class/race/etc? I have a ton of research to do for this thing and I need somewhere to start.

Also - resources?

Comments

[sgamadison.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean--several times when I chose to research something I was terrified of getting the details wrong but remember this: ADC himself made some huge whoppers (The Case of the Scarlet Band comes to mind, where he said the snake had been trained to come to a saucer of warm milk...) and he still knew how to tell a thumping good tale. You tell great stories and Stricken tells me you already have Watson's written voice and style nailed down. I can recognize that while at the same time realize I could never achieve that. Seriously, it was a thing of beauty.

Oh and if you are so inclined for a bit of fluffy fun with Watson overtones, watch Young Sherlock Holmes. It's a Spielberg AU movie (what if Holmes and Watson had met as schoolboys) that I'd always liked (I own a copy) and I recently found out they recruited boys from D's school for extras. :-)

Definitely a case where the characters transcended the writing, captured the imagination and lived on long after the author, loathing them, wished them dead. Not unlike SGA... :-)

[zinfic.livejournal.com]

It was probably a special snake... That's what I love about writing fantasy and sci-fi - if you don't know something, you can just make it up. I'm a hopeless history nerd so I tend to go a bit overboard with the research when I'm wiriting historical stuff. Part of the reason for why I dropped out of Merlin BB last year - I just couldn't make sense of the timeline! Never mind the fact that BBC's Merlin is pretty much an anachronic mess. But it's good to know that I at least have the language sorted out :)

That definitely sounds like a film I should dl and watch this weekend :)

[sgamadison.livejournal.com]

It has the flavor of a SH story with a Spielberg twist. There is no slash and Watson is portrayed as the usual tubby, thickwit, but the story was engaging and I have a thing for English schools apparently (I could watch the third HP movie for *hours*. How is it that a place you've never been can speak to you of home? Oh right. Atlantis.

Anyway its a bit of fun that will show you just how much you can bend the rules and no one seems to care. :-)