Adventures In Story Research

[moon_custafer]

Me: Hey, it would be nice if this story had a brief scene where someone turns on the radio and hears a desperate broadcast from a local late-night DJ who locked himself in the booth when he noticed people acting weird. Sort of a Pontypool shoutout. I’d better check what real-life stations were active on Long Island in the late 1940s.

Internet: The nearest radio stations to the town you’ve picked as your setting were WHLI and WHNY, sister stations both located in Hempstead.

Me: (checks distance on Google maps) Hm, that’s 12 miles from my story location. Maybe it would be better for the broadcast to be perfectly normal, establishing that the problem hasn’t yet spread to the surrounding communities.

Internet: WHLI was a daytime-only station. WHNY was full-time.

Me: Well, this story takes place late at night, so I guess the broadcast had better be coming from WHNY then. What sort of programs did they run overnight?

Internet: Want to know about WHLI? Who sponsored them? Their music programming? Local news stories that put them on the map?

Me: No, I need to know about WHNY.

Internet: Tough luck.

Me: This is for ONE PARAGRAPH.

Comments

[kore]

Ohhh my we are research brain twins. (This is also why I write a lot less than I might otherwise.)

[moon_custafer]

I have decided that plot construction is an awful lot like that “Lemmings” video game from the 1990s, in that you have to construct scenarios that block off all the sensible-but-undramatic options, so that your characters have an excuse/are forced to Do the Thing and your audience won’t groan at their stupidity and mutter “why don’t you just check in with each other/call the police/leave the house/etc?”