This meme has been all over the internet recently.
I think someone has been spying on me.
I love research
way too much. When I’m writing a book, I have to watch myself carefully because
if left to follow my inclination, I’d waste precious time researching
everything from the weather to colors popular in Edwardian England to the
makeup used by women in ancient Rome. Most of it is irrelevant—a bad practice when you’re on a deadline. Research has
to be strategic.
Nevertheless, the
siren song of research still tempts me toward the rocks because you never know
what you might find, right? Like picking through a garage sale or flea market,
the prospect of finding something truly valuable keeps me scrolling. Usually, however,
the fascinating tidbits I find have little or nothing to do with my book. I
just love information.
Today I thought
I’d share with you one of the fascinating but useless bits of research I
uncovered during the writing of my first book, A Dream of Death, set on
a fictional island in the Scottish Hebrides. This research may have been useful
in another place and another time (another book), but it had nothing to do with
my actual setting or plot. It involved Stirling Castle.
Sometime around the year 1500, John
Damien, a penniless adventurer of either Italian or French origin, arrived at
Stirling Castle, claiming to be an alchemist on the verge of discovering the
secret to turning base metals into gold.
Luckily for him, King
James IV was keen to possess an inexhaustible source of gold to fund his
frequent military campaigns. And wealth wasn't the only blessing John Damien
promised. Not only would he produce the most sought-after object of the day,
the Philosopher's Stone—that mythical and magical substance needed to transform
lead into gold—but he also offered the king an even more precious prize because
the Philosopher's Stone, when mixed with wine, was said to produce the Elixir
of Life, curing all illnesses and granting the drinker eternal life and eternal
youth.
Might as well go
big, right?
Lured by these
tantalizing possibilities, King James IV provided John Damien with a
hidden laboratory in the castle and all the equipment—flasks, cauldrons, glass beakers, and ingredients—he would need to conduct his
experiments.
When
years passed by and no gold was produced (surprise, surprise), court gossips
began to accuse Damian of fraud. Sensing that a spectacular demonstration of
his powers was called for, Damien announced that although he hadn’t quite gotten
the hang of the gold thing, he had discovered the secret of mechanical
flight and would fly under his own power from the castle to France. On
September 27, 1507, he strapped on a pair of bird-like wings and leapt off the
towering ramparts of Stirling Castle. He dropped like a stone. Lucky for him,
he landed (so the story goes) on a soft dung heap, breaking only a thigh bone.
Damien blamed the failure on the fact that hen feathers had been mixed in with
the eagle feathers he'd called for—and as we all know, hens can't fly.
Was
he taken right to the dungeon? Nope. King James, a remarkably tolerant
sovereign, continued to fund Damien’s research until his own death at the
Battle of Flodden in 1513. Hope springs eternal.
What piece of useless but fascinating research have you uncovered in the writing of a book?
Here’s my real question: how do you discipline yourself so you don’t waste
time searching for the straw that will become gold in your plot? Asking for a
friend.
