Let’s talk about research.
This is the part where most people back quietly away, eyes twitching while their feet seek the nearest exit at speed. Meanwhile, I’m rubbing my hands together with glee. Writers search the best and weirdest topics, often all in a slew of odd searches, one after the other as tangents spark ideas down the rabbit hole.
For instance:
- Are magnolias poisonous? (No, or at least insufficiently that plot idea was out.)
- What do magnolias smell like? (Different depending on the type and time of year.)
- Washers at the ford legend (Check out these death omen song lyrics.)
- What do ghouls eat? (Disputed, but…do you really want to know?)
That doesn’t mean the story that spits itself out of my head via the keyboard will be technically accurate in all details. I’m writing fiction here, after all. Too much reality is boring. Plus, half the time the story’s about a creature that a) does not exist and b) has at least fifteen different versions of the story.
Case in point: Halima found comfort in cinnamon sticks in The Fire Crown, because some phoenix legends say their nests are built from warming spices.
But I do want to know where I go wrong, and try to make a deliberate and conscious choice.
So yes. I am aware that ghouls are very, very different from zombies. Bite transmission is not a thing.
But Grave Girl needed “you’re my girl” to become “you’re my ghoul” for the play on words to work, so I took some liberties.
I do, however, offer my sincere apologies to any ghouls reading this.
