History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Head Full of Trivia

Image by narciso1 from Pixabay

One of Jeremy’s running jokes is saying “I don’t know what I had for dinner last night, but I can remember [insert random bit of trivia].” And it’s true, too. He has a huge amount of random stuff packed into his brain.

It’s a valuable thing for writers to know a lot of random stuff, as it can both add a lot of incidental but grounding detail to your stories, and it can also cut down on your research time. I’ve seen this a lot while working on my Drawlloween stories this month. With just a word or phrase as a prompt, I recall little details of trivia and use them to craft a flash fiction piece or short story. And when you’re trying to write a story a day, this ability to quickly get going is a huge boon.

I don’t know how exactly one fills their brain with all sorts of trivia. Some of it is probably just a result of a brain that likes going to down rabbit holes to learn new things. If you’re not inclined toward this by nature, it might be more difficult. But there’s always the game of looking something up on Wikipedia and then clicking on interesting links within the article you start on to simulate this sort of rabbit hole research.

And who knows, you might just find the best idea you’ve ever had!


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