Confession time, writer edition.
This week I spent four hours researching pirate ship rigging terminology. Topsails, rat lines, the whole vocabulary. It appears in the final manuscript in exactly one sentence.
Do I regret this? No. Absolutely not. Here's why.
Knowing a world that specifically — even the ninety percent that never makes it onto the page — changes how you write the ten percent that does. It's the difference between a sentence that sounds confident and lived-in versus one that's just vaguely gesturing at "old timey boat stuff." Readers can feel that difference even when they can't name it.
So no, four hours for one sentence isn't wasted. It's just invisible.
Fellow writers, where's YOUR research time most embarrassingly lopsided against your actual page count?
