Posted by Melody on Tuesday, Nov 17, 2015
NaNoWriMo is more than halfway over. Looking for inspiration to get you past writer’s block? Consider consulting dictionaries and encyclopedias on specific subjects.
Last week, someone stumbled upon our encyclopedias on the short Reference shelves on the second floor. He wondered if we had anything like that for sci fi/fantasy mythology. He was curious as to where storytellers got their information about the strengths and weaknesses of monsters.
Lucky for him, he was talking with someone who’s been reading a ton of fantasy fiction this year. I have read the accounts of countless vampires, ghosts, werewolves, fae, demons, witches, trolls, shape-shifters—you name it!
I got him the book How to Kill a Vampire as a place to start. As we were talking about what his goals were for finding books like this, it struck me that he had a great idea: use these kinds of books to inspire and research your fiction writing.
Sure if you know exactly what you’re looking for, you can google it and skip a trip downtown. But if you don’t know what you need? A reference source allows you to browse and flip through until you stumble upon that piece of the storytelling puzzle you were missing. The library-speak term for it is serendipitous discovery. You don’t know what you need until you find it.
The short stacks in the Reference area on the second floor have a number of dictionaries and encyclopedias that could inform your writing and world-building. We have dictionaries on fashion and costumes, language use and slang, superstitions, mythology and more!
Here’s a brief selection:
Available from ICPL
The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs
The Penguin Dictionary of American Folklore
Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang
The Facts on File Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend
How Not to Say What You Mean: A Dictionary of Euphemisms
The Fairchild Dictionary of Fashion
Books at other libraries (available via Interlibrary Loan)
The Encyclopedia of Demons and Demonology
The Dictionary of Demons: Names of the Damned
The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters
The Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft, and Wicca
The Encyclopedia of Magic and Alchemy
The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits
Internet sources
Still don’t know what you’re looking for? Contact us at icpl.org/ask to have the Info Desk experts track down the perfect source or three.
About the Author
I've been at the library for more than 10 years now, and I still find joy when choosing the best books for our readers. My current reading journey is taking me book by book through different genres. I'm challenging myself to find books that are enough outside my wheelhouse that I'd pass them by on first glance. The genre I'm looking forward to... more
This is really an incredible book--the best long-form journalism I've read in a while. It's not just that the sentences are smooth, direct, and propel the story forward, it's the heart-wrenching story itself. And while technically a true crime narrative, this book goes deep into the histories of two men brought into conflict during a Black Lives Matter protest. Author Joe Sexton masterfully details the little things in these men's lives that made each of them human; a Lion King tattoo for one, war-induced PTSD for another. Both men lost their lives that night, one literally, and the tragedy extends by political factions using them as martyrs for their causes. Read this book to remember to scrutinize every "black and white" story on the internet. Given the divisiveness and tribalism of online political discourse, and the multiple lies we'll all be reading in the run-up to the 2024 election, I consider this a must-read book for the year. -Melody