I had an experience last weekend that turned out to be good research for my fantasy writing: my city had a boil water order that lasted all weekend. There was a water main break that dropped pressure throughout the system, and when the pressure drops below a certain point, they can’t guarantee that the water is safe (I guess the pressure that keeps the water moving keeps bacteria from growing, or something like that). They couldn’t consider the water safe for drinking until tests came back showing it was safe. That meant that from Friday through mid-day Monday, you weren’t supposed to drink, cook, brush teeth, or wash dishes (other than with the sanitizing setting on the dishwasher) with the tap water without boiling it first. Fortunately, they got bottled/canned water donated by WalMart and Coors and were handing it out at the city park, since boiled water isn’t great to drink without steeping tea leaves in it.

For the most part, it wasn’t too bad, thanks to the gallons of bottled water I got from the city. The one thing that was a pain was having to boil water for washing the dishes I had to hand wash. That was where the fantasy research came in. It’s easy to take for granted the amenities we have in modern life, but in the kind of pre-industrial world where most fantasy novels take place, they don’t have things like hot running water (unless there’s magic that creates it). I had to think about how my characters would have to get water from a well and heat it before they’d have water for washing dishes. At least I didn’t have to go to a well, and I had an electric teakettle instead of having to use a cauldron over a fire.

When I got annoyed by the extra work, I reminded myself that this was a valuable research experience.

It’s like the way the great Texas blackout of a few years ago, when nearly the entire state lost power during a bad cold snap and ice storm, made me think about how dark things are without electricity. It’s easy to forget that we’re seldom truly dark. There are streetlights and cars have headlights. It’s darker here than it was where I used to live (well, when we had power there), but it’s still not entirely dark in my house at night because there’s a streetlamp in front of my house. If that’s not enough light, I can flip a switch and have light in the house. I don’t have to fumble for flint to light a lamp. I have to think about how characters are traveling at night when horses don’t have headlights and there are no streetlights. It can’t be a full moon all the time. I also saw how little light a candle really gives off and how small the area lit by a candle really is.

This is my reminder to always think about where the characters are getting light and how they’re getting hot water. It takes more time for them to do things, and their schedule probably has to adjust to the amount of light they have.

Fortunately, we got the all clear Monday morning, and it turned out that the first test they ran on Friday had come back negative for contamination, so the water was actually safe all weekend. Which is good because I’d already brushed my teeth and washed berries before I found out about the boil water notice, and I only learned about it because I had a moment of weakness and checked Facebook before I usually allow myself to do so. Now I’ve signed up to get text messages for city emergency alerts because I don’t want to have to depend on the Facebook algorithm deciding to show me posts from the city.