Researching Your Story – Part 2
This is the second of a three-part series.
Document your research with photographs and written records. I keep one notebook for police related information. Describe a scene with detail to use in a book.
Organize your research materials so you can retrieve the information when you need it. I have a bookcase for any reference books that also includes grammar and writing advice. I have a filing cabinet with folders based on topics in one drawer and centuries in another with extra folders for the Civil War and Colonial period. Use notebooks to gather information on visits.
Print off calendars of the year you’re writing about and create a calendar to document what happens during the course of your story.
Capture the visual in words.
What about researching titles and words? Although book titles are not copyrighted, I research a potential title. When I entered “Sailing into the Storm” as a title + novel, another book showed up about Christian controversies and a children’s book, A Wren and Frog Adventure. They were nothing like my book, but by changing “the” to “a” I had my own unique title.
Another thing to research for historical books of any time period is the origin of a word. The farther you go back in time, the more likely a word you use in your story will not have existed in their vocabulary. Just enter the word in a search and + origin to find out what year it came into common use. Canoodling came into use in 1850. It can be used for kissing in the Civil War but not colonial times. everything can be found in a book. I like personal visits to a location. I visited Williamsburg several times and gathered information about colonial life to write Sailing into a Storm.
Hale Farm portrays life in the 19th Century and has Civil War reenactments.
Goldsmith House at Hale Farm and Village is the floorplan I used for Impending Love and War. It’s easier to describe a room when you know the layout.
Ask questions of portrayers but double check information.
Actual visits can inspire writing. I visited Antietam which is a long narrow battlefield. The 7th Ohio fought in the northern section in the cornfields by Dunker church. The corn was full height when I visited the first time and it wasn’t hard to imagine soldiers marching through the cornfield. Visiting places can inspire your writing. Small details can stick in a reader’s mind. I had the men putting their “vices” in a bag which some men did before a battle.
I did a lot of research on the canal and canal boats until I understood how the locks and boats worked. Research until you are comfortable about the topic and can share it with others. I talked to demonstrators about a working lock at the Canal Exploration Center in Valley View. I found a “homemade” book about canals at the Akron Public Library. I visited the different locks along the towpath until I felt confident about my subject. Because I researched it so much, I used the canal boat in more than one story. Don’t waste all your research. Just change it up or make it background information in another book.
Research until you have no more questions. But when in doubt, leave it out.
Keep names fictional for the main character and locations but research historical figures and sites. I spent years researching my family tree and took a DNA test. A lot of the names I use in my books are family names but mixed up or placed in a different period of time. My great uncles John, Art, Ed, and Harry served in WWI but I have them serving in the Civil War. My brothers and cousins get a kick out this.
In my Impending Love series I used the name Beecher. I use a lot of names in my family tree and Beechers were abolitionists. That was perfect. In the first book Cory has to decide whether to hide a slave. Dr. Sterling Beecher (a real family name) had six daughters and a different sister is the heroine in the six books.
It’s better to keep the names of people and places fictional, but you’ll have to use real names to give a location or if the person was famous. In my Impending Love series, I mention people like Abraham Lincoln, Clara Barton, Salmon Chase and generals during the Civil War because it can’t be avoided, but my story doesn’t focus on them, and I try to avoid too much conversation with them. Keep it short. Keep it simple. But I research them to make any thing I say about them as accurate as possible.
I read an article about archeologist exploring Barton’s apartment in Washington and finding socks in the walls. You never know what information you may be able to use, but I avoid what’s well-known and try to find that rare nugget that will surprise people.
Maps are great, but I went in person to nearby locations I used in my story. When I visited Bull Run or Manassas, the topography was important to the battle.
Narrow your focus when writing about something that spans time and space. You don’t want to cover too much.Look at detail on a smaller concise scale.
I focused on the 29th and 7th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in my stories to keep something as big as the Civil War from being overwhelming. Those regiments had recruits from the area where my characters lived. The women learned things through letters or witnessed the battle as a nurse. The POV of a character limits their knowledge. I don’t describe any battles directly except when the hero is a soldier in Impending Love and Capture. Sometimes you have to have a know-it-all character to fill in information.
As a reporter I had to only write the facts and use the comments of authority figures. In fiction, your opinions and ideas can be shared. I wanted to know why the Union lost the first battle of Bull Run and in Impending Love and Death I explore that question as Jem tries to find her missing husband and Logan is asked by Chase to find out why the Union lost.
Share your opinion through a character but don’t be preachy.
Research culture. What were the unofficial rules during a certain period? How did these rules affect your characters? Own the tradition or culture and then allow your character to change it.
I could describe a young woman in a pink and white dress. It’s accurate but boring. But what if I said “A young woman in a new pink and white checkered dress carried a deep basket armed to battle the merchants at the market over the price of eggs.”
What do you learn about her? She is going to the market, she has limited funds and needs to barter over the price of eggs. You also learn about her personality. She’s a fighter. No one is going to overcharge her. And she isn’t above using her beauty to flirt and barter for a bargain.
Make your descriptions count for something. Keep a list or sheet on each important character and include growth and what incidents impact their life.
Now in your research you’re going to hit a snag or a roadblock. In Impending Love and Death I had three men join the 1st Ohio, and in my story I needed one to be wounded, one to be captured, and one shot. So I have my story plotted out and everything is going along when I realized the 1st Ohio never fought in the battle. Ooops. Now what? The two Ohio regiments arrived early at the battlefield and were stationed near the Stone Bridge. They were in reserve and never fought. One of the reasons I give for losing the battle is the same soldiers fought from 6 a.m. throughout the day. Later in the war they would rotate lines every two hours. So how did I solve my dilemma? Keep reading your research material. An answer may present itself.
I discovered that the 1st Ohio was assigned to guard the rear when the Union and spectators were retreating from the battlefield. They would be the last regiment to leave the area. This was perfect. As the last ones out, no one would see what happened to them. Record keeping was bad for the first battle. They didn’t even take roll call to get a count of the men marching into battle and many deserted in the march because their three-month enlisted expired. I found out the details through research but a writer often has to figure out the why.
Guarding the rear gave me the answer to my dilemma. I had one of them wounded in the afternoon, and they put him in an ambulance and send him back to Washington. This is the neighbor who tells Jem about the battle but doesn’t know what happened to her husband and friend.
The retreat was chaos. The Ohio soldiers did their job and gave them time for the Union soldiers to escape. In that retreat, I had one man captured and one shot. Problem solved. Not every detail in history is recorded so you can be creative when necessary.
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