My Process For Research Has Changed

How I research historical fiction has changed a lot over the years. When I first started researching historical fiction I would check as many books about my chosen era as I could carry from the library, take meticulous notes, color code my notes with highlighters (blue for information about foods, pink for information about fashion, etc.), return those books, check out another pile, and so on until I had enough information to begin drafting my story.

As I was writing, I knew exactly where to look in my notebook for the information I needed. If I were writing a dinner scene, I could easily find my notes about what foods people ate then. Pieces of information I referred to often, important dates or events that I kept mentioning, were written on index cards, also color-coded, for easier access.

I Start Writing Before I Finish Researching

These days I don’t do all my research before I start writing. Now I do some preliminary research by reading generally around my topic and then I outline my novel. Usually, through the process of deciding the progress of the story, I realize what specific bits of information I’ll need and then I’ll search for those bits.

I still use libraries for research, but I do a lot of my research online these days through library websites and scholarly articles that I can access through my university. To organize my information (for food, clothing, political life, historical figures, and anything else I’ll need) I create different folders on Scrivener where I type my notes along with annotations about where I found the information.

Taking Notes By Hand

On a side note, I wonder if we’ve lost something by going digital. I have writer friends who still take notes the old-fashioned way—by handwriting them—and I wonder if they aren’t onto something. I won’t bore you with the details, but there’s research that says that we tend to learn better if we handwrite something rather than cutting and pasting the information.

Yes, it takes longer to write something than it does to type it (at least it does for me), but if you really want to learn the information then you might consider taking notes the old-timey way with pen and paper.

I Complete My Research As Needed

Completing my research on an as-needed basis saves me hours of research I’ll never use in the story. That’s not to say time spent researching is wasted time. Even pieces of information that don’t find their way into my narrative are still valuable since it gives me some new background into the story I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Sometimes those pieces of information end up in different stories. That’s especially true if you write different novels set during the same era. I did a lot of research into the Salem Witch Trials when I was writing Her Dear and Loving Husband. Since the novel moves back and forth between present-day Salem and Salem in 1692, I didn’t use all the research I gathered about the era.

When I wrote Down Salem Way, the prequel to Her Dear and Loving Husband, I was able to incorporate a lot of that research into my new story.

Learning About Different Eras in History

I have an odd habit of writing historical fiction set in eras I know little or nothing about. I came up with story ideas about the Salem Witch Trials, the Trail of Tears, Biblical Jerusalem, and Washington, DC during World War I. For each of those stories, I had to learn the history in order to write the novel.

I don’t mind when it happens that way, though. I often get ideas for the plot from my research, so the research helps to make my novel even richer than it might have been without the historical background.

Writing a Victorian-Era Story

When It Rained at Hembry Castle was a different research experience for me. Due to my love for Dickens and years of reading about the Victorian era, I was writing about a time I was familiar with. When I began writing Hembry Castle I realized that I could include aspects of my favorite TV show, Downton Abbey, to bring the story to life.

The hero of Hembry Castle, the aspiring young writer Edward Ellis, became the focal point of the story, along with his love interest, Daphne Meriwether, but then I decided to include upstairs and downstairs elements of life during the Victorian era as well.

In order to write this novel, I started with the author I know best—Charles Dickens. I’ve read all his novels, many more than once, some more than twice, so I started with the one I knew had the most in common with the story I had in mind for Hembry—Our Mutual Friend.

From there, I went back to a few favorite books about the Victorian era—What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew by Daniel Pool and The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens’ London and Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England by Judith Flanders. I had read those books previously but reread them for a refresher course.

While reading about the Victorian era, I discovered a new favorite historian, Ruth Goodman, who impressed me with the fact that she doesn’t just talk about Victorian clothing, she makes it and wears it. She’s tried out many elements of living in the Victorian era, which gives her work that much more authority. Her book, How To Be a Victorian: A Dusk-to-Dawn Guide to Victorian Life, is a must-read for anyone interested in life during the Victorian period.

I also read The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in Regency and Victorian England From 1811-1901 by Kristine Hughes. Edward Ellis is loosely based on a young Charles Dickens, but I didn’t need to read anything specifically for that since I’ve read pretty much every biography about Dickens. It was nice to be able to use the information I had in my head for a change.

What Information Do You Need To Tell Your Story?

I realized that I needed to learn more about what the upstairs/downstairs world looked like in the 1870s. To my surprise, it wasn’t so different from the way it’s portrayed in Downton Abbey, which begins in 1912.

While I picked up a lot about manor house living from watching Downton, as many fans of the show have, I felt I needed more specifics so I read Up and Down Stairs: The History of the Country House Servant by Jeremy Musson. I gleaned some great information from that book, and it provided a strong background for me so I could see how the country house servant evolved over the years.

The upstairs/downstairs world isn’t part of our culture in America the way it is in England, and I wonder if that accounts for Americans’ fascination with Downton Abbey—it’s a glimpse into a lifestyle we weren’t familiar with.

As I stumble through my first draft I get a sense of what information I need. As I was writing Hembry, I realized that if Edward was a political journalist then he would know politics (obviously). I needed to read about the political climate of the time, but it wasn’t too hard since I knew what I was looking for—events in British politics in 1870. I remember learning about Gladstone and Disraeli in a history class about Victorian Britain, and it was nice being able to put that knowledge to use as well.

I also realized that I needed information about Victorian etiquette. There were such specific rules for every aspect of life, and Daphne’s struggle is learning how to live in this upstairs/downstairs world so she has to learn those rules.

I discovered The Essential Handbook of Victorian Etiquette by Thomas E. Hill, which was written for Americans during the Victorian era, but after a little digging, I discovered that the rules were essentially the same in Britain so I used that book as my primary reference. I had a lot of fun writing those scenes because Daphne is amused by her grandmother’s nitpicking about how her manners aren’t refined enough for Society.

I was lucky enough to be able to visit England twice for research as I was writing Hembry. Most of the London locations in the story were chosen because they were places I’ve visited myself so I had seen what I was describing. I’ve stood on the Victoria Embankment near the Houses of Parliament watching the Thames roll as Edward does.

I’ve taken some of Edward’s walks through the city. Many of the buildings are different (I’m pretty sure The Gherkin wasn’t around in 1870), yet some of the buildings are the same, which is amazing to me. Here in Las Vegas buildings are imploded if they’re more than 20 years old.

In many ways, researching When It Rained at Hembry Castle was the easiest work I’ve done so far as a historical novelist since it was set in a time I was already familiar with. It’s always magical to me when I start to see how I can take my knowledge of history and weave it into the story I want to tell. What is even more amazing is when the historical era leads my characters in directions I hadn’t considered before.

That, for me, is the joy of writing historical fiction.