Research... why it's good for you.

I’m in the midst of doing research for my current WIP so I thought I would share in my misery. I’m not going to lie. I am part geek. I took history classes in college for fun. I love learning stuff. Small ridiculous facts fill my head from all different time periods.

However reading text books – BORING. I do it because I know it’s the best way to fill my head with a ton of information. Right now I’m carrying around what I’m sure is about a 10 pound book on the Victorian domestic household in my purse. Actually as far as text books go it’s not so bad. And I just learned this really cool fact about how they would whiten the outside steps which is going to become an awesome clue for me.

Now a lot of people might think I’m crazy. Who carries around bulky text books when all facts, all knowledge, all everything can be found on the internet?
Guess what – the internet as great as it is - isn’t enough. Yes, you can find facts. Yes, you can usually get direct questions answered. Yes, it is an invaluable tool and has made life easier for writers everywhere.

But if you want to be good – I mean really good - when it comes to historicals (or really any book that delves deep into a particular topic) you need to do more. You need to fill your head with facts. You need to know how these people ate, slept and thought. You need to read fiction of the time to see what they dramatized. You need to read letters they wrote to each other. Diaries – huge. I found gold with a book of documented interviews with thieves and prostitutes of the period I’m writing in.

Is it because I’m going to fill my books with facts? No. See above. Reading text books are BORING. But if I’ve learned anything from Joanne Bourne and Sherry Thomas it’s that they fill their books effortlessly (at least it feels effortless when reading it) with details. When I read their stories I’m not pulled out by the facts. I hate when that happens. A writer finds a tidbit (probably on the internet) that screams - LOOK AT ME! I DID RESEARCH - and they use it over and over again.

With the best it’s just layered into the story. If you haven’t read Forbidden Rose there is a scene where the heroine puts colored paper on her toenails. Amazing detail and you trust that Bourne knows women of this period did this. And if she made it up, she’s layered the story in so many other ways that it doesn’t matter. It fits.

Other times the details can be used for great effect. One of my favorite scenes in Thomas’s Delicious was when the heroine ran a bath. Hot water, into a tub, through plumbing. It’s like she dared you to question that someone in this time period could do this. Using what a reader might think was an anachronism but instead showcasing how much she knew about plumbing (freakin plumbing!) during this time period. She was dead right by the way. Most homes in London had running water by the 1870s. See what I’m learning!

I really believe you have to have it all at your disposal. You have to know the politics and the mood of the nation. The poetry and literature of the time. Who the modern day thinkers were back then and what scientific accomplishments were happening.

The only way I can hope to accomplish that is to shove it all in my brain. Total emersion. So when I’m writing a scene I’m not thinking is it okay for my heroine to take her hat and gloves off? Who would have answered the door? Let me check and see if I can find the answer on the internet.

NO!

I need to know it. Sure there are times when I do get stuck. But I’m learning with my second historical that the more you know in advance the better you can simply put your characters in the scene, knowing the world in which they live and tell the story.

My hope is that all this reading will translate into effortless detail. My fear is that I bog down the book with too much. But either way I know that White Satin was a euphuism for gin. Who doesn’t love that fact!

“Excuse me, bartender. Yes, I’ll have a White Satin and tonic.” Hee hee… I’m such a geek.