Forum / Research

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Apr 03, 09:21pm

  Before beginning a novella set in the South some ten years after the civil war (work in progress and nearly done), I did a little research into the times and the several locales. Personally familiar with the geography and history of the locations involved, I lacked the kind of special insight required to create a realistic backdrop, the kind that allows you to write with sharp detail.

  When I began to write, I became aware that a little research was not enough. I needed detail that did not exist in the comprehensive books I'd read, so I went back to work on the research.

  Libraries can help with reference materials, but getting the 'feel' of a place and time requires more, much more. The internet proved to be a vast depository of the material I needed.

  One example:

  http://archive.org/stream/sketchbookofsuff00poll#page/n3/mode/2up

  With its facts, illustrations, maps, little insights into the approximate era, coupled with my own personal recolletions of the weather, the flora and fauna around Suffolk, all the little nuances of speech that set that city and its people apart, it proved invaluable.

  Historical fiction requires a lot of research, but the most pointed is the most valuable.

  Here are some other repositories that I've used in this and another work in progress. Some are free, some require subscription, but if you want something good, the access is pricelss.

  http://www.hathitrust.org/

  http://spiderbites.nytimes.com/

  http://content.time.com/time/static/sitemap/

  http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/index.html

  There are others, countless others, but you can find them with an intelligent Google search. Sometimes, the research can be fascinating, though, and you'll find yourself wasting time in little side trips through history.

  Of course, materials that derive from the period, though contemporary, often contain a bias that does not agree with the historical records, but if you're writing fiction, so what? They are fraught with life and the color of the times, language and syntax that can be both colorful and useful to the work.

  These resources can also be entertaining. You can get hooked.

• 
  Carol Reid

  Apr 04, 12:21am

  I only looked at the indexes and felt like I could get very hooked!

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Apr 06, 01:36am

  Amen, Carol. The Spartacus net is a personal drug of choice, since they have one of the most extensive collection of British and American spook bios... and a wonderful gallery of JFK assassination theory references. Other than that, I just love reading through recently declassified CIA documents, searching for buried treasure in the form of 'one hell of a story' that I can use for a novel. Already have one of those in the works, but I want another. In the old days, the CIAs truth beat most fiction you could ever imagine and their roster of operatives was a colorful crew.

  They didn't know what they were doing, made countless huge mistakes, some even horrendous in retrospect, but they always managed to make people believe they were the best and the brightest of them all.

  I'm not really what you'd call a CIA buff, but I applied for a job overseas with the CIA after the war. They didn't want me and rejection is hard to take.

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