Many writers do some kind of research for their books. Even contemporary authors often need to research experiences in life of which they have no first-hand knowledge. This could be anything from what a five-year-old will and will not eat (if you’re like me, with no kids and not much exposure to young kids) to the ins and outs of a career as a registered nurse.
Historical authors have the added burden of researching the past. Their research isn’t always related to well-documented events or facts (such as housing prices in the 1950s). In fact, often, their research is about the obscure details, such as how people stored meat in the 17th century (or even if they stored meat at all — we can’t assume the things we take for granted today were possible in past times). Their research isn’t necessarily related to major plot points or main characters either. Only this morning, I was researching the hours of operation for a produce stand in a small town in the early 1920s for some minor characters appearing in my work-in-progress.
Photo Credit: The Bookworm, Carl Spitzweg, 1850, oil on canvas, Museum Georg Schafer, Bavaria, Germany: Iryna Harpy/Wikimedia Commons/PD Art (PD Old 70)
There is no hard-and-fast rule about when researching should be done and how much. Every author goes by his or her own comfort level. Some authors prefer researching everything down to the last detail before they even begin that first draft. Others prefer to get the story down without worrying about historically accurate details and then go back and “fill in the blanks” during revisions.
I tend to do a combination of both. I research general aspects of history when I’m outlining the story because these can affect what direction the story will take. If I have an idea for a murder but research suggests it wouldn’t have been accurate for the time period in which the book is set, then that’s going to affect how the plot moves forward. An obvious example would be if I wanted to write a story where DNA testing plays a role in identifying the real killer and set the book in the early 1970s, I’d be 20 years too early, since DNA testing became common in the early 1990s (bet you didn’t know that, did you?) The appearance of a mob boss in my Grave Sisters Mysteries would be fine, since the series takes place during the Jazz Age, but the mob boss might be out of place in my Adele Gossling Mysteries, set some twenty years earlier.
Now, this last example brings up an interesting point about historical research and storytelling: The idea that just because something is historically accurate in one time frame but is associated with a later time frame doesn’t mean an author should include it in their book. We have to think of reader expectations. If I were to include a storyline in my Adele Gossling Mysteries involving a mob boss, it might be historically accurate (mob bosses existed since the late 19th century), but it would confuse readers since we’ve come to associate mobs and mob bosses with the Prohibition Era of the 1920s.
The outline is just the beginning of my historical research. While I’m writing the first draft, lots of little details come up. My process is to include them in the first draft as I know them in the 21st century, tag them with a note in bold and square brackets, and then go back later and research them. I do that mainly because when I’m writing the first draft, I want to focus on getting the story down from beginning to end. I don’t want to be distracted by popping onto Google and going down the research rabbit hole. One example that sticks in my mind was when I was writing one of the earlier Adele Gossling Mysteries, I decided it was time for the Arrojo police force to wear uniforms. Except I had no idea if police in America even wore uniforms in the first decade of the 20th century! Those are the kinds of details we might think are obvious, but when you’re dealing with the past, you have to suddenly stop and think about them. Spoiler alert: American police did wear uniforms in the first decade of the 20th century.
So doing research can be like the old paradox of the chicken and the egg — do you research first and then write, or can you only research once you start writing because you don’t know what you’ll need to research until you write?
If you’re new to my historical cozy mysteries, why not take the plunge into my Adele Gossling Mysteries? You’ll find a lot of interesting research plus a compelling story about Adele Gossling getting pulled into the murder of her next-door neighbor in the first book of the series, The Carnation Murder. It’s free to download on all bookstore sites. Find out more about the book and where you can get it here.
If you love fun, engaging mysteries set in the past, you’ll enjoy The Missing Ruby Necklace! It’s available exclusively to newsletter subscribers here. By signing up, you’ll also get news about upcoming releases, fun facts about women’s history, classic true-crime tidbits, and more
