6 Pros & Cons of Research in Historical Fiction
How does a novelist decide what matters to their book and what doesn’t? Author Catherine Hokin shares six pros and cons of research in historical fiction.
I love the research element of writing historical fiction. Give me a location map, a museum, and a library, and I am in burrowing heaven. It’s also an essential part of the process—no novel set in the past can climb out of the ideas phase without an intensive period spent learning its time period.
And no novel will play well with readers unless the author draws them into its world without due care for its facts and its details. So, research is essential, but actually doing it can unfortunately—to paraphrase Charles Dickens—also be both the best and the worst of times.
I write fiction based in World War II and the Cold War, which is a blessing and a curse when it comes to research material. There is a lot available, the pile is constantly growing, and unlike school where every historical event apparently had four neat causes, interpretations of why and how and even what happened can differ widely.
So how does a novelist decide what matters to their book and what doesn’t? Here are a few tips which might help.
THE PROS:
1. Research helps you get organized, and notebooks are your friend.
You have an idea for a story, now write down all the things you want to know that will put flesh on it, bearing in mind that this list will grow as you become more familiar with your plot, so leave space on your questions page. Next trawl the internet for every source you think might help you (and yes, this will grow too) and make a note of where you can find it.
Then start the research process and make sure your folder/notebook has an index. I cross reference what I’m researching to where/how I think it will be needed in the story, and I go back to this index constantly as the novel’s structure develops.
2. Research allows you to indulge your inner geek and get immersed.
This is your chance to live in a time that fascinates you, so enjoy it. Don’t overlook film and pictorial evidence, especially if it’s not possible to visit your location. If you can visit physical places, walk through them with your character beside you. Listen to music, find out what people ate.
Read everything, including novels, diaries, and newspapers, and don’t worry about the gaps you can’t fill in: They could be where your story lies. Read contradictory accounts and check who wrote them and why. Know more than you need to know, and don’t discard anything.
3. Research is an ongoing process, so you can keep scratching that itch.
When you start the research process, you don’t know everything that you need to know. That’s fine. Get the big stuff sorted straight away (the facts and dates that cannot and must not change) and don’t sweat the small stuff, eg. the shape of a skirt. Keep another list of the fine details that can be checked later.
Research is an ongoing process whose needs change as you get to know your characters and start to really understand the essence, the authentic feel, of your time period. It doesn’t stop the moment you write Chapter One.
Which leads me from the best to the worst of times, because the research might not stop, but you need to know when to pause and how to manage it…
THE CONS:
1. If you don’t know when to apply the brakes and how to keep out of the rabbit holes, research could overwhelm you.
Oh the rabbit holes. For all my clever lists and notebooks, I get side-tracked; we all do. One set of testimonies leads to another set which contradicts the first, so you need to read yet another. That incredibly important fact about what temperature it was at nine o’clock in the morning on a day you’re probably going to cut out anyway remains elusive. Listen to that inner voice telling you to make a note and move on, it gets louder as you get more experienced.
And, on a similar vein, don’t let the research become the thing that stops you from writing. Have a date set to start your draft, make it a bit sooner than you want it to come. Ignore the fact that you’ve still got three vital books to read and make a reading time in your day. Begin.
2. At least 80% of what you know has to stay off the page, or it will drown the book.
You are now so immersed, you could write a doctoral thesis. Please don’t. Your reader will dig into the background if they want to—some will do it to catch you out, but that’s a different problem. Soak the history through the story but don’t deliver lectures.
Everything you know exists to inform your choices, but the reader doesn’t want to climb up through scaffolding and feel like they’re studying for an exam. Nail the facts and the details—especially the conventions and fears/hopes/challenges that your characters live with every day—and your readers will walk with you.
3. It’s tempting to turn your characters into the experts instead.
We live in an information-rich world, but that is a relatively recent phenomenon and part of creating historical authenticity is recognizing that fact. I have a detailed map showing exactly which Russian and American units were bearing down on Berlin in 1945 which is accurate down to the commanders’ names. The characters I write about don’t have that map. They probably don’t have access to anything except rumors.
I have to sift what I know so that I can stand in the middle of their world and see it with their eyes. I’m not forgetting what I know, I’m deciding how best to use it and that really is the key to where research fits into historical fiction.
Research is the starting point; it provides the structure and the seasoning. But it isn’t the story. That comes from your characters and your imagination, from the way you bring the past to life. And you won’t find out how to do that in anyone else’s book…
Catherine Hokin is the author of six World War II-inspired novels set in Berlin, her favorite city. Following a history degree at Manchester University, she worked in teaching, marketing, and politics, while waiting for a chance to do what she really wanted, which was to write full time. Her short stories have been published by iScot, Writers Forum, and Myslexia magazines, and she was the winner of the 2019 Fiction 500 Short Story Competition. She is a lover of strong female leads and a quest. Catherine now lives in Glasgow with her American husband. She has two grown-up children—one of whom lives, very conveniently, in Berlin—and a lifelong addiction to very loud music. Read more at catherinehokin.com, and find her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
