Writing Historical Novels Requires Research

Getting Facts Straight is of Paramount Importance in These Books

Mar 31, 2009 R.L. Coffield

Any time that one is writing outside of one's own era, it is imperative that people, places, customs and language of the day be accurately represented.

Writing a historical novel is often more difficult than neophyte authors imagine. There are many items that must verified and researched if an author wants his/her book to be taken seriously. No matter how obsolete an author thinks the era is, one can be guaranteed that there will be readers who know the facts.

Libraries, Museums and Archives for Research

Good places to start researching are museums and archives. Many museums have volunteer hosts who are well trained and able to answer most questions. Take good notes so a repeat visit isn’t necessary. Museums are able to display artifacts that are extremely helpful to an author wanting to write description. In addition, seeing something in person is more impressive than looking at a photo on a computer screen, particularly in the more modern museums that often have colorful, well designed displays.

Libraries are, of course, another excellent resource for researching. Most libraries have a collection of reference books that are obsolete enough to be unavailable for purchase. In addition, microfiche can provide first hand newspaper accounts of incidents in bygone days as well as general news and advertisements of the era.

Art and photo galleries may also be valuable resources for information, particularly as to how artists of a time period portrayed towns, buildings, people, and the like.

Internet Resources and Search Engines

It goes without saying that the internet may well be the most valuable resource available to a writer. Providing key words enables search engines to ferret out the most obscure pieces of information. Wikipedia is a source of excellent information, and many times one can find web sites dedicated solely to one’s subject or era.

Resources to Buy

There are some resources (books) that one may use so regularly that it simply makes good sense to buy them. For example, Dictionaries of Etymology are of great use in writing dialogue from another era, as is the Dictionary of American Slang. Common slang words today were most likely not in use in the 1800s, for example, or may have had an entirely different meaning.

The Look of the Old West: A Fully Illustrated Guide, by William Foster-Harris is an example of a book that might well save a Western writer from making gaffes regarding clothing, buggies, guns and items of this nature. Age of the Gunfighter, by Joseph G. Rosa, is another indispensible book for Western writers.

By all means be sure to read books written in that era also. One can learn a great deal reading literature from the era one is wanting to write about.

Nothing is more perilous to a book’s success than to have erroneous information and faulty, untimely or inaccurate dialogue. A good editor will usually catch some of these mistakes. Only a bad publisher will publish them.

The copyright of the article Writing Historical Novels Requires Research in Resources for Writers is owned by R.L. Coffield. Permission to republish Writing Historical Novels Requires Research in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Good Editors Catch All Kinds of Errors

Writing About Another Era Requires Research