I’ll take any excuse to
buy more books, and nowadays research is my main book buying motivator. By
grabbing every promising book on 19th century history that I come
across in used bookstores or charity shops, I've assembled a useful little
library of books on British and American history over the years. Though I've recently
become more reliant on the ease and speed of internet research, I still love
the ability to reach for a book and thumb through an index to find the answer
I’m looking for.
Three of my favorite basic
Victorian era research books are Daniel Pool’s What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew, Judith Flanders’ Inside the Victorian Home, and Gail
MacColl and Carol Wallace’s To Marry an
English Lord. For anyone wanting to get a feel for the era, these books are
highly readable, well-illustrated, and full of useful information.
When I started writing my
Whitechapel Wagers historical romance series, I already had a good basic grasp
of the late 19th century time period, but I made sure to collect all
the research books I had about Victorian era London and the Jack the Ripper
investigation specifically. I love having research materials nearby when plotting
and drafting. I also conducted plenty of internet searches on specific topics
related to my stories, such as nursing, charity institutions, and the
Metropolitan Police force during the period.
I find maps to be
particularly useful and grounding when I’m writing, and luckily many historical
maps are available online. I did create some fictional street names in my
stories, but I also used real street names, and I had to know in my mind where
they were and the distances that my characters would travel to get from one location
to another. A map of 1888 Whitechapel still hangs on the wall next to my desk.
Travel itself became
another research rabbit trail. As I was writing, I realized I didn't know
enough about hansom cabs, which were the Victorian version of our modern yellow
taxi cabs. My characters use them throughout my stories to travel from one part
of London to another, and I needed to know the various parts of the cab, how
one entered, communicated with the carriage’s driver, etc.
One of the great dangers
of research is the possibility of getting lost in it. A history book usually isn't a light read, and you can get drawn into chewing over facts and following
rabbit trails—one book or fact leading you onto the next. All that time spent
researching tidbits for your novel can sometimes hold you back from the writing
itself. While the past is a pleasant place to get stuck, when research slows
down your writing time, it can become problematic.
To stop myself from
getting sucked in, I now go ahead and draft my story and make a note of
anything I want to research during revisions. In the past I've used file
folders, index cards, and Word files to collect research notes. Now I rely on
Google Docs, Simplenote, or Evernote to quickly capture research information
online. But the hands-down most useful writing and research aid I've found in
recent years is Scrivener. Because of its binder-style structure, I can
maintain folders with notes, images, and snippets of research that are visible
and easily accessible in the sidebar of the same window where I’m composing my
draft.
As a visual person, being
able to grab images of clothing, maps, cityscapes, and art to inspire and
inform my writing is essential. I've found Pinterest to be a boon in this
respect. Not only can a search provide me with useful images, but I've created
my own Pinterest boards for each of my books. It’s like an online scrapbook
that I can refer to during the draft process and then share with my readers
once my book is finished. I've now linked to each of my books’ Pinterest boards
from each book’s page on my website.
I love to share research
tidbits and learn from other writers. I may not have an answer to a question
about 19th century London, but I will likely have an idea of where
to look.
If you do research, do you
have any tips and tricks you recommend?
Learn more about Christy Carlyle here.
