A Short Primer on Conducting Historical Research

by

Felicia Dieguez

 

A common misconception about the study of history is that historians figure out what happened based on some concrete facts and evidence, and they write about events exactly as they happened. This, unfortunately, is usually not the case.

 

One main reason for this is that humans have always behaved like humans. That is, they’re sometimes unreliable. Whenever someone documents something, there is a chance they’ll lie, embellish, or remember things incorrectly. Therefore, historical facts are not as concrete as we’d like them to be because the evidence is not always reliable. This is especially tricky in the pre-modern era (roughly to 1500) when literacy was not a widespread skill, and, for the most part, only those of a privileged class could read and write. Historians may have only one or two primary documents dealing with a certain issue at a certain time, and it’s hard to tell how truthful those documents were. For example, there were a lot of crazy things written about some Roman Emperors, but those accounts were written by politicians who didn’t like that particular emperor and may very well have written untrue things about them. Did Nero really burn Rome? We’ll never know.

 

One more thing: interpretations of history change fairly frequently. As more women and minorities got access to education and became historians, new methods and historical topics of study emerged. By way of another example, up until the 1980s, the idea of the “happy slave” was still prevalent in historical narratives. Eventually, historians interested in the lives of slaves, rather than slave-owners, challenged that idea and now it’s no longer accepted as historical fact that some slaves were happy with their ordeals.

 

So what does all of this have to do with creative writing? My point is that if you want to write accurately about history, you need to dig deep. There are many historical inaccuracies that people accept as truths, and if you make it your goal to write as factually as possible, you’ll need to do your homework about those inaccuracies.

 

This all may seem intimidating. Where does one start when attempting to find accurate, reliable historical research? Believe it or not, Wikipedia is not a bad place to start. If you look up a Wikipedia article, it will often state whether historians have doubts about something or another in regards to that topic. Of course, you should not begin and end your research with Wikipedia, but Wikipedia is a good springboard. Furthermore, the sources they use are often quite good.

 

The Internet is great, but I also advocate for going to a good, old-fashioned library. When considering history, books are often more reliable than the internet. However, be careful not to rely solely on books that are more than 20 years old or so because, as I mentioned earlier, historical ideas and interpretations often go out of date.

 

Do remember not to get too caught up in details, though. If you are writing fiction, then facts are pliable. Don’t let getting something exactly right keep you from writing something brilliant!



Dialogue, Dates and Details: Writing History Creatively

by

Shelby Engelhardt

 

The popularity of well-written historical fiction seems to be growing daily. The key term in that sentence is “well-written.” Many works of historical fiction seem to be lacking in certain areas: research on dates and details and dialogue.

Dialogue

Writing dialogue can often be a tedious process when you consider what all must go into a conversation. When writing about the present, it is considerably easier to imagine what a character would say and how he or she would say it. But writing about the past is much more difficult. Historical writers must do their homework about the language used during that time period and how words and phrases were understood by people then. The words we use today did not have the same meaning during the 18^th century. Also, the historical writer must make sure the conversation flows as it would have during the time period they are writing about. Today’s conversations are much less formal than conversations of yesteryear.

Dates

Historical writing usually focuses around one event in history, and if that event was a major historical event, the writer must be diligent in using correct dates. The historical writer must become a master of research before beginning his or her writing endeavor. Even if the event that is at the center of the story isn’t a major historical event, other events surrounding the story line need to be dated correctly.

Details

Each decade ushers new trends into society. These details must match with what the author is saying. If an author is using the 1950’s as a setting and has the main character using a cellular phone, the reader is going to notice. Those major details will be caught instantly. The author must be aware of other details such as geography, fashion trends, and societal norms during the time period they are writing about.

 

While historical writing may be gaining popularity, remember that it is more than just sitting down and getting your ideas on to paper. A good historical writer takes time to research the subject and time period in depth. Historical writing can take a lot of work, but the result is usually fascinating.



Let History Inspire You

by

Karen Kulinski

 

www.karenkulinski.com

 

The word “story” is a major part of the word “history,” and historical events can be a great inspiration for your writing.  

 

I’m not necessarily talking about finding inspiration in major historical events, though many writers have, such as an author friend of mine, Margo Dill.  She discovered that during the Civil War siege of Vicksburg, which lasted more than six weeks, people were driven out of their homes and found refuge in caves in the nearby hills.  Her fascination with this topic led her to write Finding My Place, a middle-grade novel about a young girl who experiences cave life during that terrible battle.  

 

Some historical inspiration comes from events of a smaller scale.  While doing research for the railroad museum for which I’m curator, I came upon a 1916 incident involving the killing of an elephant in a railyard.  The story fascinated me, but it was so unbelievably sad that I felt I couldn’t write about it for children, so I put the story away.  Then, five years later, out of the blue I got a “what if?” moment based on that incident, which led to my writing Rescuing Ivy, a middle grade novel coming out next year with High Hill Press.  

 

Even simple, everyday conversation can lead to historical inspiration for writers. One afternoon, I was talking to a man about T-shirts for our museum at the Griffith Historical Park and, towards the end of our conversation, he looked over at our caboose.  

 

“You know,” he said, “when I was a kid, train crews that rode in those cabooses used to throw chalk to us as they passed by.”  I had never heard of that, but railroaders did use big heavy pieces of chalk to mark railcars for repairs.  And the men doing something nice for kids along the rail line was not that unusual.

 

During my research, I had come upon several such incidents about railroaders’ kind interaction with children.  But one story immediately came to mind — about a train crew on a western run who would throw the Sunday comic pages to a young boy. He lived in a lonely cabin along the rail line and always waved at them when the train passed.  This incident was used as an example of the often close relationship that existed between the men on the trains the people along the rail lines.

 

Suddenly, I had an idea for a story!  A poor farm boy who loves to draw receives chalk and the Sunday comics from a passing train conductor and wants to thank him.  With no money to buy gifts, he finds a unique way to repay the man’s kindness in my chapter book, The Cabooseman’s Garden.

 

Big or small, worldwide events or simple family happenings, the his-stories (and her-stories) of history are out there waiting to inspire you.  



Preserving Family Oral History

by

Julie Demoff-Larson

 

My father has this knack of storytelling that I wish I had inherited. Yes, I can spin a tale on paper, but his talent resides in the oral tradition. Many holidays and late night discussions around the dining table end with Dad captivating us with stories of his youth and that of my grandfather. As an adult, it is those stories of my grandfather that peek my interest the most. I often think of how much of his story has already been lost through the version my father tells. And there certainly are many facts that I cannot relate to my children. It becomes necessary to write down as much as is remembered, and as early as possible to carry on these stories.

So, how do we preserve a family’s history without having our ancestors here to fill in the missing information that is vital to the retelling of the story? Through research?  Well, that all depends on what kind of research we are talking about. A writer can look to community archives to see how people lived during a specific era, but that doesn’t quite represent what has happened within an individual family. This reminds me of Jeanette Walls first two books. The first, The Glass Castle, is a memoir of her childhood looking back at her parent’s dysfunction and mental illness. Nothing is lost because it is her story. In her second book, Half Broke Horses, Walls labels it as a “true-life novel” based on her grandmother. Walls initially intended it to be a biography, but soon realized there were too many gaps to fill in the story. So, the question becomes is it better to write a family oral history as fiction, or maybe as a hybrid between fiction and nonfiction?

A biography can be restricting because the audience expects the reading to be based on fact, including time and setting. This is extremely hard to accomplish because it is speculative. Capturing emotion, personalities, and drama on the page requires flexibility. We all know there is some give in creative non-fiction when it comes to enhancing language to create depth, but it does not allow for grand embellishment that creates new scenarios within the story — that would be fiction.

Advice to those wanting to record the oral history of your family: write down what you know, what you can find out, and research community archives for customs and norms, and then combine with your imagination.  



Telling History through Story

by

Kathryn Page Camp

 

www.kathrynpagecamp.com

 

When I was a child, I hated history. Well, hated may be too strong a word. It’s probably more accurate to say that history bored me. But I loved reading, and I loved stories.

 

I also loved what I used to call the "blue true books.” They were biographies of famous Americans that concentrated on the childhood years, and they had a blue cloth cover at that time. As the picture shows, the cover has changed over the years, and the series now has an official name: “Childhood of Famous Americans.” I’m guessing that many of the incidents in them are pure fiction, at least for the earlier books that would have been harder to research.

 

But I learned something about history because it was told as an engaging story.

 

These days I enjoy history in most forms, but I still prefer it as story. My library contains an ever-increasing number of memoirs and autobiographies and first-person accounts of historical events. When those primary sources aren’t available, or when they need supplementing, I turn to well-written biographies and other secondary sources. And I still read the "blue true books" when I come across them at used book sales or museum book stores.

 

Even as an adult, I learn best when history is told as story. That’s a good lesson for authors who write history as either fiction or non-fiction. If you want to capture the attention of a reluctant audience, use story. Don’t just write about the 4^th of July—write about people who lived it.

 

One other caveat. Even when writing fiction, the story must be historically realistic. Not every detail needs to be accurate, but it must be true-to-life.

 

I recently heard about a novel set at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. It sounded interesting, so I went on Amazon and read the reviews. They said it was well told but historically inaccurate. The author had the Americans liberating the camp instead of the Soviets. So even though it might have been an engaging story, I didn’t buy it.

 

But as long as you keep the important details intact, you can broaden your audience by telling history through story.

 

__________

Kathryn Page Camp is a licensed attorney and full-time writer. Her most recent book, Writers in Wonderland: Keeping Your Words Legal (KP/PK Publishing 2013), is a Kirkus’ Indie Books of the Month Selection. Kathryn is also the author of In God We Trust: How the Supreme Court’s First Amendment Decisions Affect Organized Religion (FaithWalk Publishing 2006) and numerous articles. You can learn more about Kathryn at www.kathrynpagecamp.com.