In a guest post on Chuck Wendig’s blog, Alma Katsu shares advice on researching your historical novel. “I came to novel writing after decades working as an intelligence analyst,” Katsu says. “As an intelligence analyst, you’re given a topic and it’s your job to learn everything about it in order to understand what the key issues are and the factors driving those issues.” You also need to determine what information is most vital to your understanding, which might not be obvious, and you need to get it organized. “As it turns out, these are all skills that come in extremely handy when you’re writing a novel, particularly a historical one,” Katsu says.
Her tips include:
- Define the scope of your research. “If you don’t know what your book is about, everything seems important,” Katsu says. “So: define your book as much as possible before you start researching. Can you limit it to a single historical event—say, one battle instead of all of WWII?”
- Vet your sources. “Even experienced researchers can have difficulty determining the reliability of sources,” Katsu writes. “Think laterally, in other words, checking a fact against a number of different websites/sources, rather than deciding whether to trust a fact based on how reputable the source website looks.” Katsu suggests organizing your facts into three categories: Probably reputable (75-90 percent certain of accuracy); Possibly (5-75 percent); and Unlikely (less than 50).
- Stay organized. “Consider taking your notes in the most efficient way possible,” Katsu says. “For me, that means spreadsheets and no (or very little) paper. You can arrange information in a way that visually makes sense. If you need to move a piece of information, you can do it easily and don’t need to recopy a lot of work. You can hyperlink citations or other material.”
