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First of all, thanks to my guest blogger, Charlotte Bowen today! Charlotte blogs at http://www.fictionette.org/, is revising her first novel and writing her second. She’s on Twitter at @acbowen.

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Historical Research.

Those two simple words can strike fear into the heart of any writer, be she ever so mettlesome otherwise. For those without much knowledge of a piece’s era, research often seems an insurmountable task.

The notions that research is difficult or intimidating and that historical fiction requires 100% authenticity (or else don’t bother) is perpetuated by academics, historical researchers, and — to be frank — novelists who can’t be bothered or are too frightened themselves to do research. These people have a lot invested in maintaining that untenable attitude. The academics and researchers are looking to put their profession (a noble one, admittedly) on a pedestal, and the novelists want to justify their laziness or pass on the fear others have instilled in them.

Don’t let them dissuade you from research.

The truth is that there is really only one reason to include authentic detail in your pieces: To strengthen and clarify the mental image your prose calls forth in your readers. Any advice you take and any detail you include in your pieces should be directed toward that end.

“Enough” Authenticity?

Writers perpetuating historical myths make knowledgeable people cry. If I ever again read that people in the Middle Ages bathed only once a year, for example, I might go postal.

Bad history throws your readers out of the text. If you call your Renaissance Venetian character Jennifer instead of the more authentic Ginevra, for example, many readers will shudder every time they read the name. Eventually these infelicities compound upon themselves to totally frustrate readers, leaving them less able to engage with your story and characters.

Take the time to get the basics right. Names, dates, and places should be nailed down first, as should titles if your book concerns the military, nobility, or holy orders. Branch out from there as far as your taste or plot calls for. Details of dress, occupations, and language are good places to go once the basics are in place.

How Authentic is Too Authentic?

Don’t respond by going the other way, however. While obsessive authenticity might allow you to pack a lot of interesting facts into your novel, facts without a purpose actually detract from your story by bogging readers down in endless descriptive window-dressing.

While it’s interesting that Constantinople’s cisterns were constructed with columns taken from ancient temples, turned upside down so that the Medusa’s heads lie submerged in feet of black water — for example — 10 pages of detail with the exact genus and species details of the mosses growing in the cistern is not.

This goes for details of language, as well. While a few sprinkled “good morrows” lend a pleasant historical air to your writing, having your hero cry “Thou dost me sle!” when his lady spurns him for another is simply overwrought — even if that is authentic straight-outta-Chaucer Middle English.

Historical facts are like movie special effects. They can really spice up the visuals when done well, but are too often used as whiz-bang puffery to showcase the director’s technical capabilities or (worse) to hide gaping plot holes. Don’t do that to yourself, your readers, or your characters.

Drawing the Line

The “sweet spot” between rampant anachronism and pedantry is different for every piece. The best advice (as with any other piece, historical or not) is to focus on your characters, your plot, and your storytelling. If the interesting tidbits you’ve found will advance one of these three things, use them. If not, don’t. Let the work tell you what it needs.

This attitude also makes it much easier to compile a list of things to begin researching. Create a basic plot outline and work from there. If the denouement of your novel involves a sword fight in a chapel, for example, you should research the date and layout of possible chapels, swords from the era, and sword fighting technique. These are still broad categories, but it’s easier to work with these than something even broader, like “Scotland, 1543.”

Breaking the research down into manageable parts reduces overwhelm and leaves you with a better finished product.

Where To Start

Art – This is one of the easiest ways to get a feel for an era. Not only do paintings, drawings, and photographs give you an idea of what people wore and how they lived, but each era has a certain spirit that comes alive in the artwork.

Period literature – Even in translation, period literature can provide a wealth of information on social customs and mores, clothing, decor, and — of course — language. Look for poetry, novels, and (especially) letters from your era at the local library or online. Since most period literature (and the Victorian-era translations thereof) is in the public domain, you should have little trouble finding something that suits your purpose.

Other historical novels – Some authors include a selected bibliography at the back of their books, or on their website. Other authors — Dorothy Dunnett, for example — have spawned reference books of their own. If there is a living author you particularly admire, seek him out. He might be able to point you in the right direction. Novelists with extreme attention to authenticity and detail (like Dunnett and Patrick O’Brien) are also your best models for how to incorporate into a compelling narrative all the facts you do find.

Historical research societies – Find these through Google or the phone book. These research societies tend to focus on one place, time, or thing. For example, the Association for Renaissance Martial Arts is a fantastic resource on swords and sword fighting in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The Academy of St. Gabriel helps historical re-enactors to choose authentic Medieval names. Even if your topic is obscure, it probably has some enthusiasts or associations dedicated to its study.

Colleges/Universities – See if your local college will let you audit a class on your era of interest. Not only will you learn a lot but you’ll also get access to the college library, which will have a greater number and quality of research resources than any public library, and to other professors who, by and large, will be thrilled to go on with you at length about their favorite subjects.

Online mailing lists – Google Groups and Yahoo Groups host many historical research mailing lists aimed at re-enactors. Re-enactors are a fantastic resource for writers. Not only do they have a good overview of the available research literature — they’ve actually done and eaten and worn some of the things you’ll be writing about. Don’t be afraid to approach a mailing list with some of your questions or search the archived messages for relevant material.

eBay and Etsy – There’s nothing quite like holding a piece of history in your hand. If your piece falls somewhere after the 1810s, there’s a good chance that you’ll be able to find old photos, clothing, and household items on these websites. Even if you don’t purchase anything, the auction pictures and descriptions will give you a feel for what real people saw and wore every day.

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Thanks so much for such an informative post on researching, Charlotte! I have a historical saga in my head for “someday,” (when I don’t have kids at home, probably!) and will definitely cut and file your tips for researching.

Our antagonists sure do like to cause a lot of trouble.

They’re working against our main characters at every opportunity, trying to make sure they don’t reach their goals.

My antagonists sometimes even like to kill people. I have others that discourage my protagonists, send them off on tangents, or divert their focus.

They keep stories from getting too pat by creating conflict and standing between our protagonist and their goals.

What makes a good bad guy?

Attitude—These folks are usually brash, not shy.

Intelligence—No idiots need apply.

Opposing Goals—They don’t share the protagonist’s worldview.

Drive—They’re not ones to just drop their vendetta ten pages into the book. No, they’re going to try to get the best of our protagonist, or trip him up, through most of the novel.

Deviousness—They might lie or cheat–or kill–to reach their goal.

Limited contact with the protagonist—I could be persuaded otherwise for the right circumstances….but it’s awfully fun to have the antagonist be a person of mystery. An ominous force working against our main character.

And…ultimately? It’s someone who makes mistakes.—Unless we want our protagonist to fail, or have a less-than-happy ending, our protagonist should be able to trump our antagonist by the end of the novel.

Got a good bad guy? What makes the bad guy so good?

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Hope y’all will drop by tomorrow..my guest will be Charlotte Bowen from the Fictionette blog, with an interesting post on the research side of the writing process with her post on “Historical Research.”

And—it’s Super Bowl time! I don’t care for football, but I do like some of the things that make up the party. Pop by the Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen for my look at beer. :)

I’m writing this Tuesday morning at the coffeehouse. There’s a lady sitting at the table in front of me who keeps looking at me and smiling like she knows me.

I hope she doesn’t know me because I definitely don’t know her.

She’s blonde. She has her hair back in a ponytail and a Nike baseball cap on top of that. She’s medium build. She has a nice jogging suit and expensive running shoes on.

She looks like about twenty-five other suburban mommies I know. I’m sure I’ve got to look to her like a million other moms she knows…so maybe she doesn’t know me and she just thinks she does.

This is a danger when creating characters, too. Sometimes characters can run together a little bit.

What I don’t usually include:

There are only so many different hair colors. Well, unless you dye your hair….that really opens up the color spectrum. So when describing a character, I might not mention the hair unless they’re losing it or have their roots showing or have something else noteworthy about it. Because, as a reader? I’m just not going to remember later who the blondes, brunettes, or redheads in a book are.

Describing height is also something I don’t spend a lot of time on unless the character is unusually tall or short. It just sounds sorta police line-uppy to me.

I’m also not crazy about paragraphs that are intended to paint a descriptive picture of a character. It just pulls me right out of a book—I feel like I’m seeing the puppet’s strings.

What I do usually include:

I like a couple of interesting details about a character. I don’t need a total rundown on their appearance, but little bits are great—I loved that Harry Potter’s glasses were taped together and that he had a lightening bolt scar. Unusual physical characteristics help tell characters apart.

Learning about characters’ personalities through their actions is fun. Are they calm and collected during emergencies? Do they party too much at parties? Do they keep the secrets our protagonist tells them? Do they over-tip or under-tip a waitress? Are they sloppy in appearance or in their housekeeping? Some characters are reticent and fearful during the mystery. Others are always happily in the middle of the action.

Mannerisms and dialogue are helpful in establishing character identities. Each expresses their own attitudes, insecurities, or confidence when they speak. Sometimes characters can even casually talk to other characters and drop clues as to appearance. “I wish I could eat a plate of onion rings and not gain a pound, Lou.”

As a reader, if I read one character’s perceptions of another character, it does help me remember the character. It’s almost like that character is gossiping to me. Myrtle wished Erma would just back UP. This close-talking was fine and dandy unless you had halitosis. Which Erma definitely suffered from.

The woman here at the coffeehouse is packing her things up and leaving. Maybe she wasn’t sure she knew me either. Good thing neither of us are characters in a book.

I frequently have classical music playing in the background at home while the kids are eating or while I’m writing (no pesky lyrics to get me off-track.)

My daughter perked up when one piece started playing. “I know this one!” she said. Then she frowned at the title that showed on the television (I get music via satellite on Sirius.) “Whaaa? What’s the name of it?”

It wasn’t a very catchy name. Eine kleine Nachtmusik Serenade No. 13 for strings in G major, K. 525. By Mozart. And if you listen to it, you’ll recognize it right away—it’s background music in gobs of movies, commercials, cartoons, etc.

But good luck remembering that title, unless you’re a huge classical music fan. It’s just not something that’s going to stick in your head.

I’ve read a few books like this, too. The title is either way too long, has a difficult to pronounce place name or character name in it, or just doesn’t seem to fit the book. When it doesn’t fit the book, a connection doesn’t click in my brain. And then I look dumb when people ask me what book I’m reading and I can’t remember the title!

Character names can be just as bad. I’ve pointed out some character name difficulties before—characters whose names start with the same letter, etc. (I just have a horrid memory and stumble when reading if I can’t differentiate easily between characters.) But obscure or difficult to pronounce names are also hard for readers.

I read Those Who Save Us late last year. One of the main characters in the book was the Obersturmfuhrer. Bleh. So every time I read that name, my mind just said, O-blahblah. Which was fine, until I went to my book club meeting and couldn’t remember the guy’s name at all…and couldn’t very well call him O-blahblah.

My first two books had punning titles of Southern sayings. They’re catchy enough…but people mess up those titles all the time, y’all. I’m just lucky that when you Google Pretty is as Pretty DOES, that my title will come up, even though it’s DIES. So I can’t necessarily recommend that approach.

My first Memphis BBQ book will be Delicious and Suspicious. It’s short and rhyming, which hopefully will keep it catchy.

I’ve currently got two books I need to name. How do you come up with titles for stories and novels? Any good tips to share?

Alan Orloff at A Million Blogging Monkeys had a great post last week dealing with scene pacing. As he mentioned, it’s best to start a scene late in the action and end the scene early.

Otherwise, our characters start doing boring things.

My characters love doing boring things. I let them have their way with the manuscript on the first draft, but for the second? They’re not having pointless phone conversations anymore. They’re not walking to the front door, putting on their jacket, and strolling out to the car.

We don’t have to be with the character every step of the way in a book. We don’t have to sit with them through their meals, watch them do their dishes. We don’t have to be there when they go to bed at night or wake up in the morning.

Instead, we can start scenes in the middle of the action.

So instead of having my Memphis BBQ protagonist Lulu get dressed in a floral dress, eat a bowl of Fruit Loops, happily sing along with the radio, arrive at her Aunt Pat’s barbeque restaurant, and discover a body, I could do this instead:

Lulu unlocked the door to the restaurant, reached in, and fumbled for the lights, still humming that tune from South Pacific. Her keys hit the wooden floor with a clunk. There was a body in a pool of blood smack dab in the middle of the dining room.

The reader just assumes that Lulu got ready for her day. I don’t have to shadow Lulu while she decides which of her dozen floral dresses she’s going to put on for the day. The reader assumes that Lulu has gotten dressed. They know she didn’t just show up for work unclothed. And she probably had something to eat, too.

Okay, let’s say we’re spanning two days. We have one event that happens in the early evening (say Lulu finds a clue), then we have something that happens the next afternoon (a suspect is taken in for questioning.)

So Lulu has made a major discovery pertaining to the case. It’s a clue…or maybe a red herring, we don’t know yet. This is a very exciting development for the case. But I’m going to water down that exciting moment if I suddenly go into documentary mode and follow Lulu home, have Lulu turn in, have some time-filling stuff going on all the next morning, lunch, and early afternoon. I’ve just killed my exciting moment.

Instead, I’ll have Lulu’s world rocked. She’s discovered a clue—and it points to the guilt of someone close to her. Lulu’s stomach knots up. End of scene.

How do I transition to the next scene, nearly twenty-four hours later? Very simply: The next afternoon, Lulu was cleaning up after the lunch rush when two police officers strode into the restaurant.

That’s all there is to it. The reader doesn’t even really notice that time lapse…it’s as innocuous as using ‘said’ to tag conversation. Our brains just kind of register it and move on.

Right now, looking at my first draft, my characters are doing all kinds of monotonous stuff. I think, for me, it’s the writing equivalent of using ‘uh’ and ‘um’ in conversation. They’re just cleaning up, dressing, sleeping, and eating while I figure out what to do with them next.

But once I’m in second draft mode, their nonsense is all edited out. With 75,000 words, I don’t have time to waste.