I'm just here to whine

[JRTomlin]

Starting a new historical novel, even set in a period that you've written about a lot, is f*cking HARD. 

Every bit of research I did before has to be rechecked because I might not remember exactly when Lord whoever was born and when battle whatsit took place.  Not to mention a new family tree. And hundreds of details all mapped out. Yikes.

There has got to be an easier way to make a living. I may take up ditch digging.

(Through whining now. As you were.)

[Michelle Louring]

I got a huge amount of respect for people who can write historical novels without going insane.
I write high fantasy where I basically just make up stuff, and yet I still end up spending 7 hours on Google, researching some small thing. If I actually wrote a genre where I had to get real facts right, I would never get anything done!

[cecilia_writer]

Yes. This is why I can write at least three mysteries set in the present day in the time it takes to do any one novel set in the past. And then there's the danger of being sucked into the research and hardly even coming up for air...

[dgcasey]

I got a huge amount of respect for people who can write historical novels without going insane.
I write high fantasy where I basically just make up stuff, and yet I still end up spending 7 hours on Google, researching some small thing. If I actually wrote a genre where I had to get real facts right, I would never get anything done!

You still have to keep track of things. When I wrote the second novel in my fantasy trilogy, I had a couple of dragons flying somewhere together, taking their riders somewhere deep into the enemy's territory. I had just about finished the novel and was doing some editing when something about that scene began to bug me, but I couldn't figure out what it was, so I marked the scene in red. My editor (my daughter) read it and asked, "Didn't Jorath die in the first book?"

Oh good grief.

It was an easy fix, but we still have to keep things straight from book to book.

[Mysterywriter]

Starting a new historical novel, even set in a period that you've written about a lot, is f*cking HARD. 

Every bit of research I did before has to be rechecked because I might not remember exactly when Lord whoever was born and when battle whatsit took place.  Not to mention a new family tree. And hundreds of details all mapped out. Yikes.

There has got to be an easier way to make a living. I may take up ditch digging.

(Through whining now. As you were.)

I was planning on my next mystery series being set in Victorian England and you are now giving me serious doubt!

 

[Michelle Louring]

I got a huge amount of respect for people who can write historical novels without going insane.
I write high fantasy where I basically just make up stuff, and yet I still end up spending 7 hours on Google, researching some small thing. If I actually wrote a genre where I had to get real facts right, I would never get anything done!

You still have to keep track of things. When I wrote the second novel in my fantasy trilogy, I had a couple of dragons flying somewhere together, taking their riders somewhere deep into the enemy's territory. I had just about finished the novel and was doing some editing when something about that scene began to bug me, but I couldn't figure out what it was, so I marked the scene in red. My editor (my daughter) read it and asked, "Didn't Jorath die in the first book?"

Oh good grief.

It was an easy fix, but we still have to keep things straight from book to book.

Oh yes. I'm rereading my entire series right now, because I made the mistake of not making too many notes about what happened in the earlier books and now I have forgotten half of it. I'm just saying I'm glad I don't have to keep track of both that AND real historical facts.

And it's not like I haven't spent days researching whether a human adult with martial arts training could actually break someone's shoulder with a well-placed kick.
There's still plenty of room to mess up.

[TimothyEllis]

When I wrote the second novel in my fantasy trilogy, I had a couple of dragons flying somewhere together, taking their riders somewhere deep into the enemy's territory. I had just about finished the novel and was doing some editing when something about that scene began to bug me, but I couldn't figure out what it was, so I marked the scene in red. My editor (my daughter) read it and asked, "Didn't Jorath die in the first book?"

I had a similar thing happen. At the end of series 1, I had a whole heap of characters move to another galaxy and the door closed permanently behind them. In series 2, I used a lot of them.

In series 4, I went looking for secondary characters to use, and assumed because one of the main characters didnt do the move, the 2nd level character also didn't.

WRONG.

I picked up the error 3 books into series 4, when I did a re-badge on series 2, and found I'd now used the same character in 2 different galaxies at the same time.

Since I was editing in the series 2 books at the time, I did a very fast retcon, and replaced the character used in series 4 with 2 other characters not used at all since series 1.

It is so easy to do something like this, even with documentation in place.

[VanessaC]

Like Michelle, this is one (of many) reasons why I write fantasy.

Although, I have spent many hours researching weird and odd little details, many of which didn't make it to the final cut. Like: how to put on snow chains, do wolves have whites of their eyes, what could a river barge look like? The internet is amazing.

And I'm paranoid about getting some internal facts wrong - I am only on my second series just now, and am trying to stick to one series / world at a time to limit the potential for messing things up.

[notthatamanda]

I was planning on my next mystery series being set in Victorian England and you are now giving me serious doubt!

 

If I had it to do over again I would do a lot of research ahead of time because fitting in the time line as you go or after (I wrote one character's POV first) was tough.  Live and learn.  And weep.
Now I'm writing a contemporary novel and my biggest problem is my hand hurts from writing so much.

[Maggie Ann]

I do my research first. I like to set my historicals against significant happenings. It's how I get my timeline. But that doesn't mean I don't have to stop and recheck things or something comes up that needs further research.

Case in point, I was finishing up the book set against the reign of Richard III and wanted to double-check the Battle of Bosworth Field. Information that the battle had taken place by a different hill had just been published three months before. They found Richard's badge in the new location. I put in that info and added an author's note so I wouldn't get beaten up by all the Ricardians out there.

But, for my latest series, I did all the research, set up my timeline, wrote the first book and started the second when I realized I'd lost the knack. Or at least temporarily misplaced it. I set those two aside and now I'm writing contemporary to sort of cleanse my palate.

Yes, it's daunting. I should take a blank wall in my den and do a massive timeline from 1066 to 1509 in permanent marker, sort of like the Black family tree.

[sandree]

I cannot imagine how hard writing historical novels is. I have dyscalculia (a math learning disability) and it seems to extend to time as well for me. I am finding the timelines in my writing very hard to wrap my head around. And then there is the 65 year old memory... This series will definitely stop at three novels. I don’t think my poor mind can handle more than that.

[DrewMcGunn]

Starting a new historical novel, even set in a period that you've written about a lot, is f*cking HARD. 

Every bit of research I did before has to be rechecked because I might not remember exactly when Lord whoever was born and when battle whatsit took place.  Not to mention a new family tree. And hundreds of details all mapped out. Yikes.

There has got to be an easier way to make a living. I may take up ditch digging.

(Through whining now. As you were.)

Amen. I just finished writing a 6 book series set in an alternate 19th century. Not only did I have to keep remember the stuff I wasn't changing, but I had to remember the stuff I had.

And now I have to get ready to do it all over again... once I work through the various concepts I'm kicking around.

[DmGuay]

I don't know if I could do historical!

I learned a few hard lessons from my first PN/UF trilogy and NO.1 is: Take notes! Write a story bible AS YOU WRITE IT, or revise it.

I'm doing that as I go for this series and I hope it will make details easier to find/ harder to bork up in future books.

[JRTomlin]

I do my research first. I like to set my historicals against significant happenings. It's how I get my timeline. But that doesn't mean I don't have to stop and recheck things or something comes up that needs further research.

Case in point, I was finishing up the book set against the reign of Richard III and wanted to double-check the Battle of Bosworth Field. Information that the battle had taken place by a different hill had just been published three months before. They found Richard's badge in the new location. I put in that info and added an author's note so I wouldn't get beaten up by all the Ricardians out there.

But, for my latest series, I did all the research, set up my timeline, wrote the first book and started the second when I realized I'd lost the knack. Or at least temporarily misplaced it. I set those two aside and now I'm writing contemporary to sort of cleanse my palate.

Yes, it's daunting. I should take a blank wall in my den and do a massive timeline from 1066 to 1509 in permanent marker, sort of like the Black family tree.

Unfortunately (my mistake) I don't still have the timeline from the series of novels I wrote about this period more than six years ago.  (My more recent novels were set about a hundred years later) Not to mention the fact that in this series will be about a different main character which means I would need additional information about his life. It is somewhat different as to detail when your novels are about historical people rather than set with that background. If you say your character was someplace on a particular day, you better know they were there, or at least not demonstrably somewhere else, on that particular day.

Since my degrees are on the history of the period, I don't bother with general research, but HF fans will indeed check every single detail and woe betide you if you get something wrong.

[Simon Haynes]

I'd love to write a novel set in WWII (air combat in particular) or the Napoleonic wars - especially the sea battles.

I don't have the historical background or the lifetime required to obtain it, so I did the next best thing - I wrote an SF novel with dogfighting combat, and I included wooden-ship sea battles in a fantasy trilogy. It scratched the itch, at least.

[Vijaya]

Starting a new historical novel, even set in a period that you've written about a lot, is f*cking HARD. 

Every bit of research I did before has to be rechecked because I might not remember exactly when Lord whoever was born and when battle whatsit took place.  Not to mention a new family tree. And hundreds of details all mapped out. Yikes.

There has got to be an easier way to make a living. I may take up ditch digging.

I feel your pain--I'm revising a historical right now. I'll be happy after the work is done!

[Maggie Ann]

I do my research first. I like to set my historicals against significant happenings. It's how I get my timeline. But that doesn't mean I don't have to stop and recheck things or something comes up that needs further research.

Case in point, I was finishing up the book set against the reign of Richard III and wanted to double-check the Battle of Bosworth Field. Information that the battle had taken place by a different hill had just been published three months before. They found Richard's badge in the new location. I put in that info and added an author's note so I wouldn't get beaten up by all the Ricardians out there.

But, for my latest series, I did all the research, set up my timeline, wrote the first book and started the second when I realized I'd lost the knack. Or at least temporarily misplaced it. I set those two aside and now I'm writing contemporary to sort of cleanse my palate.

Yes, it's daunting. I should take a blank wall in my den and do a massive timeline from 1066 to 1509 in permanent marker, sort of like the Black family tree.

Unfortunately (my mistake) I don't still have the timeline from the series of novels I wrote about this period more than six years ago.  (My more recent novels were set about a hundred years later) Not to mention the fact that in this series will be about a different main character which means I would need additional information about his life. It is somewhat different as to detail when your novels are about historical people rather than set with that background. If you say your character was someplace on a particular day, you better know they were there, or at least not demonstrably somewhere else, on that particular day.

Since my degrees are on the history of the period, I don't bother with general research, but HF fans will indeed check every single detail and woe betide you if you get something wrong.

The one I wrote set in Richard III's reign has him as a prominent, although not a main, character. The book I set aside, has John (there is only one John in England) who is also prominent although not a main. John moved around a lot trying to avoid the barons, and fortunately, I was able to find precise dates and times and what he was actually doing. I threw in an interesting little fact about his ordering 100 lbs of almonds for Isabella, his wife. Apparently, it was some kind of emergency. Also, the gifts (again with the almonds) he sent to Eleanor, the niece he threw into prison and kept there until she died.

It doesn't work for me unless the current king is portrayed along with the prominent nobles of the time. I stopped reading historical romances a long time ago because there was some vague king somewhere in an unnamed castle and I need a lot more facts than that to make me happy.

On the other hand, I can't call what I do historical fiction because the king, etc, are not the main characters. True historical fiction is what you write.

[JRTomlin]

I do think what you write counts as historical fiction, just a different subcategory of it.

It is fun finding out the details of what happened centuries ago such as Edward II making a thoroughly racist joke about his Welsh subjects. I do love the research, but sometimes it gets a feels a bit oppressive.

[cecilia_writer]

I always find the things I need to know for writing novels are completely different from what I learned at university. My memory for details hasn't got any better over the years, either, although I can sometimes keep things in my head long enough if I visit a place for myself and try and work out what it would have looked like.

[notthatamanda]

I'd love to write a novel set in WWII (air combat in particular) or the Napoleonic wars - especially the sea battles.

I don't have the historical background or the lifetime required to obtain it, so I did the next best thing - I wrote an SF novel with dogfighting combat, and I included wooden-ship sea battles in a fantasy trilogy. It scratched the itch, at least.

I was never interested in history at school, now I am for some reason.  Rick Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy was amazing, if you are looking for some, um, fun, reading.

[notthatamanda]

I do think what you write counts as historical fiction, just a different subcategory of it.

I'm never really sure what qualifies as historical fiction.  Some people seem to think it has to feature a famous historical character, some think it is all about the setting and everything in the story being appropriate for the time.  I've seen it defined both ways.

[LilyBLily]

I did a ton of research for a Tudor novel about a decade ago, and the resultant ms. was a mess. I haven't seriously gone back to it since; I know I'll have to do the research all over again. Although I've been a huge fan of the era since I was a teenager, and I think I have a cute idea that will make for fun historical fiction with a dash of romance--rather than historical romance with a dash of history--I'm daunted by all the work involved in getting the history right.

One thing I did learn from the research was just how hard it is to be a good historian. They read the original sources and then they pick and choose what to present in their biographies or histories. If they have a bias, often they pick the original sources that seem to prove that bias and don't mention the ones that don't. It's a good reason to go to the original sources, but, frankly, that's hard work I don't want to do.

[JRTomlin]

I use original sources for the most part only supplemented with stuff by modern historians. And if you are writing medieval HF they are certainly not in modern English. They are rarely translated (and if they are you would worry about the accuracy of the translation because most people would be amazed at the amount of bias in academic history). It can indeed be painful. I am rereading an original source right now that is in Early Scots and 14,000 lines long. Fascinating but still...

I definitely sympathize with not wanting to do it. As I said ditch digging is looking REAL tempting.

[spin52]

I feel your pain. I have written 10 Victorian mysteries, set in the town where I live, and the research wasn't too difficult. But now I'm working on one set in Elizabethan Plymouth, and it is much, much harder. I have used so many reference books and websites that I'm thinking of including a bibliography, and I'm sure I've still got some things wrong. One thing I haven't done is try to write cod-Shakespearean dialogue, just tried to avoid anything that sounds too 'modern'.   

[Ghost5]

I'll just leave this here for basically everyone in this thread:

 

[JRTomlin]

I am also looking longingly at a 1908 set of Paul Balfour's Scots Peerage, 9 volumes, for only $548. Sometimes an addiction to research is a bit like a heroin addiction.   

[Maggie Ann]

I am also looking longingly at a 1908 set of Paul Balfour's Scots Peerage, 9 volumes, for only $548. Sometimes an addiction to research is a bit like a heroin addiction.   

Research is always better with a book (or 9) in your hand.

[Kate Elizabeth]

You guys are my heroes.

[notthatamanda]

I am also looking longingly at a 1908 set of Paul Balfour's Scots Peerage, 9 volumes, for only $548. Sometimes an addiction to research is a bit like a heroin addiction.   

As a bargain hunter I will support you in this.

[JRTomlin]

That's really not a bad price, especially since you don't see a lot of complete sets and some sellers won't ship it from the UK. And it would be amazingly helpful to have. Really. 

[notthatamanda]

Say it will be your birthday present.  And Christmas too, if necessary?

[Maggie Ann]

Say it will be your birthday present.  And Christmas too, if necessary?

For the next five years.

It's probably tax deductible so the cost will probably offset all the money you're making from that BB ad. 

[JRTomlin]

Yes, I could use it as a deduction. See. That's a great reason to buy it. 

[VanessaC]

I am also looking longingly at a 1908 set of Paul Balfour's Scots Peerage, 9 volumes, for only $548. Sometimes an addiction to research is a bit like a heroin addiction.   

That sounds perfect for your genre, and as others have pointed out, also gets counted as a business expense.

I say go for it!

 

[JRTomlin]

  Well... Actually, I did just buy them. 

[notthatamanda]

The internet.  Allowing people to enable each other since...

Enjoy them.

[JRTomlin]

  Too true.

[Maggie Ann]

Well... Actually, I did just buy them.