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Romance Author Roundtable
4.
AOTW: If you write historical romances, how do you do your research?
Julia Quinn: After eleven books, I have a good grounding in the basics of the time period in which I write: titles, forms of address, etiquette, etc. Other than that, I look things up as I need them or pose the question to other authors. Author listservs make it really easy to pick the brains of your colleagues!
Jo Beverley: Any way I can [grin]. That's true. These days the web means we can access information in many different ways, but libraries are still key. Often I can get what I want through the public library, but if not I go to the university one.
I write in three periods --- Medieval around 1100, Georgian in the 1760s, and Regency, and have been doing so for over ten years now. This means that I have a solid knowledge base on these periods, but also that I can continually be adding to it. I'll do spot research for particular plot points (at the moment it's the history of the Stuart line of kings) but my ongoing research is always into social history; into how people lived. This can be the most elusive, but it's why I love primary sources. A diary or collection of letters may only have a few pieces of new information, but those are like gold. It is irritating, however, how people in the past neglected to detail their mundane lives! For example, for all the novels, diaries, and letters from the Regency period, we still don't have a clear picture of how social dancing was organized.
There always comes a point, however, where we have to make something up. This isn't as daring as it sounds, because our research builds a kind of web. In some places it is tightly woven and in others it is lacy with a hole just where we need a detail. The detail we construct has to fit in that hole, however, and has to mesh with the rest of the web. If we've done our other research well and immersed ourselves in the period, the chances are good that what we come up with will be right.
Mary Lynn Baxter: I only write contemporary romances.
Judith McNaught: I traveled to whatever country I intended to write about and did research there, as well reading volumes of material on every facet of the life and living conditions I intended to portray. I love doing research; besides enriching my knowledge, it's a guiltless way to postpone the actual act of writing.
Brenda Novak: My first book was a historical. It was before the Internet had so much available, so I spent a lot of time at the university library here in Sacramento where I read history books and novels from my era to get the right "feel." Now I write contemporaries and don't have to recreate a historical world, but I still have to research the jobs my characters perform and their specific settings. I often tell people that the beauty of being a writer is that I get to "be" everything, yet only hit the highlights. For instance, one character might be a forensic scientist. I get to research what a forensic scientist would do but only have to insert myself into that role (or character's mind) when something exciting is going to happen.
Christina Skye: Currently, I'm no longer writing historical romances.
Dorothy Garlock: I research on the Internet, the telephone and at the library.
Teresa Medeiros: I buy tons of reference books and keep them at my elbow because I never know what tidbit I'm going to need. Children's books are amazing references, such as the See Inside and Eyewitness series. My favorites are often books written several years ago, which are loaded with juicy details about an era, such as The Pageant of Victorian England by Elizabeth Burton and A History of Everyday Things in England by Marjorie and C.H.B. Quennell. For the last two books, I immersed myself in Jane Austen's Town and Country Style by Susan Watkins. The Internet is also becoming a very viable resource, especially when it comes to looking up little emergency details.
Shirlee Busbee: I have an extensive library that I've collected over the years and when I'm writing a historical, I pull all the books I think I might need and sit and read and read and read! Sort of like cramming for a test and then I write the book.
Rachel Gibson: I write contemporary.
Candace Camp: I do research on the web when I can find what I want there. For instance, today I needed a specific date, and I was able to look up a king's biography on the web and find out the date. That is great and so much easier than years ago when I had to slog down to the library to look up something like that. But I still use the local library for a lot of research. For instance, for the book I'm writing now, I read a couple of books about spiritualists in the Victorian era, and I looked through a number of books about goldsmiths and their products in the middle ages because I needed some objects that came from that period. I also went through a number of picture books about antique jewelry. I look up houses in books --- I also looked up some on the Internet, but I just couldn't find enough good pictures as I can in books. I have one indispensable book that I bought in England a number of years ago; it has pictures of all these different areas in England and has information about the flora and fauna common to the areas and even has pictures of some of the buildings. (Most of my recent historicals have been set in England.) Before I write a Regency or Victorian book, I always sit down with this book about England and leaf through it, thinking about where I'm going to set it. My characters and the story help me decide which place looks "right." For instance, in The Hidden Heart, where the hero was a lonely, bereaved man, I wanted to set it in a place that looked desolate. In Secrets of the Heart, the next book, it was going to be a very active book, with lots of moving around and investigation, so I needed to put it in a busy place like London. So I really like to go to the place I'm writing about if I can, but since it's not feasible with the ones set in England, I look at pictures of England.
Leslie Carroll: I have written historical romances, which are currently unpublished. I've always loved history and enjoy research immensely. I love immersing myself in a time period. I'll do a significant amount of Internet research, and if possible, I'll visit the locations where I've set my books, and take lots of notes and photographs of some of the sites still unspoiled by twentieth and twenty-first century architecture and technology. For example, one book is set in Bath, England, where I have traveled numerous times. I have another novel set on the East End of Long Island just after the American Revolution. I study fashion, architecture, art, social mores, even menus from a given time period and read firsthand accounts, when possible.
Barbara Samuel: Oh, boy! I am not currently writing historicals, but the research for contemporaries is much the same. I read and read and read and read, taking notes in a very geeky way, on index cards referenced with book title, page, and subject, which I then file in a card-holder divided into subjects. The box for the Middle Ages, for example, has subheaders for food, clothing, kings and other royals, hygiene practices, housing, city details, travel methods, etc., etc., etc. Currently, I'm researching a contemporary and there are books on quite a number of subjects piled up on my desk and in stacks around my bed. In my experience, most writers love research --- mostly we love having the excuse to buy (and read) more books!
Kerrelyn Sparks: I can find most anything in research books or online. When I start a book, I do a general study of the time period until I can pinpoint exactly when I want the story to take place. I like to include real events in my books, so I have to find a time that lends itself to work with my plot. If all goes well, the real history will entwine with my "imagined" history, so that the entire product will appear "real." Once I know where and when the story is taking place, I can research in more detail.
I love history, so I enjoy the research. One wonderful byproduct of research is the fascinating little details that pop up and give wing to an idea for another book.
Gaelen Foley: I've been researching Regency England and Napoleonic Europe on a consistent basis for about seven years, ever since I first decided to make that area my specialty, so I feel that I have developed a reasonably good foundation in the time period from which to extrapolate workable plots and characters. I research specific topics for a given story as needed, but spend up to an hour a day doing "random" research, just reading something about or from the time period, and letting that percolate in my subconscious. You never know when these little details will come in handy.
One of my favorite aspects of research is to happen across some little-known intrigue that happened back then, or to discover a colorful historical personage of the era, and to let my imagination bend it about for my own uses. I have a large library of reference books, historical specialty newsletters, pertinent videos, and books-on-tape of things like Jane Austen's and Charles Dickens's and Trollope's novels and Shakespeare's plays, to help sharpen my "ear" for the rhythms of British English. I also have a number of British and European historical experts with whom I consult over the internet when I am really stuck on some point of research, including the prominent London historian, writer, and professor, Richard Tames.
Lastly, I take occasional trips to England and/or Europe to soak in the atmosphere. A dream of mine is to attend a history re-enactment of the Battle of Waterloo, which is held every five years on the actual site of the battle.
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