Writing Research Resources

I admire writers who get an idea for a story and just go for it, doing their research to get the details right later, but I can’t do it. I find I need to fully immerse myself in the information before I feel ‘ready’ to write. Often when I find good maps, I print them out really large and surround myself with them on the walls. It allows me to imagine walking the streets. The downside of this is that I do often get lost in the info and forget to write the story, but I console myself that I’ve learned stuff instead, so it’s all good.

A lot of creative writing courses stress that you should write what you know, but I disagree. To me that seems incredibly limiting. And if most writers took it to heart, there would be no sci-fi at all. That being said, I actually get depressed with writing when I realize the author hasn’t bothered to get their details right. Suddenly I don’t trust the writer, and I withdraw my suspension of disbelief.

The bottom line is that you need to do your research well and the benefits of it, besides the obvious, are that, in sifting through the information, I learn things that give me more plot and characterization  possibilities.

Geographic Locations

Obviously, the best way to research a geographic location is to travel there, but often that’s not possible. But if you want to set stories in places you can’t go, you really need Google Earth. It has a ‘street view’ mode that lets you feel like you’re walking through the place. Excellent for details and atmosphere.  Still, there are many places in the world where the trusty Google Car has not visited, for this I highly recommend two resources. Flickr is a repository of millions of user pics. Just use the search function to find photographs of your intended setting. Finally, I find TripAdvisor very good for both candid photos and critical info on certain places.

For historical research on places, the internet is a brilliant place to find high-res scans of old maps. The David Rumsey Map Collection is amazing. Remember that before the 17th Century, maps were often drawn in isometric view, rather than bird’s eye. But that’s all to the good. Sometimes you get a better sense of how people saw the world by seeing how they drew their maps. Like anything else, maps are seldom as objective as they seem. The world-view of the maker is hidden in the document. Ask yourself what’s being shown and what has been left out? Not only will that help with orientation, but it will tell you a lot about what was important to them – which goes to character. Also, pay attention to WHO made the map. Maps of colonies made by colonizers are going to have a certain slant. For 18th Century, Victorian and Georgian London, I found the MOTCO collection to be great. Not only their maps, but also their engravings.

One of the most impressive and rich sources of information on historical Britain in general and London in particular resides at British History Online. It’s an archive of thousands of documents, images and maps. To be honest, it’s not the most user-friendly online archive, but it is by far the richest. Just how rich? Well, want to know who was living at 4 Montague Place in 1841? It was Sir John T. Coleridge. The detail some of these documents give is jaw-dropping and incredible food for a writer’s muse.

Also, the BHO site contains a collection of old Ordinance Survey Maps, which are spectacular. It has a function that allows you to compare the map with modern Ordinance Survey maps and a satellite image of the place for comparison. Again, you can get a sense of what they considered landmarks in those days – churches, graveyards, etc.

Not so great for maps, but an over-all brilliant research tool is the Victorian Web. It’s ugly as sin and could use an information architect’s overhaul, but the amount of detailed information and contextual references are amazing.

For old US maps, Maps, Etc is brilliant. It’s part of the Educational Technology Clearing House. The University of Texas also houses the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection which contains thousands of maps of everywhere in the world. Again, remember that early maps are not necessarily geographically correct, but they situate you and give you insight into how the map-makers of the time saw the world.

Unfortunately, American data is scattered all over the place. There are some good places to start, though. Mark2121 has a very good link list which makes for a great starting point.

Textual Data

There used to be a time when writers doing research had to live in libraries. Which was a pain in the ass because you couldn’t eat while you read and you had to keep your voice down. Thankfully, now there is a lot of stuff online. The obvious starting place is Wikipedia, not because it contains all that much depth, but because it’s a great place to get keywords to search further. For historical research, both Project Gutenberg and the Archive.org are great resources, but neither of them have the best keyword search algorithms, so it does take a little patience and digging. I find the Archive a little better because the books are scanned, not OCR’d and you get a better feel from them.

For French history, Rebecca Sprang has a wonderful online resource list here.

Dr. Richard Weikart has a brilliant list of links for primary and secondary sources of German history here.

There is a good link list for Asian history resources online at the University of Washington Libraries site, although the list is no longer being updated. I just hope no one takes it down.

Africa is difficult, because it was colonized. That sounds trite, but it’s vital to keep it in mind when looking at historical documents. The view is always that of the colonizer. That doesn’t make it invalid, but it’s far from being objective. Nonetheless, here is a good set of links to a wide range of resources on historic and modern Africa: Stanford University – South of the Sahara

Human Intel

One resource I’m very surprised more people don’t make use of is humans. Your blog, facebook and twitter are great places to ask people for information. I recently needed to know details about how limbs are assessed for amputation. I just tweeted out the request and ended up spending 2 hours in chat with a guy who used to work as a surgeon in the British Army.

Another place to haunt are forums. They tend to gather people with specific and obsessive interests in almost anything. Don’t be shy. Join the forum and be honest about your ignorance and your need for information. People who are knowledgeable are almost always happy to share it. We are all experts in something. Finally, there’s AllExperts.com. I find the info and response I get from this a little spotty, but often excellent.

Hope this was helpful. If you are a writer and have found a good source of specific info, please post it below in the comments area and share it with the rest of us.