Civil War Regiments, Talking Crows, and Prison Uniform Color

Today I wanted to blog about research. Even fictional novels often require a drastic amount of research.

Wait, isn’t fiction just making stuff up? Yes and no.

 When I was in 8th grade, I started my first novel, Years of April, about three brothers fighting in the Civil War. I wanted to be accurate so I sat down Sweet Valley High and started reading Roots. I turned off Dirty Dancing and got my Patrick Swayze fix by watching all 23 HOURS of the North and South miniseries. By the time I graduated high school, I had finished my first novel and had at least fifty nonfiction Civil War books under my belt.

As an adult, I returned to that novel. As you can imagine, it needed A LOT of work. Though I had tried to be accurate the first time around, there were issues. I had basically chosen popular battles for my characters to fight in— with no thought about regimental accuracy. They conveniently converged at Gettysburg for the climax, but that wasn’t really probable based on where I had them all fighting before. So I had to choose a regiment for each, study their movement through the war, and rewrite.  

I became obsessed with accuracy. I have folders and files stuffed full of information. I made friends with librarians and historical society members. I even tracked down a descendant of a historical figure in my book and called him to ask a few questions. I really enjoyed the research, but it took up SO much time. I just wanted to get it right. Meanwhile, I wasn’t really getting it written.

It was around this time my best friend gave me the idea for Enemies of Doves. Characters emerged from the idea that wouldn’t leave me alone, so I set aside Years of April once again.

Enemies of Doves required research on a much smaller scale. I ordered a few books about every day life in the 1940s and one specifically about the history of Longview. I originally had Lorraine and Clancy visiting Lake Murval in Carthage, only to learn that it wasn’t built till 1956. Speaking of 1956, you know what else was built then? Interstates. So, when that finally dawned on me, I had to completely rewrite the scene near the book’s end where Clancy and Joel are trying to stop their father from getting to Crawl. The timing was all off because I’d used Google Maps for quickest routes between towns, and Google Maps uses interstates that did not exist in 1946. These are minor things that most readers wouldn’t notice, but I had to fix them.

The 1990’s section didn’t require as much research because as Blake Shelton sang…I lived it. Though I did find myself having to google television lineups for various nights and movie release dates. (Next to readers, Google is a writer’s best friend). One setting I knew nothing about was the prison world. Once I found a nearby prison to have Joel serving time at, I joined a message board to learn more about it. What days were visitation? What color were their jumpsuits? Were prisoners and their visitors allowed to meet outside? At about my 100th question, I wondered why in the world I didn’t just invent a prison? It would have saved me hours. There is also a scene where Molly revisits her old elementary school in Carthage. She made a comment about being there seven years, but at the eleventh hour I learned Carthage breaks up elementary schools by grade level. So, unless Molly spent 7 years in the 3rd grade, I had a problem. Luckily I only had to change a few lines of dialogue to fix it.  

Before starting Crow’s Nest Creek, I was trying to decide between writing two other projects. One was a biographical fiction novel about the Curious George creators, who narrowly escaped Hitler’s army then traveled 4 months to make it to America with the manuscript for Curious George in their backpack. Another involved a mystery of what happened to 400 women and children who disappeared after being charged with treason and sent to Ohio during the Civil War. What do both of these have in common? A lot of research.

So, when a third idea pushed its way in my mind, one with far less research, I took it and ran. I also decided to use my writer’s superpower of creating a fictional town with a fictional creek and fictional prison. It has saved so much time. If you check my search history these days (as the FBI surely does), you’ll mostly see articles about crows and the extremely eerie way they can speak and mimic human voices. More to come about that and how it plays into my story on a future post…..

So will I ever continue rewriting Years of April? Probably not, but I still think of it from time to time. My son Asa is named after one of its main characters. Will I ever write one of my other ideas that center around actual people and historical events?  I honestly doubt it unless I become as big as Stephen King, who has his own personal researcher.

And hey, if this whole writing thing doesn’t work out for me, give me a call Steve. I bet I can find whatever answers you may need.