CRWR 315: Writing Historical Fiction

Pre-research the Period and Location

• Identify the location and year(s) of your piece setting.
• Look at a variety of resources to immerse yourself in a period/event.

Find personal accounts - Search Tips

Use the following keywords to find personal accounts:

• Interview*
• Diar*
• Memoir*
• Narrative*
• Correspondence
• Letters
• Reminiscences

Using an asterisk (*) at the end of the root of a word will search for variations of that word (like diary and diaries).

Adapted from https://guides.libraries.uc.edu/histfiction.

Primary Sources: Letters, Diaries, and Photographs

Primary sources provide first-hand accounts of historical events and are invaluable for capturing authenticity. Below are some resources where you can find such materials:

• American Memory (Library of Congress) memory.loc.gov : Explore letters, diaries, photographs, and recordings from various time periods in American history.
• The National Archives (UK) nationalarchives.gov.uk : A treasure trove of personal letters, official documents, and photographs.

Historical Archives and Libraries

• Smithsonian Institution Archives si.edu/siasc : A variety of collections, including photographs, letters, and scientific data.
• HathiTrust Digital Library hathitrust.org : A partnership of academic libraries providing access to millions of digitized books and journals.

When you search in the library catalog, an article database, or even in Google, you will have to formulate search terms, also known as keywords. 

Keywords are the everyday words you use to describe your topic. If you are having trouble thinking of a variety of keywords, use an online thesaurus, like thesaurus.com to generate more keyword ideas.

You can also use encyclopedias and other reference resources to help learn more about a topic and to generate more keywords/search terms.

Link Keywords Effectively (Boolean Searching)

Search Examples for Historical Fiction Research

1. Combining Concepts with AND

• Purpose: Narrow results by ensuring all keywords appear in the results.
• Example:
  "historical fiction" AND "primary sources"
  • Finds resources discussing both historical fiction and primary sources.

2. Including Synonyms with OR

• Purpose: Broaden results by including synonyms or related terms.
• Example:
  "historical fiction" OR "historical novels"
  • Finds resources that use either term.

3. Excluding Terms with NOT

• Purpose: Exclude irrelevant topics.
• Example:
  "historical fiction" NOT "science fiction"
  • Excludes results that mention science fiction.

4. Using Quotation Marks for Exact Phrases

• Purpose: Find results where the exact phrase appears.
• Example:
  "letters from the 19th century"
  • Must include the entire phrase in quotes.

Not happy with your search results? 

Increase your results. If your search is of a narrowly focused nature as to return only a few results, eliminate one of the less-important concepts.

• This search returns very few results: "art museums" AND programs AND "financial development" AND "technological advances". Try eliminating "technological advances".
• Use synonyms. In the example above, you may retrieve more results by typing ("financial development" OR "economic development"). Your entire search would look like this: "childrens museums" AND programs and ("financial development" OR "economic development") AND "technological advances".
• Use an asterisk to retrieve alternate word endings: galler* will return gallery, galleries, etc.

Reduce your results.

• "museums" is too broad of a search in library databases. Try adding a population, a time frame, or an outcome. Any combination of those aspects will increase the relevance and amount of your results. Make sure to use quotations around phrases.

Why is it important to check for sources in subscription databases and library catalogs?

Isn't Google the biggest and best database? Google isn't actually a database because it isn't really organized or consistent.

So, then, what is a database? A database is a collection of logically related records that can be read by a computer. Computerized address books and online library catalogs are examples of commonly used databases.

Why do I need databases if everything I need can be found on Google?

There is a tremendous amount of information that is NOT available on Google. Even if information is delivered via Google, it may not be free. This is what is known as the "invisible" or "deep" web. 

Google only indexes a small portion of the Internet. The library has access to subscription databases that can give you much more -- and better-- information!

Better? Is what I find in a database more reliable than what is found on the Web? Generally, yes. Information in a database has at least been selected by editors. For periodical databases, the articles were printed first in a magazine, journal, or newspaper that had editors. Many databases add value to the content by organizing it and by adding subjects.

In contrast, anyone can put up anything on the Web. Some of it is edited, selected, and monitored, but much of it is not. And the formats can vary widely so it is sometimes hard to know exactly what it is you have found.

Adapted from CCAD.