Research Capabilities in a Golden Era

A writer’s research capabilities are in a golden era right now.

Everywhere I turn, I see more opportunities to explore rich veins of information.

It doesn’t have to be historical. Insights and unusual stories abound, which can become part of a novel or inspire a work of nonfiction.

I hadn’t really thought much about where my information came from until a comment yesterday made me laugh in surprise.

So, where do you get your information?

A friend reading A Poppy in Remembrance stopped to tell me how much she was enjoying the book.

“I’m so impressed by how much you know! How do you know all that information about WWI?”

No one had ever asked me that question before.

I’ve always assumed good research is the hallmark of a well-written book.

Isn’t using all the research capabilities out there part of my job?

I shrugged and laughed, “Six years of reading, research, and writing.”

Is “how do you know?” such an unusual question?

That night, I cozied into my reading chair to spend time with Daniel Mason’s fantastic WWI novel The Winter Soldier.

The writing is splendid, the storyline unusual. In all my six years of WWI research, I only read a handful of books told from the Austro-Hungarian/German side.

Eighty-seven pages in, I started reading sections aloud to my husband, marveling and laughing.

Our hero doctor was stationed in the Carpathian Mountains southeast of Krakow, and his orderlies told him a fantastic story which began like this:

“So, the first thing to understand, Doctor, is that from a philatelic perspective, Russia really should not be considered one country, but many: it’s simply too large. Thus, immediately after the introduction of the first national adhesives, the Rural Councils, or Zemstvos, started to organize their own local posts. I had become aware of such Zemstvo stamps early in my collecting years, and had managed to obtain a precious copy of Chudovsky’s 1888 Description of the Russian Zemstvo Stamps, Envelopes and Parcels, which gives some order to the three thousand Zemstvo stamps issued until then.”

Just like my friend Mary, I shook my head, “How would the author have learned about things like this? Who gave a thought to stamp collecting during WWI?”

Research can be done so easily on the Internet–and the veracity can be verified at the same place. Writers are living a dream.

Assuming you knew what a Zemstvo was, what did it look like?

(Mason described them well in the story)

Wikipedia Commons had several examples. That’s one on the right.

It took me 15 seconds to pull up that photo.

Blissfully easy.

Where do writers research?

I can’t speak for Mason, a physician, but I use all sorts of resources to learn.

Some of it is basic–what do I know from my life experience?

After that, research capabilities include

• Travel — My Traveler’s Tales — have taken me all over the planet and expanded my thinking and ideas immensely!
• The Library
• The Internet
• Magazines (with many archives available online)
• Newspapers (You can research newspapers all over the United States at Newspapers.com)
• Fold 3 (military archives)
• Ancestry.com–read my posts on using this site for research here, here, here, here, and here.
• Pinterest–read my posts here and here for how I use Pinterest.

That’s just a few.

There’s also research serendipity — more exciting than anything. You can read a few of my stories here and here.

A writer’s imagination can take him or her anywhere–and that requires a great deal of research!

So, where do writers use their research capabilities?

Anywhere and everywhere–listening, reading, watching, tasting, and feeling are all part of the craft.

Today: a golden age for writers and their research. Click to Tweet

Research capabilities and where to find them. Click to Tweet

Opportunities for writers to research are everywhere! Click to Tweet