What questions do you try to answer about a historical world before writing?

I am going to answer this in a round about way, cause well I'm not sure there is a difinite group of questions I ask. To me I ask them as I need to, although some most certainly like to know all before. I ask questions that I need to know to advance my plot, and make my charachters real, and I look at all the things other people don't need to know, but I do this to understand my charachters world, their motivations, and to be able to give them logical responses for their time to answer the questions and problems they face.

I ask and try to answer all those questions you listed but I don't normally feel the need to tell the reader them all. Some yes, but the answers that I see the reader needs to know are those that advance the plot. I am not debating your questions below, but how I decide if I use the informatin I found when searching to answer those very questions.

Eg. I mentioned my MC had plaits...those plaits got pulled later.

Eg. If I have a certain occupation mentioned...it is relevant to the plot...no use mentioning someone is a lawyer if I don't need a lawyer, unless maybe I am trying to show a different social circle.

Eg. What they sleep on, to me is only important to mention in the story if it has a part to play in advancing the plot...eg it's their matrominal bed, it catches alight, it's uncomfortable to sleep on when I have to put my charachter on it.

I think some exceptions can be made in some of the things I just said, possibly to add a bit of colour, but colour that does not have a purpose is a bit of a waste of time. Use it if has a purpose, but not for the purpose of a filler. Slight difference.

I don't think we need to know how someone went to the toilet, unless maybe a body is going to be found in the pit. Or while they are going to toilet something happens to advance the plot...the bad man breaks in or something.

We don't necessarily need to see someone clean themselves, unless maybe what they clean themselves is with is important to the plot or shows us it is hot or apart of their charachter or something.

We most certainly need to know how the air felt, but only in a manner that would seem odd to them...throughout history certain societies did not bath and in turn the bad body odour we smell today, they would not have...actually it may have arroused them. Some races in ancient times put animal manuer, or more so annointed their genitials for this purpose.

With metaphors and smilies I think this belongs to a different question... but what they imagine or dream, or see in their everyday life that they compare as in.... it was as bright as a...or it was like a ... the thing to remember is that they can only use one that is true to what they know...an MC in the 1700s can't say - I ran as fast as a plane... It hit me like a rocket launcher...ect

The most burning and important questions to me are if the sentences I have or want to included are true to the time period. If in doubt I research more.

I seek to find evidence that what I have included is possible for that time. That my charachters reactions and responses to something are possible...and that if I decide to mention they use leaves when going to the toilet, it is needed to advance the plot, and more importantly that the reader needs to know that because it is important to the story, not because I need to impart knowlege of what I have learnt.

I like to include bits of color that show the difference between our modern world and the period I'm writing about. So, in my current WIP (set in the late 19th century), a man shaves with a straight razor in a washbowl with water from a pitcher on a stand, characters leave scenes to go outside to the privy or there's mention of slop jars in rooms - little tidbits that show the differences.

I don't really think about how the air smelled. For the most part, I think in just about any historical period we write about, the air was a lot cleaner and smelled better with the exception of refuse in gutters and cess pools - and even then, we have some modern equivalents of those.

As far as weather, they'd expect about the same type of weather the area gets now. And they had many folk sayings and ways to read weather signs.

I guess by and large I don't get hung up on my historical worlds. Puma

The time I'm writing about they didn't wash often. QEI boasted she bathed four times a year and one of the sects of the church suggested this for everyone, whether they needed it or not. Peasants bathed in the 'stew' - the village pond.

Moats around a castle were like open sewers.Wealthy people hung their clothes in the garderobes (the toilets of which a castle had two or three and only for the higher class dwelleers). They did this because it was thought moths were discouraged by bad smells. So they would stink even worse than their dirty bodies (oh, and Louis XIV bathed only three times in his life).

Medieval times were a lot colder than now. Victorian times also. That's why all postcards show snow at Xmas when recently this has been rare (I believe).

Villages would have animals wandering around - smelly. Larger peasant houses had cattle kept inside (like Germany today). Towns had people empty their night-soil out of the windows. They shouted the French for 'watch out for the water' garde de l'eau (spelling?) And we still use the word Loo for a toilet in some places.

In 1347, the date for my first book, there was no 'flash in the pan' or going off 'half cock' because these came a lot later with mussle loading guns. Paraphernalia was only goods owned by a woman. You could have a cock up. If you shot your arrow (you never 'fired' it) and had the cock-feather nearest the bow it would go all over the place. That was the cock-up.

My residents of medieval times didn't talk about falling asleep (it is a stupid way to describe the act anyway. If you fell, you'd soon be awake). Or dead or injured because that's where the saying came from. In stagecoach days the people in the cheapest seats - sitting on the roof - would go to sleep nd fall off. SO the cry would go out, he's fallen, asleep. It must have happened a lot to have come so completely into our language today. Thugs were found in the early 1700s, sabotage was a mob of French weavers destroying new 'computerised' looms about the same period, 'turn a blind eye' was Nelson early 1800s.

So, look up the etymology of words. Read Samuel Pepys, The Pastern Letters, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales or any source documents from the period to see what they were doing and saying. And I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Good luck.

Transport times, distances, methods and costs. Also communications generally. It's one of the key areas when I'm sketching out a plot, and people have to travel about the place, working out how long it would have taken them and making sure that the "Meanwhile, back in..." group of characters have something to occupy themselves doing while the travelling group are on their way to join them.

Some travel research throws up real surprises, too; such as the information that if a lady were travelling by train with her horse she counted as chaperoned.

Like Sirius, I look at transportation...e.g. would there have been a train service from A to B? Was there a bus that ran from C to D?
My 'historical stuff' is WW1 and WW2 era...I look at clothes, furniture, houses, menus. I pester my Dad for his memories of growing up during WW2 (he has some fantastic stories...he was just a kid at the time);
I read books written during that time to get a feel for language, etc.
I listen to the music (especially the 1940s stuff) while I'm writing.
For WW2, the BBC has a brilliant website, with loads of people who posted their personal experiences during the War.
I also listened to recorded accounts of reporters on D-Day, a couple of Churchill's speeches; read transcripts of others.
I watched videos on YouTube of Spitfires, Blenheims and Mustangs in flight to see how they moved and to hear the engines.

In short, I tried to immerse myself in the time as much as possible. I think it's paid off.

On weather - there was a period, called, I think, the Little Dryas, which was significantly cold - the Thames froze and snow fell in June. I think that was about 1820 and is noted in geologic and weather texts. Puma

Puma said:

I like to include bits of color that show the difference between our modern world and the period I'm writing about. So, in my current WIP (set in the late 19th century), a man shaves with a straight razor in a washbowl with water from a pitcher on a stand, characters leave scenes to go outside to the privy or there's mention of slop jars in rooms - little tidbits that show the differences.

<snip>

I guess by and large I don't get hung up on my historical worlds. Puma

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Same here. I've read so much about the time periods I write in, it's almost second nature. I've always considered that a good thing, since it is second nature for the characters for whom this is the only world they know.

For instance, walking around Pittsburgh during the turn of the 20th century. The air wasn't cleaner--skies were constantly soot-filled because of the steel and coke factories. People naturally wore hats with bigger brims, something over their face and something over their clothes as a matter of course during the worst years of it. Before entering any building, you'd spend a moment knocking the soot off yourself and deposit your overcoat and hat (even the ladies) in the foyer or closet.

So if I'm writing in that time and place, I think nothing of my POV character chatting with the person he's visiting while he goes through this routine (few words) and get on with the purpose of the visit.

To me, doing this is part of what makes me "feel like I'm there" when I'm reading historical fiction.

I, too, pay a lot of attention to transport - not necessarily by method (the ancient world lacked today's variety...basically you could walk, ride, or go by ship), but prevailing winds, weather conditions, etc.

Speaking of weather, I always like to know what the seasons are like. When does it rain? Which direction does the wind blow in the winter? In the summer? Where do the storms come from. This is the kind of thing a local would have intimate, almost innate knowledge of, but that's a pain to find out otherwise. Thankfully the ancients named the winds...makes my job quite a bit easier!

Construction methods. Clothing. Arms and armor. How did the women wear their hair? What jewelry was in fashion? Did the men shave or were beards in fashion?

Games. Did people play dice, chess, horseshoes? Where did they congregate socially? Taverns, pubs, cauponas, the Hippodrome?

Food, of course. Not only what people ate, but what they didn't. And food preparation, meal times (Byzantines were in the habit of eating around noon...so Persian armies always tried to bait them into battles around that time).

Medical technology or lack thereof. First aid and healing.

Education. Are the people of the period literate? Are some of them and not others?

Religion. What's the prevailing faith? Is there religious tension and strife (the answer to every period of Byzantine history - YES)? Who's driving it and why?

Fears and Frustrations. What are people griping about? Health care reform? Taxation? Debased currency? The famine? Barbarian incursions? Having their city captured and being sold into slavery?

Comedy. What did people of the time find funny? I know a lot of times historicals tend to be VERY SERIOUS STORIES, but laughter is as much a part of human nature as greed or lust or cowardice.

Puma said:

I don't really think about how the air smelled. For the most part, I think in just about any historical period we write about, the air was a lot cleaner and smelled better with the exception of refuse in gutters and cess pools - and even then, we have some modern equivalents of those.

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I don't think how the air smells matters except in unusual circumstances.

I mean...the air smells different in Austin than in Tucson or Vancouver or the Florida Everglades. You notice it when you're there for one or four days, but when you live there, that smell is just...the way it is. It's unnoticed. You only notice the smell if it changes. An approaching storm and the smell of rain (or snow)...a whiff of stale urine as you pass a back alley...that sort of thing.

I look up all the cultural nuances; i.e. how society ran (from marriage, to childbirth, religious rituals, types of food, etc.)

I also look up how society was organized, which is an important factor in feudal Japan. Were my characters farmers--were they tenant farmers or blessed enough to have a bit of their own land? Were they of the samurai class or the low merchant class? How did these groups relate to one another?

What kinds of houses did they live in? What did they do for entertainment? All those little things...and it adds up to a lot of research after awhile!

mayamolly said:

What questions do you try to answer before you start writing?

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I don't have any questions I try to answer before I start writing because I'm too unfamiliar with the period to know what sort of questions to ask.
I tried making lists of questions for my first novel but quickly learned that didn't work for me. The best thing for me was to collect as much research material as I could then read and reread the material until the period was as familiar to me as my own world. For example, I wouldn't have known to ask questions about the parasites who tried to make money from peoples' fear of the plague until I read about it. Countless details surfaced during research for my medieval novel that hadn't even entered my mind when I was planning the story.
I'm finding the same thing with my current WIP set in ancient Babylon. I wouldn't know what questions to ask and I'm letting the research dictate the direction my story will take according to what I learn.
That may not work for some but it works for me.

mayamolly said:

What questions do you try to answer before you start writing?

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Just wanted to add that a distinction could be made between writing the novel as a whole, or writing a particular chapter or scene.

I typically have a pretty good general sense of things going in, but if I know a scene is going to call for a meal, or for the characters to be playing a game while they talk, or whatever, that's usually when I dive back into my sources to find the specifics I need.

I've been thinking about this on and off all day and I think that I try to find out as much as possible about society - various social groups that may have existed, architecture, transport, clothing. Two ways of doing that are I read any literature from the period and research anything of interest that I find in the literature. I would also make a list of all the things that they would not have at that time which would help me to avoid anachronisms. I also make a list of all the characters because I find it hard to remember their names and I also research the names to check that they existed in the historical world.

Puma said:

On weather - there was a period, called, I think, the Little Dryas, which was significantly cold - the Thames froze and snow fell in June. I think that was about 1820 and is noted in geologic and weather texts. Puma

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The last time it froze over was Janurary 1814 - I only found that out because it was the same year I took my WIP back to.

ETA: I see you say it snowed in June....you could be right. I don't know.

cooeedownunder said:

The last time it froze over was Janurary 1814 - I only found that out because it was the same year I took my WIP back to.

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I don't know where you found that, cooee, but it's not true. The last time the Thames froze over was in 1963, for several months. There were regular freezes through the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century. See here for more details.

I think there are different ways of descrbing the Thames as frozen - frozen solid and/or with a thin layer of ice and where the freezing took place - the Thames being 215 miles (346 KM) long. In Tudor times the river did freeze because London Bridge had a lot of arches and this slowed the flow of the river down enough to let it freeze. I remember the winter of '63 (yep I really am that old!) but I cannot remember if the Thames froze in central London.

mayamolly said:

How do you know when you're ready to write?

P.S. Here's some heartening news about the historical fiction market: http://pimpmynovel.blogspot.com/2009/08/genre-specific-sales-part-6-of-8.html#comments (Let's pretend for a second that I have any business reading book marketing blogs while I'm still in the pre-writing stages!)

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I know I'm ready to write when I can see my world. For example, my current WIP is set in ancient Babylon and when I began to write I had a visual in my mind's eye. I knew exactly how the city was laid out, where the temples, palaces, bridge, canals etc. were located. I could see the market area and walk the streets with a pretty good idea of what was found there and how it would sound and smell. I knew what people would be occupied with at any given time of day. I was also aware of the political climate, the general mood of the populace, their spiritual state and their superstitions. There's lots more but you get the idea. I knew my world. For me that's the only time I start to write - when I can easily move my characters through their world because I know it so well.
Nice to see that historicals have healthy sales. Thanks for the link.

If you think you have enough, you probably have 95% of what you need. Go for it! And when I'm writing (current WIP, 1356 Cornwall) and I run across a detail I need and don't have, I change the font color to red. This'll tell me I have a possible research hole to go back and fill. I'm a seat of the pants writer, so having to stop the flow and go look up the length of the lance in a tourney (10') or what a medieval saddle was made of--it drives me nutters. I've learned not to. Unless the detail is a real deal-breaker, I can always dig after I'm done with the actual writing for that day.

Works for me, anyway.

mayamolly said:

How do you know when you're ready to write?

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I'm lucky in a few ways. I consider my research as part of my writing so when I'm a little stuck in the plot, I research. This is a constructive way of giving my mind a break from the plot.

Then, when I've read about all the specific situations (a battle, a siege etc) and finished the story I gave my manuscript to a couple of beta readers who are members of reenactment groups. The period of the 100 years' war was their specialty and they treated their pastime as a religion. I knew f I got anything wrong, they'd crucify me. So I received their acceptance by having well researched work and this led to some really useful exchange of information.

I also attended reenactments and spoke at length to the people putting on the events. They love takling about what they're doing. You could try that.

mayamolly said:

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How do you know when you're ready to write?

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When I've got the characters sorted in my head, the basic plot and a rough idea of what I need to know, historically. I usually jot down key events and dates. The most important thing for me is to make sure that my story fits in with what actually happened and makes sense. As I write, I'll stop and research anything else I need to know about.

girlyswot said:

I don't know where you found that, cooee, but it's not true. The last time the Thames froze over was in 1963, for several months. There were regular freezes through the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century. See here for more details.

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Thanks for that. Yes, sorry, you are correct with the freezing. I am thinking of the last time they had a frost fair, although I did assume wrong it was the last time it froze over.

mayamolly said:

How do you know when you're ready to write?

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I think it has to be different for everybody.

For me, after I've researched, taken notes, and feel like I've got a really good grasp on the overall story I want to tell, I usually hit a point where my mind is screaming at me to start writing. There'll always be another detail to look up, another bit to confirm, but once the story's in place and the characters start rattling their cages, I know it's time to put pen to paper.

I feel very lucky to be writing about a culture that valued written records highly. Everybody knows about all the tomb stuff from ancient Egypt, but not many folks know that a lot of other writings survive from the culture, including doctors' text books, collections of short stories and poems, and very snarky historical commentary thanks to a gent called Ankhesheshonq (after whom I have named one of my guinea pigs, because he's that cool. I only name my pigs after cool people.)

I am happy that, over the course of researching my two Egyptian WIPs, I have learned the answers to all points on your list o' questions, and then some. Egypt is easy to research.

I am having a much harder time finding clear information about the late 1800s and early 1900s in the USA and Europe for my next project. Strange, but true. Egyptian history is just that accessible and organized.