My character lived until mid-1970's, NYC. Wondered where your go-to is for accurate references? I've been into archives, photos, sewing patterns, catalogs, menus, hospital and morgue photos. Also toured old buildings, art museums. Spoken to people who lived during some of these years (I did too!)...Any other tips?
Anyone writing mid-20th century?
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Old magazines have proven invaluable. “Life” was published through 1972. “Time” is useful too. The ads, believe it or not, in old National Geographics are incredibly illuminating.
Life is available online via Google books. I find this very useful and inspiring just to browse through. (The novel I am working on takes place in New York ca.1950.)
mrsfauthor, when you ask for "accurate references" -- accurate references for what? Can you offer more specifics about what you want to learn about? You've mentioned sources that pertain to the physical world around your characters. The sources you have mentioned are superb, and you'll get a lot of good information from them. I'm wondering what in particular you might be looking for; are there particular gaps you are trying to fill, or experiences you want to get a handle on? Or are you looking for more general atmosphere and inspiration?
Even in a given time period and locale, your characters' experiences will vary depending upon ethnicity, social class, age, sex, and so on. For my story social history is of great importance. So, I read history books pertaining to the particular communities my characters belong to, and to current events that would have been of interest to them. Memoirs and oral histories are particularly rich if you can find some that pertain the communities you're writing about. I read novels written during the period to get a sense of period-idiomatic speech and more mundane, quotidian matters than wind up in history books. (I tend to avoid modern historical novels written about the period, at least until I'm closer to done; I don't want to risk confuse other people's reconstructions with my own research.) I even watch films and listen to music from the time period to get a handle on the popular culture in which my characters are steeped.
Have fun.
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I like the late sixties and early seventies as a place for fiction. You don't need that much detail to capture the feel of the time, have a look at.
The Long Firm by Jake Arnott. Available as a book and a BBC drama.
The period is before Arnott was born. He created the book by using actual characters and events, in the news at the time, and chatting with his grandma.
The Long Firm by Jake Arnott. Available as a book and a BBC drama.
The period is before Arnott was born. He created the book by using actual characters and events, in the news at the time, and chatting with his grandma.
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Sat Nam! (Literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)
I was born in1953. You mentioned your character is in NYC, but if you or anyone else needs Southern California, especially San Diego and environs, I can help. I went to UC Santa Cruz in 1970, so I can help with that too.
Blessings,
Siri Kirpal
I was born in1953. You mentioned your character is in NYC, but if you or anyone else needs Southern California, especially San Diego and environs, I can help. I went to UC Santa Cruz in 1970, so I can help with that too.
Blessings,
Siri Kirpal
My WIP takes place in 1975 in space with aliens by the MC is from Earth so I need to look up info. My most valuable resource was asking other people.
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I wrote a novel happening in the 1970s in USA, namely Arizona, at the border with Mexico (and in the twin city in Mexico). I have documented myself mostly from the internet: history, geography, culture... everything. (Rightness' Friends/ Prietenii dreptatii, the two right most volumes).
Just that... I don't think it as historical. I had been taught that after the second World War, it's contemporary.
Just that... I don't think it as historical. I had been taught that after the second World War, it's contemporary.
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The Second World War ended 73 years ago. I think it might be time to stop thinking of it as a marker between historic and contemporary.
Many great and undeniably historical novels cover a smaller time gap, novels such as Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, both published closer to their settings than we are to the Second World War. Gone With the Wind has a comparable time gap. Many other novels were set no further than the distance between now and the 1970s, such as all those long forgotten fin de siècle American novels romanticizing the pre-Civil War South, or Huckleberry Finn, which demolished it.
I think rather than setting an event to be the marker of modern times - because any such will inevitably recede farther and farther into history and stretch the “contemporary” label more and more past recognition - it might be more fruitful to set a time limit, say thirty years, or a single generation, something like that.
By that measure and past literary standards fiction written now that is set in the 1970s would be historical.
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YouTube. I'm too young to remember Nixon, but seeing his I Am Not a Crook statement for the first time nearly 40 years after it happened was chilling, and gave me an insight into how people at the time would have reacted to it, and him.
Memoirs are also invaluable. Tom Wolf's Electric Kool Aid Acid Test was particularly educational, detatched as it was from the sensationalism Hunter S Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas couldn't achieve (for all of its strengths in other areas).
Interesting point, ans true from a marketing standpoint, but stylistically I think of "contemporary" as a genre rather than a time. Great Gatsy and Rabbit, Run, although 90 and 60 years old, are examples of contemporary to me because they were not written as historicals; they were written about and for the people at the time the stories take place. Vanity Fair is contemporary in this sense, and although writing styles changed is still has the same feel as later contemporary books. Of course this can all be debated, and will be forever, but it helps me when writing historical or contemporary stories with some style elements.
Memoirs are also invaluable. Tom Wolf's Electric Kool Aid Acid Test was particularly educational, detatched as it was from the sensationalism Hunter S Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas couldn't achieve (for all of its strengths in other areas).
Interesting point, ans true from a marketing standpoint, but stylistically I think of "contemporary" as a genre rather than a time. Great Gatsy and Rabbit, Run, although 90 and 60 years old, are examples of contemporary to me because they were not written as historicals; they were written about and for the people at the time the stories take place. Vanity Fair is contemporary in this sense, and although writing styles changed is still has the same feel as later contemporary books. Of course this can all be debated, and will be forever, but it helps me when writing historical or contemporary stories with some style elements.
+1 Chris P
I'm writing in the early 80s, and commercials were very helpful. I needed a MC to identify a rental car, so commercials on you tube were great for make, model, and license plates.
I confess, I was in the early 80s, but who remembers everything, LOL!
Best of luck with your writing.
I'm writing in the early 80s, and commercials were very helpful. I needed a MC to identify a rental car, so commercials on you tube were great for make, model, and license plates.
I confess, I was in the early 80s, but who remembers everything, LOL!
Best of luck with your writing.
great tips, Never would have thought to look at old Natl Geographics, one of my brother's likely has them all in his bookshelf! Thank you!
Life is available online via Google books. I find this very useful and inspiring just to browse through. (The novel I am working on takes place in New York ca.1950.)
mrsfauthor, when you ask for "accurate references" -- accurate references for what? Can you offer more specifics about what you want to learn about? You've mentioned sources that pertain to the physical world around your characters. The sources you have mentioned are superb, and you'll get a lot of good information from them. I'm wondering what in particular you might be looking for; are there particular gaps you are trying to fill, or experiences you want to get a handle on? Or are you looking for more general atmosphere and inspiration?
Even in a given time period and locale, your characters' experiences will vary depending upon ethnicity, social class, age, sex, and so on. For my story social history is of great importance. So, I read history books pertaining to the particular communities my characters belong to, and to current events that would have been of interest to them. Memoirs and oral histories are particularly rich if you can find some that pertain the communities you're writing about. I read novels written during the period to get a sense of period-idiomatic speech and more mundane, quotidian matters than wind up in history books. (I tend to avoid modern historical novels written about the period, at least until I'm closer to done; I don't want to risk confuse other people's reconstructions with my own research.) I even watch films and listen to music from the time period to get a handle on the popular culture in which my characters are steeped.
Have fun.
It is a lot of fun to research and then write these scenarios. My character is very eclectic so I have a variety of social and economic classes represented, a variety of hobbies as well. The idiomatic speech is a very valuable tip...sometimes I slip into writing things like Is that a THING?[/I] then remember it's not 2018. Really like the idea of tucking in with some old movies from the 50's and 60's. Thank you!
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That sounds like an interesting piece. I'll look into it, thanks!
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Thanks Siri, She does travel quite a bit so I will remember this offer. I was born in '57 so from the 70's on I remember pretty well, but I'm all east coast if you need anything!
This character was born in 1909 so the book will span up until the 70's, scenes from depression, WWII and up to Viet Nam (though not about war). What is Rightness Friends?
I found this link, if you're interested, which has a lot of references for Food (US only I think). http://www.foodtimeline.org/fooddecades.html
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Yes, your novel will be definitely historical <3 . As I said, Rightness' Friends/ Prietenii dreptatii is one of my novels shown below in the signature, the two volumes utmost right. But mine isn't lasting on such a big timespan, it's mid 1970s to early 1980s.
+1 Chris P
I'm writing in the early 80s, and commercials were very helpful. I needed a MC to identify a rental car, so commercials on you tube were great for make, model, and license plates.
I confess, I was in the early 80s, but who remembers everything, LOL!
Best of luck with your writing.
Great tips! Thank you!
I also found a great resource at the NY Public Library. You can get menus from all sorts of eras and places, probably just in NYC but still gives a great representation of various time periods.
http://menus.nypl.org/menus
http://menus.nypl.org/menus
Local newspapers are an invaluable resource for daily-life information. Unhappily many of them are not fully online, so you can only see the back issues in a local library.
The Staten Island Advance for a while has been publishing on their site every day a random page (usually p.1, but not always) from a random date in the past (mostly 1915-1970). Fascinating details show up, and you get a much more vivid sense of what life was like than generally comes out in history books. You can find them by a site search for "historic page."
For instance, today's page is p.9 from July 2, 1957.
Yesterday was Second section p.1 from Feb 9, 1954
Some others that were recently up:
Oct. 27, 1921 p.10
Nov. 14, 1922 p.1
Dec. 12, 1922 p.1
Jan 17, 1936 p.9 (features a huge ad for radio consoles!)
Feb 12, 1942 p. 17 (bowling leagues!)
May 29, 1959 p.1
Dec. 7, 1960, lifestyle page
The Staten Island Advance for a while has been publishing on their site every day a random page (usually p.1, but not always) from a random date in the past (mostly 1915-1970). Fascinating details show up, and you get a much more vivid sense of what life was like than generally comes out in history books. You can find them by a site search for "historic page."
For instance, today's page is p.9 from July 2, 1957.
Yesterday was Second section p.1 from Feb 9, 1954
Some others that were recently up:
Oct. 27, 1921 p.10
Nov. 14, 1922 p.1
Dec. 12, 1922 p.1
Jan 17, 1936 p.9 (features a huge ad for radio consoles!)
Feb 12, 1942 p. 17 (bowling leagues!)
May 29, 1959 p.1
Dec. 7, 1960, lifestyle page
I'm coming in late on this, but I'm working on a project that involves a lot of research on post-WWII culture in the US, and I found that The New Yorker has a 12wks / $12 online-access deal that gives full web access to their archive, which has all of their issues going all the way back to 1925. You can even print pages out. It's turning out to be a goldmine of information.
Read some popular novels written then—books like mystery stories rather than Faulkner. They're a good guide to the way people actually used slang, the way they dressed for different occasions, popular entertainment, things like that.
I have a story set in 1969 and I did SO much hunting for everything to try and make it historically accurate, from the hot pants to the fringe. also, the horrible food that they ate. Shrimp and beef in jello? No thank you. Pinterest has a lot of stuff. I have SO much stuff on Pinterest. If you can avoid getting distracted.
My novel takes place from 1965 to 1969. Is it okay to call it Historical Fiction when pitching it to an agent?
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It is historical fiction, as far as I’m concerned, about events half a century ago.
As to whether agents will see it that way, I’m unsure.
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It tends to be a timesuck, doesn't it? I wasn't around when your story was set, but from the 70s I do remember it was an odd mix of conventionality (holding dinner parties) and challenging conventionality (jello with shrimp). It's like people wanted something new but couldn't innovate their way into it.
I too consider 1960s historical. Only about 30% of the US population was born before 1965.