Part 2: Research

Firm Foundations, Not Rabbit Holes

In case you missed it, part 1 is available here.

Introduction

In the final act of the famous Puccini opera Manon Lescaut, the two main characters, exiled from their native France, find themselves wandering through the harsh and terrible desert of… Louisiana. Yes, that Louisiana. The one with the swamps and the gators. Some commentators will try to excuse this by saying that the original novelist (and thus Puccini) meant the much bigger French colony rather than the modern state, but they apparently got there on foot from New Orleans, so either they’ve been walking for hundreds of miles or the geography is wrong.

But Leigh, you might say, that was written back when information was much harder to come by! And yes, that’s true. However, that doesn’t mean that modern writers can’t make equally cringeworthy mistakes. In the past, the problem was typically lack of information. Today, the problem is a massive deluge of information that may or may not be correct. AI in particular will cheerfully offer up the contents of a random Reddit post as if it were written by a world-class scholar. What is a thoughtful, reasonable writer to do, given these complexities? And just how much research is needed, anyways?

Addressing Some Misconceptions

Research is crucial if you’re writing anything set in an unfamilar time period or location, or if there are other aspects of your story that you’re uninformed about. That said, there may be some misconceptions about the type and volume of research that’s required. It’s easy to look at someone else’s finished product and be overwhelmed by the amount of work they must have put into getting the details just right. And it can take a lot of work, to be fair. Keep in mind though that the purpose of research in fiction writing is to give your story verisimilitude, not to prove that you’re a super-smart genius who knows everything about X topic. You only need to know enough to convince a reasonably educated reader that your story could happen. This is true even if there are supernatural elements or the setting is otherwise fantastical. What the reader typically wants is a smooth reading experience, uninterrupted by anything that might break the illusion of reality. I tend to assume my readers are smart people who would catch any obvious errors and I research accordingly. While I can’t anticipate every single issue that an expert on such and such topic might have with my story, I can at least make a good faith attempt at accuracy.

Two Types of Research

So, where do you start? Research can do a lot to make your story more believable, but not all research is worth the effort. The trick is discerning between the information you ABSOLUTELY NEED RIGHT NOW and the details you can add in later. There are two main types of research for writing fiction, in my experience. I’ll call them foundational and supplementary respectively. Both will eventually be important, but not at the same stage of the writing process.

Foundational Research

As suggested by the name, foundational research affects the core of your story: the plot, the setting, and the characters. It’s what you need to establish that the story makes sense. First, I like to find a few broad overviews of a given time, place, and (if relevant) faction just to make sure there’s nothing in my premise that’s obviously wrong. For our sample story, this means I’m looking for:

• An overview of Hessian involvement in the Revolutionary War, particularly in the South

• Anything I can find on the personal experiences of their officers (first-hand accounts in translation would be the gold standard)

• Anything I can find on their treatment of prisoners of war

• An overview of human settlement in the Carolina swamps (if there are any), so I can see if or how people might be able to live there

I probably won’t use most of this information in the actual text of the story, but it will strongly influence the kind of story I end up with. Not only because I’ll need to make revisions if there are any historical errors, but also because my research might turn up interesting things I can add to the plot.

Supplementary Research

This is for all the little details that make your story seem real. What would your character notice or care about? What food, clothing, etc. is available to them or would they come across given their location, social status, and profession? These are very important questions in the long run, but researching minutiae at this early stage mostly just wastes your time. Not only can it kill your writing momentum, but you might not even include these details by the time you get to the final draft. However, you don’t want to forget to add them in later when you’re ready. That’s where placeholders come in.

Brackets: Your New Best Friends

I love putting things in brackets. It’s one of the best ways I’ve found to keep myself writing instead of getting sidetracked. I can just make a note to myself and move on. You don’t have to use brackets specifically if you have some other way of making notes to yourself stand out, but I like them because they’re quick, easy, and don’t typically appear in my prose otherwise.

You have to train yourself to use brackets instead of being sucked into a research rabbit hole, but once you do, they can make your life much, much easier. Instead of writing “I walked into the kitchen and opened a cabinet, glancing over the…” and then wasting time researching what might be in the cabinet, I can write “I walked into the kitchen and opened a cabinet, glancing over the [pantry food brands]”. I can see at a glance this is something I’ll need to research later but I can move on for now.

I use brackets for all sorts of notes to myself, not just for research placeholders. I might write [Make sure X’s motivations make sense here] or [Foreshadow this earlier] or even [Make this not suck] so I can remember the parts I need to revisit later on. I don’t always follow my bracket advice when I edit, but it gives me permission to keep going, which is probably its most important function.

Types of Sources and Places to Look

I’ve talked about types of research and reasons why it’s important, but your research is only as good as the sources you pull it from. Now, this could easily be its own post, but I’ll do my best to keep it brief.

What Makes For a Good Source? That really depends on what you’re looking for. As someone who writes historical fiction, I’m generally going to be looking for vetted sources: academic papers & books, information put out by historical societies, that kind of thing. However, there are some situations where you might actually need or want unvetted sources. Say you’re writing a story as a series of Reddit posts, or you’re trying to make sure your modern teenager character sounds like a real teenager. This may seem obvious, but it helps to think about what you’re looking for before you start searching.

I’m going to start out with a basic Google search: Overview of Hessian involvement in the Revolutionary War. There’s an AI summary at the top, but as mentioned above, AI isn’t always good at vetting information. I’ll check the sources it cites to before reading the summary. I’m also going to skip past anything that looks like a personal blog. Maybe the information there is good, but I’d prefer sources like universities, government organizations, or other official sites. Right away I found a promising one from the American Battlefield Trust, which led me to, among other things, another similar page with an intriguing “Further Reading” section at the bottom. Now, I can check if my local library has access to these books if needed, but I’ll see what else I can find online first.

Just this basic search has already revealed a major flaw in my story idea: Hessian activity in the Deep South was actually fairly limited, other than a few specific campaigns. While I could maybe try to say that they were sent out during the siege of Charleston, that doesn’t really make sense. So maybe instead of the Carolinas it’s somewhere in the more remote parts of Pennsylvania, which is where the Hessians were actually stationed. The important thing from a story perspective is the isolation. This is both because I like the vibes and because the characters shouldn’t be able to leave whenever they feel like it. As an aside, a sensible person won’t stay somewhere that scares them unless they don’t have a choice. You have to give them a good reason. In this case, there are two: military duty and the logistical nightmare of trying to leave in a hurry. There were typically around 500 people in a Hessian regiment, but this is a liability if there isn’t a visible, obvious enemy to fight. That’s hundreds of people who potentially need to evacuate, along with all their animals and equipment. The fort’s remoteness also means that the roads are likely terrible, even on foot. Individuals could try to escape on their own, but this would be regarded as desertion and they’d be punished harshly if they were caught.

The above research gives me some background, but what I really want is a firsthand account, especially if I can find one from a junior officer that’s been translated into English. I’ve had good luck finding free public domain stuff like this on Google Books, so that’s where I’ll head next. I tried “American Revolution German” and “American Revolution Hessian” and immediately found some promising stuff:

• The German Allied Troops in the North American War of Independence, 1776-1783

• American History from German Archives

These aren’t current, cutting edge books on history, but they should still give me enough background knowledge to write convincingly from an officer’s perspective.

I can research the other topics above in a similar fashion. The one about the Carolinas needs to be swapped out for my new location. A quick search (checking the sources, of course) reveals that Pennsylvania had some very remote areas at that time, despite being a populous colony overall. What I’m finding about the treatment of American POWs indicates that the Hessians and British both often mistreated their captives, or sometimes just bayonetted them. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what would happen in my specific situation. There’s only one POW here, not hundreds, and he might be the only person who can tell our protagonist what happened. Also, even in wartime, people are individuals. Not every Hessian was immediately hostile to the Americans. In fact, I found out that thousands of them ended up sticking around after the war and eventually becoming American citizens. This could be an interesting conflict within the story. Maybe a good cop/bad cop situation between our junior officer and an older, less sympathetic superior. I like setting up related conflicts within a story because it gives it greater depth and realism. There’s likely a history between the two men, and this might not be the first time they’ve clashed.

A Backup Plan

This happens rarely, but if I don’t find enough reliable information after searching online, my next step is to contact the reference librarians at the local university. I can’t speak for other countries, but in the US public universities often allow local residents to get a free library card. You can also check with your public library, but I prefer university ones because they have more specialized historical collections. This could matter less to you depending on your topic of research, though. You may have to physically come into the library to access the books and articles the librarians find for you, but it’s still worth it if you get stuck.

Are We Ready To Write NOW?

Yes, sort of. The next step is to write the first draft, which for me also doubles as an outline. I’m a discovery writer, despite my many attempts to stick to an outline. Since surprise is such an integral part of horror, I like to find out the awful truth as I write, mimicking how the reader will discover it later. I don’t usually follow this outline when writing my second draft, but I need it in order to solidify the plot and characters in my mind.

I’ll cover all this and more in the next installment:

Part 3: Outlining & The First Draft: The Most Important Thing I’ve Ever Ignored (Available 8/3/2026)