Sarah Hall could teach a Ph.D level class on the fine art of historical research.
Over the course of her career she has written two novels in radically different) settings: 1930's Brooklyn in the novel The Electric Michaelangelo and 1930's rural England in the novel Haweswater.
In the second installment of my deceptively simple feature: Five Easy Questions, Sarah Hall shares some of her novel wisdom for free.
In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a serialized set of weekly interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing...
Jason Boog:
Haweswater depended on a small library of historical research. Any advice for fledgling novelists looking to do this kind of deep background research? Where should they go first for help? Continue reading...
Sarah Hall:
I was lucky in that a guy I know is researching for the purposes of writing a non-fictional account of the Haweswater dam, and he was kind enough to share his collated information with me. So I had easy access to engineers reports and the make-up of the workforce, what machinery was used, etc...
Local libraries are great places for tracking down territorial history too. And I think people are usually a mine of peculiar information; someone will often know someone else who is, so you just have to be a detective until you find the local expert.
I have always loved interacting with people when it comes to finding out what went on and where - I love amateur storytellers, my region is full of them - and there's more blood and brio to this oral version of history anyway.
I did some broader 1930's research too - from books and online, but again I asked specialists in that era for help. It's important to remember that there are dangers with researching too - it's a hard balance strike, fact versus fiction. The first run of editing for Haweswater I undertook involved the re-writing of long passages that had become too documentary style, which interrupted the narrative.
It's good to remember that one of the greatest gifts bestowed upon human beings is the imagination. As a writer you can get away with all kinds of inventive murder and have people think that fire is ice cold and that snow burns, if you wield your imagination skillfully and courageously enough.
So you might bastardize history for the sake of the story. Or totally make it up.
Note: If serialized interviews drive you nuts, you can check out the whole interview archived here...
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