My Research Addiction

And a Word About Fact-Checking.

MY LOVE OF RESEARCH COMES from childhood. I was raised in a home where the Encyclopedia Britannica held a place of honor. I spent countless hours sitting cross-legged in front of the bookcase poring through the heavy maroon-colored volumes. My children were brought up in the same tradition. Now we turn to our smartphones and the world of the internet when something stumps us—our mantra has become “Let’s Google it!”

Given my compulsion to look things up, it is no surprise that I am a writer of historical fiction, a genre that uses fact as its bedrock. No matter the era or the setting, writing in this genre requires the author to be a dedicated researcher.

The trick is to not wander too far from the goal: once I spent over an hour on the internet when all I meant to do was double-check the date that buzz bombs were first sent against London.

I research before and during the writing of my novels, creating a surplus of facts. What I don’t use, I stash away in countless files, “just in case.” Even after my book is finished and being proofread, I can’t stop myself. I might find some illuminating details I can fit into the narrative or correct an error only an expert will notice.

As a writer, I must be careful not to dump too much detail into the story. No matter how much research I do, in the end I can only use what helps me weave an accurate representation of the period. If a fact serves no purpose and slows the momentum of the plot, I cannot use it.

And what I do include must be accurate. I know that even a small historical error can put all my laboriously acquired research in doubt. I double-check everything, even things I’m sure I know. Luckily, the internet makes instant fact-checking easy.

Recently, while proofreading my novel Ashes and Ruins, I found one of those dreaded little errors. The line was: “Three coupon [ration] books, including Hazel’s valuable blue one that allowed her to get extra milk, must be checked.” Wait a minute! Wasn’t the ration book image on the cover design green? Which is right?

I asked my search engine the question: What color were British ration books for children during WWII?

The response: “British ration books during WWII were color-coded by age and need: green for children under five (and pregnant/nursing mothers), blue for children aged 5-16, and tan for most adults.” Further checking on various British Museum websites confirmed the colors.

My child character Hazel is only two at the time, so her ration book would be green, not blue! The text was wrong, though the cover design was correct. Such an inaccuracy, though tiny, could result in cracks in my story’s overall credibility.

As a meticulous fact checker of my own work, I sometimes notice errors in other books I read. Recently I came across several passages in a novel that described a hummingbird in an Italian garden in 1900. Wait! Hummingbirds are only found on the American continent! I knew this because years ago, Danish guests expressed their excitement and thrill to see hummingbirds for the first time in my Southern California garden.

With the help of the internet, I double-checked and found the following choice morsel: “True hummingbirds are not native to northern Italy or anywhere else in Europe, Asia, Africa, or Australia; they are exclusive to the Americas. However, you may see a hummingbird hawk-moth in northern Italy, a type of moth that resembles a hummingbird with its rapid wingbeats and hovering flight while feeding on nectar.” Naturally my compulsion led me to search for hummingbird hawk-moths, and, of course, there were pictures. It is amazing how much those moths look like our beautiful American hummingbirds.

If the subject matter of a book lies within my area of expertise (say, the German Jewish experience during WWII), an error can grab me and lift me out of the story. Recently, in the first chapter of a book I read, a major character, a young Jewish girl preparing to flee Germany in May of 1939, complains of being forced to wear cloth stars on her clothing. This is off by at least a year, I thought. The Nazi law requiring all German Jews to wear the yellow star did not go into effect until the fall of 1941. So how could this character complain about it in the spring of 1939?

Of course, though factual errors from pre-war Germany jump out at me, most readers won’t notice them. Yet, I live in dread that someone with more expertise than I will find a tragic flaw in my finished book. For this reason, I often use fact checkers. The late Ritchie Boy and Holocaust expert, Guy Stern, read my earlier novel, Immigrant Soldier, in search of errors, and another Ritchie Boy checked the German phrases I used in that novel.

Recently, a good friend, a woman born and raised in Great Britain, read the London sections of my new novel, Ashes and Ruins. I asked her to root out anything that didn’t seem consistent with British culture. She told me that unless accompanied by sausage (bangers), mashed potatoes are called just that—not mash. She also explained to me the importance of class in Britain and pointed out that my middle-class family would probably own a laundry tub and a wringer rather than wash their laundry (including linens and diapers) in the claw-footed bathtub. My friend’s comment led me to research laundry tubs of the 1930s.

After more than an hour on the computer, I ended up with two changed sentences in the manuscript, a small document on old laundry practices, and a lovely collection of photos of antique washtubs and 1930s washing machines—so more surplus research data.

After a childhood friendship with a set of encyclopedias, I am now devoted to the internet as my research guru—everything from Google to YouTube, Wikipedia to Claude. Of course, these sources lead me to deeper research in nonfiction books. By the end of any project, books bristling with sticky notes dominate my bookshelves, and dozens of files fill the research folder on my computer.

My constant research leaves me with hundreds of fascinating facts that will not work in my current novel or short story. I love finding out all this stuff and most of it’s too interesting to consign to the recycling bin on my desktop. What to do?

I have a plan. Keep an eye out for future historical articles about great tidbits that never made it to the pages of Ashes and Ruins. Some with pictures!