Historical Research - what do I need to know?
By Rebecca Mascull
By Rebecca Mascull
By the time I started planning my second published novel,
Song of the Sea Maid, I’d been writing novels for over a decade. Yep, I’d
written a few novels before The Visitors was published. And in that time, I’d
taught myself to research, write and edit historical novels. So it wasn’t time
wasted…
So, what did I learn? The first thing I had to get my head
round when writing about a different historical period to the one I’m living
through, was research. The question is, what do I need to know? When I first
started out, I was writing a novel set during the Second World War. I thought
at first that I basically needed to know EVERYTHING, that if I knew EVERYTHING
then I could pick and choose what I wanted to put in the novel from the
EVERYTHING I knew. A fine ambition. And in those days, I had quite a bit of
time to try to achieve that ambition. It was before I had my daughter, and I’d
given up teaching for a year to see if I could write this historical novel. So,
I set about finding out about WW2. And, of course, I realised pretty quickly
that it would take me the rest of my life to find out about one little part of
WW2 and I still wouldn’t finish it. So I set about narrowing down what I really
needed to know and I started to dismiss all the stuff I’d love to know but just
didn’t have time for.
I refined this process over the years and it’s saved me a
lot of time and a lot of money in book buying, I tell you. When I started
planning Song of the Sea Maid, one of the first things I did was to write a
list of all the areas of knowledge I’d need to look into in order to write my
character Dawnay’s story. She’s an orphan, born in the 1730s, who becomes a
scientist, travels to Portugal and beyond, then makes a remarkable discovery.
So, what did I need to know about? My list started something like this:
- C18th
- Science
Then I thought – wait a minute here – you can’t just learn
everything about the C18th and everything about science. So, I narrowed it
down. Dawnay was born in the 1730s and the story follows her through into the
late 1750s. That narrows it down a bit. And what science is she going to
practise? Well, she’s mostly concerned with the big question: where do we come
from? So, there’s palaeoanthropology for starters. Don’t need any books on molecular
chemistry then. But what did scientists know about palaeoanthropology in the
C18th, if anything?? So, I added a new one to the list:
- Scientists in the C18th
Then, I realised that Dawnay was not just any old scientist
in the C18th, but that rare breed, a female scientist. Society was different
then, of course it was, anyone knows that. Women had it tough, tougher than
today. So, another one for the list:
- Female scientists in the C18th
So, you can see how the process of research becomes about an
act of refining. Funnily enough, once I continued this list with all the other
things I needed to learn about – for example:
- Orphanages
- The age of sail
- Portugal and Menorca
- The Seven Years’ War
- well, that’ll do for now, as I don’t want to give the whole
story away…Anyway, once I’d written my list, I realised that it was all very
well knowing all this stuff, but what I really wanted to know about, where I
really wanted to start, was not actually street life in C18th London or what
C18th gentleman knew about fossils BUT actually, I really wanted to know about
Dawnay. She was the whole reason I was writing this story, her story. I wanted to create a character that I cared about (in
fact, she was already there in my head, arms crossed, feet tapping, waiting for
me to get the hell on with it – and she’d be most annoyed at the suggestion I’d
‘created’ her – characters are like that. A bit uppity and full of themselves,
once they get going.)
So, I didn’t start with all the details of C18th life, such
as what knickers C18th women wore (though this is rather fascinating: the
answer is none). Instead, I let Dawnay tell me about herself – a bit of
channelling, as it were – and it soon became obvious that what ruled her
personality was her obsession with science. She had a scientist’s mind, she saw
the world through the lens of science. So, one of the first books I read was
Richard Feynman’s autobiography, all about what he was like when he was a kid,
the way he saw the world, how he fixed people’s radios and tried to improve the
communication system in the hotel that was his first job.
I’m no scientist and
I don’t have a scientific brain, so I was learning what it’s like to be one. It
was the most valuable research I did, as it allowed me to climb into Dawnay’s
mind. I had my gal. Now I could place her, a bit like a chess piece, into her
era – into C18th London – and watch her walk around in it. Now, what were C18th
streets like? How did she get around? What did she wear and eat? How did she
talk?
And I was off. That’s where the fun really starts…
Song of the Sea Maid
Published by Hodder & Stoughton on 11 February 2016
Synopsis
Published by Hodder & Stoughton on 11 February 2016
Synopsis
In the 18th
century, Dawnay Price is an anomaly. An educated foundling, a woman of science
in a time when such things are unheard-of, she overcomes her origins to become
a natural philosopher.
Against the
conventions of the day, and to the alarm of her male contemporaries, she sets
sail to Portugal to develop her theories. There she makes some startling
discoveries - not only in an ancient cave whose secrets hint at a previously
undiscovered civilisation, but also in her own heart. The siren call of science
is powerful, but as war approaches she finds herself pulled in another
direction by feelings she cannot control.
Rebecca is the author of
The Visitors 2014 & Song of the Sea Maid 2015, both published by Hodder &
Stoughton. She lives with Simon & Poppy.
Find Rebecca on her website, Facebook page and on Twitter - @rebeccamascull
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