Incorporating History Into Your Fiction
Tapping the Past to Enrich Your Writing
By Julie Tollefson
As Jess Montgomery, Sharon Short writes the Kinship Historical Mystery series, set in 1920s Appalachia and inspired by Ohio’s first female sheriff. Her expertise in historical research helps her breathe life into her characters and settings. Here she offers five tips for infusing rich, historical details into your mystery or thriller.
1) Characters — like writers — don’t live in a vacuum — Getting a feel for the ebb and flow of the time through which your character has lived, from birth to coming of age to the period in which your story is set, gives your character depth and context.
“When we came of age influences how we see the world, how we exist in the world, and what we know of the world,” Sharon says. The same is true for your characters.
Think beyond your character’s life, too, she advises. Experiences filter down through the generations, so the big events that defined your character’s parents’ and grandparents’ lives will affect your character as well.
“It might not inform more than five lines of dialog and may not affect any plot point at all, but it will influence who your character is,” Sharon says.
2) History is not just a set of facts — Using history to enrich your writing goes beyond knowing when World War I started and ended. “How does it reshape the character of a town?” Sharon asks. “If you have a small town of 2,000 and 30 young men leave, what does that do to the town? What does that do to how people see the world or how they see themselves within the world?”
Big sweeping events — war, cultural change, social change, entertainment — affect daily life, real as well as fictional.
In her book The Widows, Sharon (writing as Jess Montgomery) explores the way memories of historical events affect present action. Her main character, Lily, recalls a German neighbor in her town who was unable to purchase war bonds because of financial difficulties. The good citizens of the town, questioning his patriotism, turned on him. Later, the feelings of fear and powerlessness that incident provoked complicate Lily’s ability to succeed as a female sheriff in the 1920s.
“It really shapes how she sees the men in town who are willing to do this to a fellow citizen,” Sharon says. But it also affects how Lily sees herself.
3) The beauty is in the details — Sharon’s characters are everyday, rural, working people. They don’t have servants to help them through the inconveniences of life in the 1920s. It’s the little things, the domestic details, that intrigue Sharon as she peoples her novels with well-rounded, believable characters.
“I think about how do you refrigerate your food, what is available at the grocery store in town, what laws are in effect about owning property,” she says. “I want to feel immersed in their world. I want to know those sensory details of what life was like — what kind of clothes they’re wearing, what kind of apartment they’re in, sights, sounds, smells.”
Sometimes, though, she gets too caught up in details as an excuse not to write, which brings us to point No. 4.
4) Don’t get sidetracked by the eggbeater — Sharon keeps an antique eggbeater on her office bookshelf to remind her of the time she spent an entire day trying to figure out what kind of eggbeater Lily would have used, when in reality that detail barely mattered to the overall story.
“Do the research, but be cognizant of is this detail going to move the story along or reveal character?” she says. “Nobody’s reading a mystery novel or any other novel to find out what exact eggbeater would have been available in 1925. A fork would have been fine.”
5) Hit the books (and websites and newspaper archives and…) — When Sharon begins to research a new period, she turns first to books to get a general feel for the time and help her narrow down specific information she’ll need to research more later. History books are good first sources, as is the Time Life Books series.
“I’ve looked at specific coal mining history books and books about rural history,” says Sharon.
Next she turns to newspapers. “I actually really love to look at ads, because they tell me what people were focused on, what prices were, what was available and not available,” Sharon says. “You can learn a lot about attitudes, and sometimes it’s kind of shocking.”
Websites will give you basic information, and sites like eBay will allow you to see the kinds of clocks and chairs and stoves your characters might own, but for a hands-on, tactile experience, visit your local antiques store.
Interview experts who have deep knowledge of the era you’re interested in. Sharon recommends you do basic research first, though, and save your harder, detailed questions for the limited time you’ll have with the expert.
For the rich, unexpected peek into daily life of the past, turn to the people who knew it best: those who lived then and have first-hand knowledge. That becomes difficult when your novel is set a hundred or more years ago, though. In that case, look for older people who might remember stories told by their mother or grandmother or other older relatives. Seek out, as Sharon calls them, “memories of memories.”
To learn more, watch Sharon’s October 2021 MWA Midwest presentation in the members-only Video Library section of our website. Look for the video titled “How to use history to enhance your mystery or thriller,” and use the password Raven202!