In a recent Instagram Live with SinC ED Julie Hennrikus, historical fiction author Katherine Schellman offered tips for researching diverse stories in the past:
Lots of information and ideas that highlighted these five points:
- Don’t assume you already know what was going on in any given time period.
- Cultural artifacts can tell you as much about a time period as historical records. Look at clothing, art, and music for clues about people’s everyday lives and struggles.
- If a job existed, women were probably doing it too.
- If a law against something was being passed, that means people had already been doing it for a while.
- History is rich and unexpected because people have always been people. We are messy, creative, emotional, and weird. And no matter what part of history you’re looking at, someone like you was part of it.
See the whole Instagram Live here: https://youtu.be/gOoUK2yr5F0
And be sure to join SinC Worldwide every Tuesday afternoon at 1pm ET for a live discussion of craft, marketing, and other important topics in the writing world. Whatever the platform, or the format, SinC is Where Writers Belong!
