On Writing: My Top Tip For Doing Historical Research

 

Research Tips

Hey Readers! This is going to be a short post with hopefully a great idea for doing research for your novels. I write historical fiction and have accrued a ton of books on subjects from Roman history to World War II. Some of these books, mostly none fiction, have been expensive. As much as I dearly love my books, my budget is smaller than my obsession to buy more. Now that I've move, my house is also smaller and I've had to curate my library. 

I am currently writing a book set during the Texas revolution. Of course the first thing I did was hit the bookstore to see what I could find. I do live in Texas, so there was a handful of recently released books about the battle for Texas Independence. But, what I was really looking for was something written from the Mexican perspective, and that I could not find. So, off to the library.

Major disappointment met me at my local library. I found nada about Mexican history. Hard to believe that in Texas, I could find nothing about the country who is our neighbor and whose citizens live all around us. Going online, I googled books about Colonial Mexican history and found several that were current. Using the interlibrary loan system, which is a Godsend, I was able to get my hands on two great books. Thank you, University of Kansas for sending them! 

Despite finding these wonderful books, I wasn't getting the information I was after, the day to day operations of the Mexican Army during the short conflict with the rebel Texians. Again going to the internet, I hit pay dirt. And this is my tip for y'all who may not have thought about this. Are you ready?

PhD Dissertations and Master's Thesis

Yep. I hit the motherload with this. Dissertations and Theses from years ago are now uploaded and available for you to read. I found a thesis entitled: Mexican Military Movements in the Texas Revolution and it had exactly what I needed, 200 pages of it! Maps, lists, battle diagrams, the whole kit and caboodle. I can't tell you how excited I was to find it and so far, it has been invaluable to my WIP.

Using the website www.oatd.org I was able to find over 90 studies applicable to my search.  These works are from universities all over the world. A search for Tudor England brought up over 300 papers on all manner of topics. Many can be read online or downloaded as a PDF. The best part about these papers is that they drill down into very specific aspects of their topic, they're not just a general overview of the larger picture. 

Well, that's it. My tip of the day. I hope you find what your looking for in your research, but be sure to have  peek to see if there is more!