Where’s the Needle in the Haystack? 5 Tips to Keep Track of Your Historical Research

Guest Post by Alison Lloyd –

‘‘What year did he say that?’

My editor was working through my non-fiction manuscript. She asked a perfectly reasonable question, and I didn’t know the answer. I’d forgotten. My research notes were distributed through paper files. I didn’t even know where I’d found the historical quote in the first place. It took me a full day’s work to find it again.

Fiction writers don’t have to be so exact about sources. But I’ve found that if your novel research is messy, it will still trip you up and slow you down. When it’s time to walk your heroine down the aisle, you can’t find that great description of the period wedding dress. Or your hero is plunged into darkness and you don’t remember how he’d strike a flame.

I’ve been on too many haystack hunts, looking for lost information. To avoid annoyance and wasted time, here are the top five ways I keep track of my research. They’re not the only ways, of course, but they might help you too.

Tip 1: Use an App for Note-taking

Choose one which has robust organizational features. I use OneNote, which comes with Microsoft 365, so that’s mainly what I’ll refer to here. Evernote, Notions and Joplin are some of the alternatives. Be aware of the pricing structures – you don’t want to be restricted in the number of notes you can take. Apple Notes and Google Keep are too basic for me. Scrivener is more designed for drafting than research. I think the critical features you want are:

• Searchability: one of the biggest advantages of digital over paper.
• File nesting: so you can have for example, a file for craft advice (like this article!) and a separate one for novel projects. Then within ‘novel projects’, you can create a file for your 1880s setting, and within that sub files for clothing, social events, the physical city where your story is set, Victorian theatre, or whatever else matters. You can also order and group pages within a file.
• Offline access and online backup: because, you know, computers and the internet mess up… Or your laptop can be stolen. That happened to me two years ago, and I was so grateful for that backup in the cloud.
• Web clipper function: this is an extension which you install on your browser. Then you can clip whole pages, or an image, or a paragraph, or just the address, into your notes, under the relevant heading. Here is a link to the One Note clipper.
• Back links: Even without the clipper extension, if you copy text from a website, say for example an online newspaper, and paste it into One Note, One Note will include the hyperlink back to the source. This is much quicker than noting the newspaper, the page and the date for yourself. And it only takes a click to go back to it again later.

Tip 2: Annotate Your Clips

If you paste something that’s not text, like an image, or a link to a story about wartime Shanghai that mentions dog-napping, put a quick note as to its contents. It’s easier to search for later, if you’ve forgotten whether you filed it under ‘daily life’ or ‘crime’. I also jot down connected story ideas, like ‘motive for antagonist??’, or ‘obstacle to Annabel’s plans’. Then a search entry for ‘Annabel’ or ‘obstacle’ will bring up what I want.

Tip 3: Dictate Your Notes

It’s quicker than writing or typing, and a great way of getting period language in your head. In Windows, use the Windows key + H, and start talking. For Apple Macs, the instructions are here.

Tip 4: Make a Digital List of Hardcopy Notes or References

Paper notes are unavoidable. You might have a beautiful hardback book on Regency portraits. Or a map and brochure from a site tour. Within your notes app, you can create a ‘setting’ file, then a page headed ‘palace grounds’, with a note reminding you to ‘see garden map in blue cardboard file. NB the maze – idea for chase scene.’

Tip 5: Make Research Footnotes

Include these in your manuscript as you draft your novel. You can do this even without a note-taking app, in a word processor or Scrivener. I suggest leaving the notes to the end of your writing session so you don’t interrupt the writing flow. Imagine in this chapter, your heroine spends 10 shillings on renting a garret. You based the price on a great webpage with cost of living details. Five chapters later, she’s desperately hungry, and you’re desperate to know the cost of bread. You’ll want that helpful source.

Is this work, and sometimes boring? Yes. But keeping track now saves time later. It also enlivens stories with rich detail. Don’t lose those pieces of historical gold. Happy hunting!