Research with Purpose: Finding the Story Inside History

Guest Post by Maryka Biaggio —

I write historical fiction about real people, and I’m often asked where I find my subjects. The short answer—a variety of places—is true but unhelpful. After more than twenty-five years of writing historical fiction, I’ve found that inspiration doesn’t arrive fully formed. It emerges when curiosity meets overlooked material and a novelist’s instinct for conflict. 

Here are the sources I return to again and again—and how novelists can use them deliberately to uncover stories worth telling. 

Genealogical Research and Family Lore 

Genealogical research was my first doorway into historical fiction. On the surface, it can feel dry: census records, birth certificates, death dates. But embedded in these documents are narrative gaps—missing years, unexplained relocations, sudden changes in fortune—that beg for interpretation. These gaps are not obstacles; they are invitations. When documentation is sparse—as it often is for women, immigrants, the working poor, or the enslaved—novelists have space to imagine plausible human experiences. 

Family lore is particularly rich ground. An anecdote passed down through generations may be incomplete or exaggerated, but it often contains emotional truth. Interviews with elderly relatives can reveal astonishing stories of endurance, secrecy, or loss. In my own case, a casual remark from my mother about an ancestor who founded a utopian community in Michigan led me to a story I never would have discovered otherwise.  

Practical takeaway: Follow the questions that arise during research. If you find yourself wondering why something happened, you may be standing at the edge of a novel. Look for absences, contradictions, or abrupt changes in the record. Ask what kind of human story could explain them. 

Historical Societies and Local History 

Historical societies are among the most underused resources available to novelists. Small, regional organizations often preserve stories that never made it into national histories—and the staff members are walking encyclopedias of local drama. 

Years ago, while vacationing in Michigan, I stopped at the Menominee Historical Society on a whim. There I found a slim pamphlet that began: “The Pinkerton Detective Agency had her down in their files as the most dangerous woman in the world.” The subject was May Dugas, a notorious con artist—and that pamphlet became the foundation of my debut novel and the publishing career that followed. 

Local history can offer unusual stories. Cemetery records, town meeting minutes, church archives, old maps, and regional legends all contain human-scale stories: feuds, scandals, ambition, failure.  

Practical takeaway: Visit historical societies when you travel. Ask staff about regional stories that have been overlooked. Pay attention to pamphlets, exhibits, and side notes. Often, the best material is tucked away at the margins. 

Archives and Primary Sources 

If historical fiction feels vivid and intimate, it’s often because the author has spent time with primary sources. Letters, diaries, court records, asylum files, pension applications, ship manifests, and trial transcripts capture voices unfiltered by time. 

A single line—“My sister was never the same after that winter”—can suggest trauma, mystery, or transformation. These documents reveal how people spoke, what they feared, and what mattered enough to record. They also expose private motivations that official histories smooth over. 

Primary sources are especially powerful for revealing contradictions. A public figure’s reputation may differ sharply from what appears in personal correspondence. That tension—between public myth and private reality—is fertile ground for fiction. 

Practical takeaway: Read historical records for voice and emotion. Ask what the document does not say—and why. 

Newspapers, Past and Present 

Newspapers are one of the richest sources of story material available. Contemporary newspapers can spark ideas just as readily as historical ones, reminding us that human drama is timeless. 

Period newspapers, however, are unparalleled. For decades, they were the primary way people understood their world, and they documented everything: scandals, disappearances, social events, and crimes. Society pages tracked relationships and rivalries; advertisements showed the texture of daily life. 

While researching one novel, I stumbled upon a newspaper story about a man who came home to find his house stripped of furniture—his wife and children gone. Over several weeks, the paper published his pleas and his wife’s responses, as she used the press to negotiate terms before returning. That story became background material for scenes that deepened my characters’ domestic tensions. 

Subscriptions to databases like Newspapers.com allow writers to browse papers from across the country and across centuries. Front pages are particularly useful for sensational or emotionally charged material. 

Practical takeaway: Read newspapers from your setting as if you lived there. What worried people? What entertained them? What shocked them? 

Biographies and Narrative Nonfiction 

Biographies and scholarly histories often hide novel-worthy figures in plain sight. I discovered one of my most compelling subjects—Margery Crandon—through a nonfiction book, The Witch of Lime Street, which explored her conflict with Harry Houdini. Despite her international fame in the 1920s, no novelist had yet claimed her story. That absence signaled opportunity. 

Biographies can also reveal interpretive disagreements among historians, which point directly to narrative tension. When scholars argue, novelists can explore why. 

Practical takeaway: Read reviews of biographies and nonfiction books. Pay attention to figures described as enigmatic, controversial, or poorly understood. 

What Makes a Story Worth Fictionalizing? 

Not every intriguing story warrants a novel. The key question is whether the material supports sustained narrative conflict. I ask myself: Can I identify multiple forms of tension—internal, interpersonal, societal? Is there moral ambiguity, risk, or transformation? 

Historical fiction succeeds where fact ends and imagination begins. The most powerful stories are often glimpsed sideways: a rumor, a silence, a contradiction, a discarded name in a ledger. 

Winning stories are everywhere—and they reward writers who look closely, ask good questions, and trust their narrative instincts. You never know when a pamphlet, a footnote, or a missing record will change the course of your writing life.