Research

The working title of my new novel is Lexington. Ever since I first saw the grave (photo above) at the edge of the Lexington Battle field, where the American Revolution started, I wondered about the men buried there.

Why did they join the British Army?

What kind of family, place did they come from: village, country, city?

What about their families? Did they ever know what happened to the soldier?

Periodically, I asked people who might know. That they didn't, was frustrating.

Casting around for the subject of a new novel, I thought I would give a fictional biography to one of the soldiers a story. The working title Lexington wouldn't be appropriate, because most of the story will take place before his death, first in England and then the rest in Boston where he will be stationed.

Writing modern novels as far as research goes is simple. It is easy to locate international law for child kidnapping by parents as I needed for Day Care Moms, soon to be published, for example. Google images can help with scene depiction.

I'm no novice to historical research. All my TCK Mysteries www.donnalanenelson.com have a historical component. Some were fun to do such as Murder on Insel Poel when we went to Northern Germany, my housemate and me. Her German came in very handy when talking with local police. Parts of it when listening to oral histories in a concentration camp museum weren't fun, but necessary to capture what life was like.

Now with the pandemic and travel limited, I cannot hop on an Easy Jet flight and explore areas in the UK where the soldier would be from. I can rely on photos and several people have offered help. Then I remembered how much research I did for Murder in Ely so I can rely on what I learned then to give the novel authenticity. Mention the Fens, floods and an eel or two.

I found Jim Hollister at the Minute Man National Park an incredible help both in his videos Ask a Ranger and his willingness to answer what might seem to him as mundane questions. He pointed me to books and web sources as well.

YouTube videos are a great source even if I use the information only for one or two sentences. I want James, my soldier's name and that of my father too, to be a baker. A YouTube about bakers of the period will give me those sentences for the reader to feel s/he is in a bakery of the period.

I wasn't sure how I could describe the ship on which his company, the 43rd regiment, would travel. I'd been on replicas of the Mayflower, trod the deck of the U.S. Constitution and ships of the period in Glasgow, but my memory was shaky.

Then glory, glory, I found a documentary where a captain of a vessel describes his ship in minute detail. Now granted, when he showed the kitchen with a microwave, the ship James sailed on wouldn't have had a microwave, but I did get have an idea on how he could stumble to the side of the ship to get sick, tripping over the coiled ropes that are used for raising and lowering the sails.

I have yet to start the writing but scenes are spinning in my head. I suppose I could start with the basic scenes leaving xxxxx marks when I need to fill in facts as they come in from people I've contacted. It may require a rewrite, but I revise my work many times over anyway.

Meanwhile James is already urging me to get busy with the story.