I'm currently trying to research America during the late 70's and early 80's for a murder mystery set during that time. However, seeing as that was way before my time, I wanted to see if anyone had any research tips, specific information about that time period or anything of those kinds? Any help would be greatly appreciated~!
Hey!
So, I feel your pain. Also, 1651 words? Nice!
Anywho, when it comes to research, I've found the best way to do it is 'school style'. Break out some looseleaf and a pen, and go online.
Open up your browser, and search 'America 1970-80' or something along those lines. I really wanted to help you out, so I tried Googling that and found some interesting stuff! Browse websites, taking notes as you go!
When it comes to credibility, which is sometimes an issue when researching, stick to the basic rule of if you can't find it on a least three websites, move on. It could be that this thing you are hearing is true, but it's just better to know you're accurate and skip over it. However, if you don't wanna do that, a simple Google search can usually give you the answer (i.e. if you saw that all houses were made out of cotton candy in the 70s and 80s, you could look up 'Were houses made out of cotton candy in 1970-80?' You'll get answers.)
Keep taking notes, and when you're done (this is optional), type them or rewrite them in a neater, more aesthetic way. If you type them, I suggest printing them out so that you can just whip 'em out whenever you need to, and you can kinda study them/go over them even when you're not writing.
Best of luck, and while I don't know much, that sounds like an interesting book!
I was kind of in a similar situation with one of my projects. It's a fantasy, but the world is very inspired by Victorian England and I wanted it to be fairly accurate. I know we're writing about two really different time periods, but these are some tips that I found helpful:
- 1970-1980 was not all that long ago. If you're comfortable sharing your writing with people maybe you could find someone who was alive during that time who'd be willing to answer your questions. If not you might even be able to find someone online who was around during that time.
- I found it better when I was a little more specific with my searches. Google searching "what was life like in Victorian England" will probably turn up some helpful stuff, but I have a bunch of characters that come from really different backgrounds and when I was writing where they came from I found it more efficient to narrow it down to "what was life like in Victorian England for Royalty" or whatever you happen to need.
- I don't really see a problem with just straight up googling stuff, but as mentioned above it's good to fact check. I learned this in school, but websites that end in .gov or .edu are usually pretty reliable.
- Bookmark things! Or at the very least have a separate document where you keep links to all the sites you visited for your research (if you're like me and never actually bookmark sites). You never know when you might have to refer back to something.
- If you need some information about police/legal stuff, there's a tumblr account called https://scriptcriminaljustice.tumblr.com/ that's dedicated to helping writers who have questions about that sort of thing. It looks like they have their ask box closed for now, but I've asked them questions before and they're very helpful (you actually don't even need a tumblr account to ask questions).
- Honestly, for me I kind of just research on an as needed basis. Like I'll just start writing when suddenly I'll realize that I don't know when shampoo was invented. It wasn't even a hugely important detail to the story, but whenever I start to think "Ohh no one will question it/ It's not even that important" I remember the time where I read a published novel that described horse teeth as being as big as pez dispensers (not even close to being true). It's better to be accurate then to assume that no one will question it and those small details can take like 2 minutes to google.
