The Research Process
By C.M. Saunders
Any writer will tell you that research is a crucial aspect of the craft. But its importance is elevated in historical writing, which often stands or falls in the small details. Your work has to be factually accurate, or things quickly fall apart and it loses all credibility. At the very least you'd be called lazy, and probably a lot worse. Readers can only suspend disbelief so much, and if inaccuracies find their way into the text, it’s jarring and the whole house of cards is at risk of falling down.
For example, it's no good writing a story set in California in the year 1879, taking time to carefully construct the scene and introduce the characters, then have one of them use a Lee Enfield rifle, which didn't come into widespread use until 1895 and even then, was mostly issued to British soldiers with very few finding their way over the pond until much later. Not every reader would know this, but I'm willing to bet a good many would.
Weaponry plays a vital role in my new novella, Silent Mine, the first in a series of stories starring the same protagonist Dylan Decker, as it does in most Westerns, so it was absolutely vital to get it right. Other minor details I had to address for the sake of authenticity were what the average general store might sell, the price of a shot of whiskey, and the measure it came in.
Part of the inspiration for Silent Mine was the video game Red Dead Redemption 2, an open world adventure role play set in the Wild West. The game is impressive in many ways, not least in the level of detail it contains. It's also impeccably researched, with several historical elements finding their way into the book. One example is the practise of carving an X into bullets to create an early form of expansion ammunition, which was just too good not to use. Once armed with a scrap of information as a leaping-off point, it was off to the internet to find out more.
When carrying out research, I think it's important to forget everything you think you know and try to approach the topic with fresh eyes. There are a lot of common misconceptions out there, especially about the so-called Wild West, that aren't strictly true. For example, if you watch any Western movie you'd be forgiven for thinking that people were getting killed left, right, and centre. But the fact is that the murder rate was lower back then than it is in most modern cities in the same location, even taking into account the higher population. From what I can make out, the dramatic gunfights and face-offs that were the bread and butter of the genre are a Hollywood invention, exceptionally rare IRL. Who on earth would risk death when it would be safer and easier to bide your time and shoot someone in the back when they weren't expecting it?
In addition, relations between settlers and Native Americans weren't nearly as fraught as Hollywood would have us believe. Sure, there were flashpoints, and some pretty ugly historical events, but generally speaking the two groups just wanted to make the best lives for themselves, with each using the other to their best advantage. There was also a lot more diversity than is generally portrayed in the movies. Cowboys immigrated to the US from all over the world and spoke every language under the sun. At least the famed Spaghetti Westerns of the sixties and seventies were on point in that respect. I did take a few liberties. I call it artistic license. Dylan is a comparatively recent name, popularized by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas in the mid-20th century, so it's unlikely there were many cowboys using it. And though a “sour toe cocktail” is a real thing (I promise!) again, it wasn't around in 1879, though probably should have been.
There's no denying that the whole art of research is much easier in the internet age. Twenty years ago I wrote a book about a Welsh football (soccer) club, and my research entailed travelling to a major library every morning and manually scanning countless reels of microfilm. When I found something of interest I scribbled it down in a notebook. These days, we literally carry the sum of mankind's knowledge around on a device we keep in our pockets (and use it to look at pictures of cats, as the meme goes). But you still have to know what you're looking for, and there's a lot of misinformation out there to sift through. Sometimes it can be like looking for a nugget of gold in a sea of sludge. And with internet sources being notoriously unreliable, you always have to check that what you've found is the real deal and not a chunk of fool's gold.