Research

I enjoy doing research for the places and times where my stories are set. The only down side is that I almost invariably get all bound up with being historically correct with facts and/or factoids. I want to give the flavor of the pieces a good dose of verisimilitude, but I almost always go too far with trying to "get it right". It's so stupid. How am I supposed to make fiction completely historically accurate? By definition, it's inaccurate, because it never really happened.

I need to just settle down, take the facts, absorb them so that I understand the feeling of the place and time, and then just let the words roll. Who really cares what colors and designs the Mohegan really used for the decorations on their breechclouts? It's not like I'm going to devote paragraphs to describing what my characters are wearing. It's not that important. So what do I do? I spend two hours researching the contact-era clothing and society of the Mohegan, download a glossary, make notes on their religion and spirit figures, and pore over the sorry history of English contact with the tribe, including the exact timing of small pox outbreaks and population numbers. And for what? So I can write a short story about a supernatural happening in a forest inhabited with people I'm making up? I drive myself crazy sometimes.

Sometimes I think my schooling as a historian has been more hindrance than help.