As someone who writes stories from World
War Two, I do loads of research. All writers do. We’re walking encyclopedias
and that’s why we’re awesome at pub quizzes or maybe it’s because writers also
love to read.
For my latest book, my hero’s last name
is Ruggles. To get the name I combined rugged and Biggles. Rugged because my
teen is a rough and tumble kind of kid. Bigglesworth aka Biggles is my favorite
literary pilot who has many flying adventures. Later on in my story, I needed
to know the history of flight simulators. Did they even exist in WW2? Oh yes
they did since 1910, but I discovered that in 1912, a William Ruggles(!)
invented the Ruggles Orientator, a flight simulator. Is that fate or what that
I created a name that actually exists and belonged to an inventor of a flight
simulator?
But just because I’m writing a story
that takes place in WW2, doesn’t mean my research won’t go beyond the 1940’s.
Two of my older gentlemen flew in WW1 so I have to know some bits about that
timeframe, especially the planes. And just last week, I found myself looking at
suits of armor to determine if a girl could hide an item inside one.
Even when you think you have researched all you need for your story, you haven't. Just this morning, before I realized I
had to write my blog post, I was researching bodies of water in northern England
for a place to hide a rowboat and hopefully avoid beach minds.
