Many authors these days have very strange browsing histories. Writers of thrillers have to research espionage, weapons, and clandestine operations. Fantasy writers delve deeply into the legends of wizards and dragons and vampires (not my cup of tea).
As for me, in addition to the basic timelines and geography of the Oregon Trail and California Gold Rush, I have had to research such topics as
- Banking practices in the 1840s and 1850s
- Changes in the homestead laws in Oregon over time
- How California became a state, and the legislative history of its Constitutional Convention
- The timber industry in Oregon in the 1850s
- Shipping routes and timetables between the East Coast, California, and Oregon, and
- Farming techniques in the mid-19th century
For the book I’m about to publish, My Hope Secured, one odd topic I had to research was the history of the death penalty in Oregon.
SPOILER ALERT: I don’t tell you what happens in My Hope Secured in the rest of this post, but I do allude to some elements in the plot. So if you intend to read the book in the near future and don’t want any foretelling, then you should stop reading here.
In the first draft of My Hope Secured, the criminal did not kill anyone, though he stole and committed other dastardly deeds. While I am not a proponent of the death penalty, I want my novels to be realistic, and so I wanted the bad guy hanged by the end of the book. Maybe you’ll understand why I disliked him so much, if you read the novel.
A lurid depiction of the Whitman Massacre
Initially, my research into Oregon criminal law dealt with the speed of sentencing in the 1850s. I wanted the hanging to take place a very short time after the trial. I found support for my plot timeline in history. The five Cayuse who were tried for the Whitman Massacre were hanged just days after they were found guilty. Return Everman, who murdered Cyrenus Hooker (my ancestor) in 1852 in Polk County, Oregon, was also hanged less than a month after he was convicted. (See here and here.)
Cyrenius Hooker’s grave
But I also discovered that only murderers have been sentenced to death by the Oregon courts. Some of those receiving capital punishments committed additional crimes, but all had been found guilty of murder. Rapists and thieves and other felons who did not kill their fellow humans were not hanged. Therefore, in the final version of My Hope Secured, the villain is in fact a murderer.
What questions do you have about how authors research their books?
Wow, can I relate. The research I did for my recent book And Eve Said Yes: Seven Stories and a Novella was, to put it mildly, voluminous. Wish you could have attended my book launch at Prospero’s last Sunday. I discussed a little about that.
I researched various ways to murder people too, how to treat bullet wounds and snake bites (in centuries before antibiotics, of course), dances, meal courses, voodoo and santeria, fan language, other things I cannot remember now.