Miss Tracy, do u have any advice on researching a specific time period?
(also I know u probably won't see this, but I love your art and you are awesome)
Look for books about the time period, but also books written contemporaneous to the time period, whether fiction or non-fiction. Check used book stores for out of print gems at good prices.
If photography was a technology that existed in the time period you're researching, look for photos of people doing everyday things. Take in the context, the geography, the economic situation. Look at how they're dressed and what their clothes say about them.
Newspaper archives. Sometimes newspapers of the past are free to browse. Sometimes you have to pay for access. Old shopping catalogue collections - if they exist for your time period - are great too.
Documentary films about time periods, or specific events in a given time period can be useful, even if only for a broad overview.
Museum exhibits - helpful whether you're looking for famous paintings or artifacts of past civilizations in a world renowned institution, or trying to dig up something impossibly unique in an oddity denture museum in some forgotten place in the Midwest. If you can't go in person, check online. You can find museums with vintage clothing or household appliance collections from even a few decades ago. Some museums have extensive, searchable online collections too. Take the Metropolitan Museum for instance.
If you can visit historical sites relevant to your area of interest, do it! Do those little guided walking tours. Do the ghost tours even - they're often fairly history-centric with some paranormal folklore for added spice. Sometimes they get you access to places you otherwise can't enter. Check historical societies local to cities or towns of interest.
If you need information about something deeply specific, check the internet for communities that form around that deeply specific topic. I've found tidbits of useful info searching around old forum posts from radio enthusiasts, Model T owners, and people who collect old telephone booths. (Granted, it's getting harder to search for this kind of stuff nowadays.)
Be careful of AI trash, whether it's generative images, text descriptions, or entire articles.
Don't rely much on film or television for accuracy. Some things are more interested in being accurate than others, but there's almost always some artistic license taken.
If you're trying to be particularly accurate about something, triple check it for confirmation. Misinformation has had a way of spreading like insidious mildew even before AI started disseminating it with delusory authority.
Lastly, if you don't enjoy doing this kind of historical research like a weird little detective-creature, consider loosening up on the 'historical' aspect of your writing. It's okay to not focus on historicity in your fiction. But if you're going to dive in whole-hog on history, bear in mind it's an ongoing, often time-consuming adventure in information-finding.
(Thank you for the kind words!)
