Victorian True Crime: How History Inspires My Fictional Mysteries

 


Greetings history and mystery lovers! Allow me to take you back to the 1800s in Saint John New Brunswick. This sprawling coastal hub is rocked by secrets, scandals and crime. So grab your favorite drink, pull up a chair and join me as we unearth dark truths, gossip, and the bloodstained history of the Port City.

How do I come up with these incredible tales? Well it usually begins with sifting through the provincial archives and Google Newspapers for hours looking for suspicious deaths or murders that I could spin into something wonderful. Now, other times, people have given me ideas, by mentioning a long ago case and saying: "You should check this one out."

Once I have my actual case that I am going to base my story on, then I spend as much time as humanly possible researching that case, and gathering as much public information that is available for me to glean. Even if I omit or change something later for my fictionalized version of the tale, I collect everything I need to know about the case, the facts, the outcome if there is one, and so on. 

Yet, that is not the only bit of research I do, that is only the beginning. Because there are minor differences between how Victorian's in Saint John New Brunswick spoke, lived, and even referred to other things as. Times are also changing throughout the years. So, where Guilty Deceptions is based in 1869, I had to research how Victorian's in Saint John, lived, referred to things, and words they would have used. 

However, even after my initial research is "completed" on the case and the time period. There is still more for me to research. As I like to put the events that was going on in and around that time period into the stories. 

Like for instance, if there was a gale going on during the events of the story, I would research the extent of the gale and include a mention of such things within the story. So, how can you tell which parts of my stories are fact, and which ones are fiction? In all of my stories, there will be an Acknowledgments section, I am undecided if this will be placed in the front matter or backmatter of the books yet. As I know when I open a book to read, I want to jump right into the story. 

Within the Acknowledgements, I will state clearly, everything that was fact from my book vs the things that were completely fabricated for the story. There will also be some thanks to those who helped a bit with the creation, and explain about somethings I had included in the story and why. 

My research does not stop before I write, I am constantly spending hours looking things up for a sentence or two in my book. I'm sure that my search history has me on a few lists as well, because of the types of topics I need to research for these books. 

Even for Guilty Deceptions which I have been working on for over ten years and have pages and pages of research, during this rewrite I am constantly stopping and looking things up. Sometimes, I write something one way, discover that wouldn't work, and go back and change it. I am so thankful for the find and replace feature. 

For example, in the first version of Guilty Deceptions the travel time was way too short. I had them travelling by horse and carriage nineteen miles, in short window of time. After more research with the rewrite I have a more realistic time frame for that. In the original version there were way too many modern time terms and tidbits that had taken away from the story. Doing more research helped me be able to fix all of those problems. 

Thing is I am constantly researching. I look things up at least fifty times a day, and sometimes its a lot more than that. I love the research aspect of my writing process though. I find it fun to learn these things and incorporate them into the story. While the actual writing is my passion, the research is my favorite part, especially when I am unsure of something and look it up to find out I was right. That tells me that I am learning and maybe someday I will get to a point that I do not have to research as much as I am now. 

My research for the most part is extensive, and I have spent hours and hours researching these topics in hopes to deliver the best version of the story as possible. 

Yours in the Shadows,

D.C. Malcolm

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