Making Rose and Isabel :: Part 02 :: Research

Now that I had the idea for The Civil War Project, research was the next step. Since the American Civil War is incredibly well documented (I have several 400+ page books that each cover just a few days of the war), it would have been completely irresponsible of me to begin work on a story of historical fiction without research.

Research should not solely be limited to books, TV and movies. I often tell people who are interested in telling stories for a living that one of the most important things is drawing on experiences from their own lives, for it enhances the work and makes it unique. Without those experiences, all we have to pull from is what we've seen on TV or in movies or read in books. There is too much generic, formula-based stuff out there already, so we need to get out there, explore and observe. I seriously regret not traveling to the locations in Rose and Isabel because it would have been an incredibly immersive experience. To stand on the battlefields and soak in that environment would have been better than anything written in any book. So, being the time period that it is (1864), the character interactions are where I pulled from my own experiences and observations. The books and movies would have to stand in for everything else.

Here are just a few of the books I referenced while researching R&I.



Obviously I'm not going to get everything 100% historically accurate, but I wanted to have enough in there to make it believable. I took plenty of artistic license and I knew that going in. The unforeseen benefit to research is uncovering things that end up contributing to the story in major ways. In the book Not War But Murder by Ernest B. Furgurson (not pictured above), one of the opening passages tells of vultures that swooped in to feed on the dead and wounded at Cold Harbor. I had no idea there were vultures in Virginia, so I cross referenced it and sure enough...there are. There was the local variety as well as a second breed of vulture that migrated up from the deeper South to feed on the carnage. The soldiers would fire muskets at the birds to keep them away from the wounded. The bit with Rose's vicious attack on the vulture in book 2 was a direct result of this research, and became one of the cornerstones to Rose's emotional collapse and the subsequent rift between her and Isabel.


Vulture studies (Cintiq and Photoshop)


first "final" designs for Rose and Isabel

Other very important books not included in the picture above were The Civil War Times Civil War Album by William C. Davis and Bill L. Wiley, An Uncommon Soldier, The Civil War Letters of Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, by Laura Cook Burgess, Warrior Women, An Archaeologist's Search for History's Hidden Heroines, by Jeannie Davis-Kimball, and most importantly, The Encyclopedia of the Amazons, by Jessica Amanda Salmonson. This last book provided much of the information in the prologue to R&I. An invaluable resource. Warrior Women is where I read about the story of The Gold "Man".



It was definitely an interesting cross-section of material to be reading through, and it was a lot of fun to ping pong between the two subjects of Civil War and warrior women.

Working Backwards

Before I could actually get into the research and plan the story, I had to ask myself a few questions (absolutely essential in story development--ask questions!). Where do Rose and Isabel start their journey? Where does it end? What is the path they will take? What is the timetable? I didn't want the journey to take years -- too long (although this was the original idea). I didn't want it to take weeks -- too short.

My answer came when I decided to have the climax happen at Andersonville prison, a dramatic location and great set-piece for the finale. So I worked backwards from there. Since Andersonville wasn't in full operation until 1864, the problem now was that I wouldn't have any of the really famous battles in the story (Gettysburg, Antietam, etc...they all happened earlier in the war). So I focused on a lesser but very important series of skirmishes that included the Battle of the Wilderness which led to the Battle of Cold Harbor, where Rose suffers her complete breakdown. This part of the war fit right in with the timeline I was trying to hammer out and I was lucky enough to find a series of 4 books that tell in exquisite detail this entire time period right down to the hourly weather. To The North Anna River by Gordon C. Rhea was the one I referenced the most, but the others gave me plenty of information as well.

Going backwards further from there, I could have the girls travel through Fredericksburg, witness the aftermath there, and prior to that land at Belle Plain, the source for the Union's reinforcements. Now I knew my story would start in early May 1864, and end in late August, when Andersonville was heavily populated. I had my timetable: beginning, middle and ending. This was about as far as I went with the outline (I later jotted down a basic outline of scenes but kept it limited). There would be no script, no detailed structure, just ideas and lines jotted on paper as they came to me. I wanted to keep the story fast, loose and spontaneous. Now it was time to start drawing pages.