Fact-Checking for Writers

 

When you're writing a story or a personal essay or a memoir piece that takes place a long time ago, you'd better not guess at what life was like then. It's far better to do a fact check so that you are sure that what you state is correct. 

People who write historical pieces need to do some research about the time period, including the well-known people of the time should you want to make a reference. Research takes time, but it also insures that your information is correct.If anyone questions what you wrote, you can defend yourself with the facts. 

Research can also bring information you had not known before. That's one of the joys of research. I knew a writer who once said that she loved doing research for her books so much, that she often took far too long to get back to the actual writing. 

If you're stating an amount of money an organization spent or donated in an article, be sure you have the correct figure. If you're wrong, some reader will surely call you on it. Journalists need to be strong fact checkers.

Clothing of an era figures in some stories. Don't put a young girl of the 1920s in a poodle skirt, popular in the 50s. Don't let your farm boy of the 1930s wear a hat with the Royals World Series prominent on it. Those are extremes, of course, but the point is to keep your characters dressed in the proper way for the time in which they lived. 

It's the same for the slang expressions. What was popular in the 60s doesn't work for union picketers in the 20s. Aristocratic people in the 1890s spoke more formally and more precisely than the working class did. Do some fact checking on the ways people spoke. If your story takes place in the UK, don't let your characters speak with American expressions. Find out what the Brits would say.

Is your character eating a plant based burger? If so, he/she had better be living in the present day. If you're writing a story set in the Depression era, make the foods fit the times, as well. More research for the writer. 

Novelists are more prone to doing research than those who pen short stories. It's just as important for the short story writer to check facts as it is for someone writing a book.

The time you take to research will pay off when you're writing your story or essay. It will make your writing believable and true. It can also save you a lot of grief later. Don't guess, check the facts.