How to Avoid the 🪤History Research Trap🪤

A Checklist for Writers and Actors Who Want More Than Facts

Sir Everard Home. Line engraving by W. Sharp after Sir W. Beechey. Public Domain via Wellcome Collection.

You don’t have time to waste on conversations that leave you empty-handed.

If you’re writing a historical novel, preparing for a biopic, or playing a period role, there’s one mistake you want to avoid: talking to the wrong expert.

As I wrote in my last post, it’s easy to end up with answers that are technically accurate but emotionally flat — the kind that kill your scenes before you write them.

So how can you prevent this?

Here’s a simple checklist to use before you reach out to a historian. You can use it to plan your research interviews — or to decide whether a consultant can help you bring the past to life.

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✅ The “Bring History to Life” Checklist

1. Clarify What You Actually Need
• Is it timeline or texture? 👈👈👈👈👈👈👈👈👈 This. Be honest with yourself.
• Do you want scenes, motives, details, or general background?
• Are you looking for story fuel, not just facts?

2. Ask Yourself: Do I Need an Academic or a Dramatist?
• Some scholars explain, but don’t narrate
• Others will protect their discipline, not your plot
• You may need a translator — someone who crosses both worlds

3. Test for Emotional Range
• Can they talk about risk, shame, hunger, fear…?
• Do they bring up real people and how they actually coped?
• Or do they default to “the system,” “the period,” “the power structures”?

4. Don’t Request a Lecture — Request a Scene
• Try: “If I dropped you into 1937 Berlin at 7:00 AM, what would you see?”
• Or ask: “What’s one decision that could cost a character their life?” Be prepared to be amazed.
• Details. Specificity invites texture — and story

5. Avoid “On-Demand” Historians from Job Databases
• Most are generalists
• Many won’t prepare
• And they likely haven’t worked with creative professionals before

6. Prioritise Story Instincts
• Does the person understand character arcs?
• Can they spot a dramatic turning point?
• Will they tell you what matters for narrative — not just what’s correct?

7. Prepare Your Own Filters
• Don’t absorb everything you hear
• Use your story’s needs as your compass
• Let theme and stakes shape the research, not the other way around

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And yes, I am working historian and archaeologist myself. This is not to badmouth my profession! It’s just that after decades in academia, a certain language and a certain outlook on history forms… this is nothing bad, but just a fact.

If a “normal” person asks questions, there might be misunderstandings. Simply based on the facts that the layperson does not have all the background knowledge and special words that the historian has.

As an actor or screenwriter, you need information, fast - so that you can return to preparing your film, or writing your script.

You’re not looking for perfection.

You’re looking for a version of the past that feels true enough to move your reader or audience.

This checklist helps you build that version — without losing weeks chasing cold facts that don’t warm up on the page.

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All best,

Barbara

Historical Consultant and Historian from Germany 💕

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