When the Beatles touched down at LaGuardia Airport in March of 1964, they rode in limos down the highway into Manhattan.  Their rooms at the Plaza Hotel, across the street from the World Trade Center, were surrounded by screaming fans.  They barely left except to go on the Ed Sullivan TV show on Monday night and then to Shea Stadium on Tuesday.  And unless you were one of the lucky 80,000 to be at Shea or watch them on NBC the night before, you never had a chance to meet them.

When you get to the end of this sentence, you will have ten minutes to find the eight errors in the above paragraph.

It’s an easy trap for some writers to fall into:  They feel inspired to write a story about the Beatles, and they concentrate so much on the subjects that they ignore the setting, resulting in a tale that’s not all it could be.  This is especially true of younger writers, people who were at best barely conscious of life around them when the Beatles were together, if indeed they were born then.  And as the years go on, the pool of fanfic writers who had no contact with the times the Beatles existed in will only increase, as new writers come into their own and the older ones pass on.

An important fact that must be stressed now is that the Beatles are a historic band.  This isn’t just throwing about bromides about their importance; it has been as of this writing thirty-one years since the Beatles broke up, beyond the thirty years time limit set by both Herodotus and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. for a happening to make the transition from a current event into a subject of study by historians.  What this means is that it’s no longer possible to just take what you know about the world around you and simply imagine John, Paul, George and Ringo from their early days doing the things you’re familiar with.  Consider that when the Beatles released their first record, the Information Revolution had not fully occurred, bringing changes almost as jolting as those that came with the Industrial Revolution, so that many of the things we take for granted today were simply impossible then.

Because the Beatles are history (so to speak), this means that the writer who wants to use them effectively as characters must treat them as historic subjects.  This means research in order to understand the men and their times, and using all the information you gather to set the scene and tenor of the piece.  Note that while this article focuses on how writers can effectively research the Beatles and their times, the methods used here can be applied by writers who wish to set pieces during the American Civil War, the French Revolution, the Dark Ages, the Peloponnesian Wars, or any other historic period the writer fancies.

Research the Time

The first step in the writing of any historic fiction is to read about the period in general.  The best way to do this is to start with sources that look at a time in toto to get a general overall impression of an era.  The best sources for this are general works on history; if you have access to academic texts in history, these can become especially helpful if you are not familiar with a period.  Short of this, picking a book that looks at a single country’s history during that period is a good place to start, as references within the work to events happening elsewhere at the time will give you subjects to look up elsewhere.

This last suggestion, the “web-crawl” method of research, is especially helpful in allowing a person to go from subject to subject, getting an overview of an era by making extended visits at various places and happenings.  As the writer gets a sense of the interconnectivity of everything, a feel for the era should come through.  Unless you want total immersion in the period, though (risking a Jack Finney-esque trip through time in the process; c.f. Time and Again, his highly recommended cult time travel novel), you may want to avoid going between topics with entire books; using either a decent encyclopedia or a web browser should get you all the information you need about the important people places and things in the era about which you’re writing.

Let’s assume we’re following a writer who is just getting started on writing about the Beatles.  We watch her use the above research tips.  As she reads about the times the Beatles during which made their records, she comes across such signposts as the Vietnam War, Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., Harold Wilson, John Profumo, the Six-Day War, the Prague Spring, the Cultural Revolution, and a whole host of other big events and personalities that, if she’s rather young, will make her wonder how in the hell the human race survived that time.

Focus on the Particulars

From there, once the writer understands the times a little better, then the research can get a little more focused.  At this point, the writer then looks into the elements that are going to appear in the story and determine what they were like, how a certain event happened, how a particular item functioned, the details that are going to affect the action of the piece.  Note that for now we are dealing with places, events and things; particular people will be looked at later.

This part of the research should concentrate on two inter-related goals -- authenticity and avoidance of anachronisms.  While this may seem to be one and the same, it’s easy for a writer to include something from the future without realizing that a mistake’s been made despite all efforts to get other details down right.  While some of the research the writer might have done might allow that person to avoid having cell phones or DVDs appearing in 1965, say, having a character demand a Beatles album in 8-track tape format in that year would be a glaring error that could creep in unexpectedly.  If the writer finds references to the first 8-track players being sold in 1965 without further research showing that the medium doesn’t catch on commercially until 1970, such a mistake could happen.  If possible, verification of a fact by finding multiple references to it from different sources will minimize errors and allow for these inter-related goals to be met.

At this point the writer has access to two types of information, as classified by historians:  primary resources and secondary resources.  Primary resources are those written at the time of the event by eyewitnesses, or later by participants who were involved.  Secondary resources are those written after the fact, often years later, by writers who were not there themselves.  There are advantages to both; while the primary resource may have considerable detail and an honest assessment of the subject being written about, a secondary resource often has the advantage of providing context and reflection on the subject that those there at the time would not have until later.

As the writer is developing a work of fiction, not a thesis statement, secondary resources should more than suffice for all the information required.  These can be found in encyclopedia articles, web pages devoted to a subject and books that focus on a topic of interest.  For those who want the rich perspective of a primary resource, back issues of newspapers and magazines of the time provide a wealth of information; most libraries have these in either physical form or on microfilm for viewing.

Getting back to the writer we’re following, her story will look at the Beatles appearing on the Ed Sullivan show.  She decides to focus on what television was like at the time, and how they produced television programs.  Books about television during the 1960s prove to be helpful to her, and web articles about Ed Sullivan give her a great deal of insight.  Blessed with a decent library nearby, she takes advantage of it and looks at back issues of the local newspaper and TV GUIDE for details that might help her write the story.

Note that persons involved in an incident were not included in the above, as there are special considerations that one must take when researching individuals.  Many times, people writing about themselves edit or censor their recollections, trying to present “their side of the story” to the audience.  Likewise, people who knew the individual you are researching might have an agenda when they write down their recollections, whether to praise or damn him or her.  In addition, primary resources may not reconcile; interviews from the time may conflict with memoirs written by the same person years later.

When you research a person, it is recommended that you get BOTH primary and secondary resources to compare against each other.  This can be especially helpful if you are writing about people whose own accounts of their lives may not be supported by the evidence; if nothing else, the primary resource gives insight into the mind and character of the person.

Getting back to our writer, she of course goes to THE BEATLES ANTHOLOGY for the Beatles’ own memories of that event, but she also consults with interviews by the band found in the newspapers, as well as accounts of the trip written in Philip Norman’s SHOUT.

Bring Up Your Research in the Story

Once you’ve done as much research as you need for your story and have started to write it, it helps to include it in the tale.  This does not mean giving footnotes and text entries; unless you want your piece to read like one of the novel-in-the-form-of-dictionary works of Milorad Pavic or Italo Cavino, your story should appear to be a little more organic than that.

The best way to show off your research work is through casual usage.  Characters can refer in conversation to items and events present at the time.  They can demonstrate how an item from that period is used through their actions.  Have your research mixed into the narrative, and try to avoid having the story stop for a few paragraphs as your work is expounded upon the way a Tom Clancy novel comes to a halt every time a new weapons system shows up.

The main reason for all this research is to give the story the weight of plausibility, even authenticity, and it is through the appearance of these details the story becomes richer.  By evoking the proper elements, you help make the piece feel real to the reader.  It is the evocation of a strong sense of time and place that all writers strive for; without the authenticity imparted by researching that time, there is no way the writer can make anyone suspend enough disbelief to allow the story to take that reader where the writer wants to send them.

Taking a look at our writer again, she finds a way to describe how a three-lens television camera on casters works as she relates George’s internal monologue.  As he worries about how sick he’d look through the lenses, she describes how they whirl from one focus to the next, rolling back and forth across the stage floor.  She will probably find a more amusing way to relate this idea, better than this description does, but that’s why she’s a writer.

Helpful Resources

It cannot be stressed enough that one of the best steps a writer who wants to set a piece in a historic period should take is to visit and use the local library.  Libraries have access to far more resources than most people’s own bookshelves, and many of the sources mentioned herein can be found there.  If you can, you might even take advantage of an academic library at your local university; the resources available to users there are often superior to those found at most local public branches.  The main branch of the public library will also have access to more materials than the local branches will.  However, do not pass up visiting the local branch, as some locations are well endowed with good materials, and if a resource you need is circulatory (that is, it can be borrowed by the user to take home), then the local branch could save you from having to take a trip elsewhere if your system allows for interlibrary loans.

For writers who want to start looking at a particular time in history, the following resources are good places to start:

www.historychannel.com

This web site includes a “Search by Timeline” function that gives the important events in a period over a few years as well as a specific look up for people, places and things.  This site gives a good general history overview, although a textbook about the period should still be looked at for placing everything in context.

www.biography.com

A web site containing essays on many historic and current people of note.  This makes for a good starting point if your piece is centered around a particular person, describing what events those people were involved with in their lives.

www.britannica.com

The Internet’s best encyclopedia and one of the best resources on the Web for general knowledge. (You can access the first two paragraphs of an article for free; access to the full encyclopedia is now $5 a month or $50 a year.)

Gurn, Bernard; THE TIMETABLES OF HISTORY:  Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1991

This book lists as completely as possible every major event in every year from the dawn of history through AD 1991.  Included in its exhaustive listings are  examples of popular music and films for each year, which helps to place music by the Beatles in context with other songs at that time.

For writers looking for detailed information about the 1960s, the following sources are highly recommended:

Open Directory Project: History of the 1960s

A collection of web sites that cover many elements of the 1960s.  Includes among the popular culture retrospectives a number of sites devoted to political movements, such as civil rights and the anti-Vietnam War movement.

www.sixtiespop.com

This site is devoted to popular British entertainers from the 1960s.  In addition to the Beatles, the site looks at many such other phenomena from England as the Rolling Stones, Twiggy, Michael Caine and Doctor Who.

www.sixtiespop.freeserve.co.uk

This web site is a good resource for popular history of the 1960s, especially music and fashion.  The slant towards what one would have found in the United Kingdom during that time is especially helpful for writers who set their stories in the Beatles’ England.

Javna, John, and Gordon Javna; 60S!: St. Martin’s Press, 1988

This book is the best resource in print for everyday items and fads from that decade.  In addition to their section on the Beatles and their memorabilia, there are also overviews on restaurants, automobiles, vending machines, political campaigns, and crazes for LAUGH-IN and BATMAN among other elements of life in those years.  Well illustrated, the book serves as a good definitive visual record of common items from that time.

The list of resources one could turn to for information about the Beatles themselves would fill the Albert Hall and most of the park surrounding it.  The Beatles to this day probably still hold the record as the best-documented set of people in the 20^th century.  The sources below, however, are highly recommended:

Beatles, The; THE BEATLES ANTHOLOGY: Chronicle Books, 2000

This book is undoubtedly the principal primary resource anyone writing about the Beatles should consult.  It should be warned, though, that many of the pitfalls involved with primary resources are glaringly evident here; a comparison between this book and George Harrison’s I ME MINE from 1980 is illuminating in how participants can change recollections over time.  Still, this is literally the official line, and as such, cannot be dismissed out of hand.

Norman, Philip; SHOUT! The Beatles in Their Generation; Simon & Schuster, 1981

To this day, this book is still one of the best secondary resource about the Beatles.  Well researched, well organized, and well written, Norman’s book covers the Beatles from their births until 1970.  (The mass market edition of the book released by Warner Books contains an interview with Yoko Ono that provides good insight on John’s last ten years.)  This book is highly recommended for those who may not be familiar with the Beatles’ story beyond the basics.

Castleman, Harry, & Walter Podrazik; ALL TOGETHER NOW: Ballantine, 1975

This work is a discography of the Beatles’ recordings from 1961 through 1975.  (By now, an updated listing would have to go to two additional volumes.)  This reference work is very thorough with regards to what albums and singles were released during their careers, by country as well as year, and includes information about bootlegs, promotional films (referred to today as videos) and other information relating to their releases.

Lewisohn, Mark; THE BEATLES DAY BY DAY 1962-1989: Harmony Books, 1990; and THE COMPLETE BEATLES CHRONICLE: Hamlin (Octopus Publishing Group, Ltd.), 1992

Writers who may want to get into very detailed research about the Beatles will find these listings of their daily activities invaluable.  Reading like a collection of daybook entries or an FBI file, these works give the activities of the Fab Four on every day covered in as much detail as possible.  Some writers may find this listing of their schedules in stone to be limiting; while a writer can easily abandon the itinerary, the challenge of including this information into a story can lead to some rewarding results.

In addition to all of the above, MultiMap.com is highly recommended.  This web site gives very detailed maps of Great Britain down to the alleys and foot paths, which is invaluable for locating settings for tales taking place in Liverpool or London.

James Ryan has been on the verge of actually being recognized as a writer in the past; who knows, someday it may happen.... His work has appeared in such places as Dragon magazine, Lacunae, the Urbanite, the New York Times, and some of the better men's room walls across the state of New York. Until he gets the chance to follow the program for disenfranchised neurotic writers, he's doing the regular job and grad school schtick. His wife Susan and son Jamie just nod and smile when he starts to rant, which, all said, makes things that much easier.