Researching a bizarre range of topics, is for me one of the great joys of being a novelist. Yes it comes with its perils. The internet is a far too distracting place for most authors as it is, but if you use a historic setting for your stories then the distractions of the on-line world are completely unavoidable and it becomes more a question of which rabbit hole will you disappear down first rather than whether you will fall down one at all.

Now in fairness this can be a really rewarding exercise if the topic you’re researching happens to chime with your own interests, but even then there are moments when upon looking up from the glowing screen of distraction it takes moment to remember how I got to the topic before me.

Mussolini is a great example…

A couple of days ago, after I’d trawled through YouTube for all the old newsreels of Mussolini and Rome in the 1930s I could find, I had a moments disorientation where I couldn’t quite remember why I was reading and watching and even listening to everything I could find about the infamous fascist dictator.

It took a minute or so for my thoughts to retrace the path they’d followed:

The characters in the novel I’m currently writing need to travel to Rome in order to retrieve something that was stolen from them. The story is set in the early 1930’s, so I needed to find a couple of buildings that were definitely around at the time and weren’t too far away from a couple of other locations which I also wanted to use.

So far so good.

With my trusty Eyewitness Travel guide to Rome in one hand,

A copy of Secret Rome in the other, a calendar of old city plans which I’d been given years ago for a Christmas present on my desk and Google Maps on my computer I quickly identified countless contenders, better yet my two guide books helped to narrow the field further by informing me that a couple of those buildings had some very relevant history, which I could weave into the story for added depth and colour.

Now this is the point at which I could so easily have resisted the temptation to do any further research and just got on with the writing. But this building would play an important part in the story, and for the characters to seem as though they were really inhabiting the space I knew I’d need more detail. So, taking to Google’s StreetView I started to tour the area, I found one of the buildings had some interesting stonework I could use, and was close to a really broad road, the Via della Conciliazione, which provided a fantastic view of St Peters basilica at one end and the tomb of Hadrian at the other. This was the kind of information I could use, but I still needed more, perhaps a bit of historic detail, a nice long straight road like that, it was obviously going to have been used for big civic occasions, conquering generals returning after vanquishing foes abroad . . . but this road didn’t seem to exist under the same name on my old map of Rome which I had open on the desk, not a problem, in fact the history of the name change might well add the very depth and colour I was after.

And that’s when the square jawed form of Mussolini walked in and sat down squarely in from of me. Prior to sitting down opposite me he was a historic figure I knew little about, the leader of the Italian nation during the second world war, a fascist obviously . . . but that was it. In particular I didn’t know that he’d been in power for quite a while before the war, 1922 in fact. And I didn’t know that while he was in power he demolished and rebuilt large chunks of Rome in order to return it to its ‘classical glory’.

Yes, it was at this point that the rabbit hole I’d entered turned into a mine shaft without me realising and suddenly I was in research free-fall.

Had Mussolini demolished and rebuilt the area I wanted to set my story in? Yes of course the figure opposite me replies with mild reproof, such pleasing vista’s would never survive the chaos of history by themselves. Had he done this work before, during the or after the time at which I wanted my characters to visit Rome? Afterward naturally, though he would’ve preferred to start earlier. So, had I been looking at the wrong street plans all along? Bravo, my unexpected house replies, tapping me on the shoulder in congratulation as he leaves, when I finally get to the important detail.

What to do. Before I’d opted for Rome I’d debated sending my characters to Istanbul instead, so I could re-locate the story, but that would mean a whole load of new research which could lead to more problems. At the same time what I’d discovered about Rome wasn’t a show-stopper, it was just a bit unexpected and would require a bit more research to properly incorporate it into the story. Though this approach comes with its own risks. The research could end up diverting the story, or the extra detail that would need incorporating could slow down the tempo and make the story drag for the reader.

Caught between a rock and hard place I ploughed on with the research. What would my characters be likely to know about Mussolini, what did the ordinary Italian’s in the street and specifically the those in Rome think.

It was at this point that I discovered Italian Fascism under Mussolini was in many ways a radically different beast to the Fascist movement in Germany under Hitler. More disturbingly some of the things Mussolini was responsible for seemed, well . . . reasonable. And then of course there is odd bizarre detail that research uncovers, there were Jewish fascists in Italy because Fascism wasn’t initially associated with anti-Semitism.

I’d gone too deep and was struggling to get back on track. Along the way I’d discovered, watched and enjoyed a six part Italian language mini-series on Amazon called De Luca, which was set in exactly the right time frame for my story, in Italy under Mussolini and follows the trials and tribulations of a young Italian police officer leading up to and during the second world war.

Eventually, with far too much information at my disposal I managed to drag myself back out of the hole I’d fallen into. I’d settled on a building with some interesting historic details that I could weave into the story, which hadn’t been too seriously affected by Mussolini’s alterations, I knew the old names of the streets all around it and had a good map showing the routes between the other locations I needed to use, I understood what my characters would know about the changes happening in Rome at the time, and what kind of a view they would have of the Italian dictator, and finally I had a sense of what the mood in the city and country would be at the time.

In the process I’d uncovered a huge amount of detail I’d never get to use, but also gleaned a few details which I was sure I could use to add extra colour and depth to my story.

Finally, it sounds odd, especially when faced with infamous figures like Mussolini, and having become lost and struggling to find my way back, but had I enjoyed the process, was I now looking forward to writing this section of story that would use these many details, absolutely, can’t wait!