I've currently got two novella projects going on (admittedly, one on hiatus until I get some solid library time and another in the first draft stages), but I've already noticed one major difference between the two: how easy the research will be.
Novella One is about a Japanese-American lesbian in the early 1900s. Novella Two is about a married World War II war correspondent sometime in the 1950s. There is much more material available about one of these subjects than the other.
Luckily, I have access to the internet and have started a list of books to look into. Doubly luckily, my sibling knows a librarian on Twitter who I can turn to. Triply luckily, one of my friends is Japanese-American and might be willing to read a polished draft. (I haven't asked yet. I will once I know what the fuck I'm even doing with the novella.) However, that does not make it any less irritating to start doing my research and find that a seemingly promising book is actually mostly about internment camps.
And yes, that was a huge part of Japanese-American history. It just at times feels like the only part, which I'm sure is not only difficult for historical fiction writers trying to do justice to a group they are not a part of. It's one part of a larger narrative, and I worry that a few hours between work and rehearsal may not be quite enough time to understand that narrative.
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