How to do research for historical fantasy in a structured way?

[AnnaGoeldi]

So, I want to write a historical fantasy novel set in the 17th or 18th Century Switzerland without being a historian or having any serious historical knowledge.
This means I need a lot of information that I don't yet have. I want to give my novel a very realistic feel and add in a lot of details, because otherwise I will hate it.
The good news is, I live in Switzerland already and there are lots of libraries and archives to do research on everything - from the price development of cattle to local politics and marriage laws.
The bad news is, this is horribly overwhelming. I need a plan.
For those of you who completed a historical fantasy project, how did you structure your research? Did you just randomly start somewhere, or did you search for specific facts, sources? Did you use the internet or books? Did you talk to historians? How much did you rely on secondary sources? How long did it approximately take you to complete your research (in hours)? Did you personally travel to all the locations you wanted to describe? Did you go to any archives?
Did you complete most of the research before starting the first draft, did you do it parallel or even after?
Any experience is helpful and welcome, thank you.

 

[pmmg]

Well...all writing comes with heavy research...

I'd hope you had somewhat of a start on this already, in that your interest in the period, that sparked the story, could already lead you to things you'd want to be sure to know.

I'd be inclined to get started with the project, start a first chapter, or do an type of outline, and see what questions popped up first. And if I had a love of the subject, I might get lost all day going down the rabbit hole. I suspect you will find its a double edged sword though. Wanting to write will lead you to research, and research will lead to having more things to write.

Sadly, my knowledge of historical Switzerland consists of I read Heidi once.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I write epic fantasy, not historical, but I think the same approach to research applies.

It all starts with the story. I need to know roughly what story I want to tell. No specifics, just a broad idea. This will determine some of the stuff I need to know. Like time period, general location, will I remain in one place mainly or will I travel around a lot. Will there be fighting or specific jobs that are central to the story.

This gives me a list of things I need to know before writing the story. I start researching these parts. just looking on the internet, reading blogs and articles. If you can find books on the period that helps as well of course.

Once I've figured out the basics, I just write the story. You can't know everything before you start (that's a lifetime worth of study), and much of what you think you might know you will never use, while you will also come across plenty of stuff you need to know that you had no idea about before you started. So start writing, and do research as you write.

I either do it while writing. So I stumble across something I don't know and look it up, then continue writing again. However, sometimes I find this interrupts my flow too much. In that case, I write in short (like 20 minutes) sprints, where I only write, no research allowed. I just take notes on stuff that needs research. Once the sprint is done, I research everything I noted down, work on that, and then continue.