The Chronology of Writing a Short Story

For me, it's helpful to begin with a structure or approach in mind.  This may or may not be true for you as well.  Currently, I am focusing on the beginning, the pre-launch and launch so to speak.  Goodness knows, everything else could use work as well but I am coming to the understanding that this constant self-doubt and continuous learning and skill-building is as true at ten, twenty and thirty years experience as it is at a few months.

Here is my current situation. I am writing about a historic person and series of incidents I know something, but precious little, about.  My first instinct was to master the topic. Wrong Bob.  Or, at least, not entirely right.

On reflection, I have discovered that the correct order is to get a kind of scanned idea of the person, the period and the situation and then write the story; and then go back and correct any facts that, represented incorrectly, would alienate readers.  And to fix the language, and so forth.  I am not writing a history book, I am writing a story.

This is not an easy lesson for me to learn.  How about you?