San Francisco is expensive as far as hotels, at all times of year. You can always stay at a small motel six kind of place on any random street for less then 100$,especially in the bad parts of town(Haight Ashbury,Mission District) Any hotel near fisherman's wharf will be nice/clean/free of issues, and have the cheapest price as far as hotels with good conditions. Book ahead if you don't want to stay at a slum hotel.
This city is high tourism, and high business traffic no matter what time of week. Weekends are the worst. If you don't want to stay at a charge by the hour whore hotel , you have to book ahead.
If you don't, you will wandering around the city all night with your luggage looking for a bed.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.