By Liz Curtis Higgs When I asked my fiction readers to finish the sentence, “I love historical fiction because…”, my favorite response was this: “It’s like a history class and an adventure, all rolled into one.” Yes! I’ll leave spinning memorable adventures to your fertile imaginations. I’m here to help with assembling a historically accurate world in which your characters …
Writing What You Don’t Know
By Deborah Raney My novels Beneath a Southern Sky and its sequel, After the Rains, are set in the Amazon rain forests of Colombia, South American. Beneath a Southern Sky was a RITA Award winner and went on to win several other awards, as did the sequel. My novel Over the Waters is set in Haiti. That book also won …
Just Ask
By Sarah Sundin As a historical novelist, I do a lot of research. As an introvert, I prefer research in books and libraries and on-line. Over the years, I’ve learned where to look for information, and I’m persistent enough (mule-headed?) to find what I need. Most of the time. Sometimes I simply can’t find the information I want. At that …
Tosca, On Research
By Tosca Lee I get asked (a lot!) how I research my historical novels, which always surprises me because it seems like a) kind of a boring thing to talk about and b) a personal process based on a person’s goals and interests and penchant for chasing rabbit trails. That said, having had to pack a dissertation’s worth of research …
Be Amazed by Listening
By Stan Crader I’m a novelist working on a non-fiction-it’s a stretch. The facts, once known, are easy to report. It’s the finding of facts, also called research, that’s painstaking, time consuming, and hard work; two of the three are okay. I’m working on the history of Stihl in America. Stihl, for those few who don’t know, is the largest …
Why Writers Travel
By Suzanne Woods Fisher I just returned home from a trip to Amish country. Part of the trip was a book tour to promote my new release, The Imposter. Some book signings, some speaking events, and two TV appearances. Exciting, exhausting! Part of the trip was focused on research for an upcoming series, including scheduled appointments with docents, scholars, and …
Setting – the First Character You Create in a Story
By Mary Ellis What first comes to mind if someone mentions the television show, Hawaii 5-0? The muscular actor who plays Commander Steve McGarrett, or perhaps a clever plot twist in an episode involving identity theft? More likely it’s a visual of tanned young surfers riding the perfect wave to the shores of Waikiki, or perhaps a volcanic peak rising …
You Can’t Google Everything
By Suzanne Woods Fisher Desktop research is a wonderful tool. At a writer’s fingertips is a complete library, filled with information. So how important is it for an author to seek out primary sources? How valuable is it to visit places, to walk the roads where characters might have walked, to breath the air, to soak up the topography? It’s …
Love Does Stay True
By Martha Rogers Today is our 55th wedding anniversary, and what better way to celebrate than to tell how my novel, Love Stays True, came to be. It’s a story loosely based on my great-grandparents love story after the Civil War. The idea sprang from three letters my dad gave me in 1995. His father had given them to him …
Making Research Fun
By Donna Schlachter I’ve seen the way some authors’ eyes nearly roll up into their heads at the word, “research”. After all, that’s just dry, boring stuff. We’re always told to ‘write what we know’. If we have to research a topic, we aren’t writing what we know. I used to write what I knew. My first yet-unpublished novel was …