Blog
Historical Fiction : 10 Editing tools. No.4 – Themes & Threads
One of the most useful things I can do when I have finished a first draft is to examine the themes and the characters and follow their threads. Sometimes a character and a thread can be the same - at the moment I am looking at 'ambition', which is both part of Bess...
Happy New Year to all my followers and readers
2017 is here already and, like most writers, the view from my desktop hardly changes. This Christmas I was able to get out into the fresh air, smell the frost in the atmosphere, and admire the lovely village where I live (and which I too often forget is there). Below...
From Cinderella to Dorothy, the power of shoes to transform
Everyone has a favourite pair of shoes. For me it is a pair of shoes I got married in - black patent with black and white spotted bows on the front. I know, they may not be to your taste, but shoes are very individual things! You can tell a lot about a person, or a...
Young Adult Historical Fiction – an adult’s view
I was recently asked to give a talk at a conference about Teen and Young Adult historical fiction, and time being short, we didn't get onto one of the most pertinent discussions about Young Adult historical fiction, which is, what exactly is a young adult? And when do...
Historical Fiction – 10 Editing Tools. No 3 – The Sound of Time
In most of my novels the passing of time is something that is hard to convey in an era when nobody wore a watch, nobody had a mobile phone, and ways of telling the time were by sundial, candle calendar, or by listening out for church bells. Something that is really...
Historical Fiction – Ten Editing Tools. No 2: Truth
When I am writing my first few drafts my main concern is to get the story out there, and for that reason at the beginning I tend to write in broad brushstrokes. This is especially true in the dialogue when things are getting tense, and I just want to progress the...
Nettle Shirts and Cunning Women – herbal secrets of 17th century England
I have loved researching 17th Century botany and herbs for my novels, The Lady’s Slipper and The Gilded Lily. For both of them I have had to research the botanical beliefs of a society that relied on native plants for a good many things, including medicine, cleaning...
Five Novels of The English Civil War
My recommended read for this week is The Last Roundhead by Jemahl Evans. This is a one-off - you will read nothing else like it. Meticulously researched, this is the story of one man's journey through the battles of the English Civil War. If you want to know what it...
A Seventeenth Century Quaker Character
One of the main characters in The Lady’s Slipper which has just been re-released, is Richard Wheeler. Like all my favourite characters he is determined, strong and capable, but unlike most other heroes when the novel opens he has just become a “seeker after Truth” or...
Recommended Regency Historical Fiction – The House in Quill Court
Multi-award winning author Charlotte Betts is renowned for winning the Historical Romance category in the Romantic Novelists Association Awards, not once but twice. Having just finished The House in Quill Court I think that the romance label does her a disfavour,...
The Secret of a Welsh Medieval Manuscript
I'm delighted to welcome Mark Noce to my blog today, introducing his debut novel 'Between Two Fires', which is set in medieval Wales. I was particularly interested in this book because by coincidence I was just reading recently about The Black Book of Carmarthen,...
Historical Fiction – Ten Editing Tools. No 1 – Light
The power of place and atmosphere is what drove me to first pick up my pen and try to write something set in the past. A useful editing tool to enliven your novel is to go through the draft and examine the quality of the light. Before the advent of artificial...
Historical Fiction – Virtue no 7 – Education, education, education
In considering the virtues of historical fiction, I've left the most obvious until last. As well as being a good story, historical fiction is educational. In fact most stories were told to us as children as if they were history, so the line between storytelling and...
Recommended Research – Eyewitness books on the Stuart Period
Just found this great little hardback book whilst browsing Carnforth Bookshop (which has more than 10,000 second hand books!). Also in this series by A F Scott are titles 'The Plantagenet Age', 'The Tudor Age' and 'The Georgian Age.' Compiled as a series of...
Cabinet of Curio-stories – A 17th century ‘kicking’ lock
On the Sherborne Museum website is this gorgeous picture of a seventeenth century lock. In 1654 diarist John Evelyn wrote that sophisticated lock mechanisms were 'rare contrivances' and regarded as technological marvels, 'esteem'd a curiositie even among...