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 My first yet-unpublished novel was …
Real Civil War Spies
by Mary Ellis While researching my latest romance, The Lady and the Officer, I discovered several real-life spies whose lives provided plenty of inspiration. Probably the most famous Confederate spy was Belle Boyd. At 17, Belle was arrested for shooting a Union soldier who had broken into the family’s home. Though Union officers cleared her of all charges, they watched …
Research Surprises
by Susan Lyttek One of the first things I do when I get an idea for a story is research. I enjoy the process. More often than not, its results surprise me, taking the story in a different direction or changing the focus. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I often approach a book project with preconceived …
Research That Has Nothing To Do With Google or Libraries or Trips to Historic Sites
By Victoria Bylin I write historical romance, so I’m often asked about research. Do I like it? Do I prefer the internet or real libraries? Do I research and then write, or research on the fly? What mistakes should a new author avoid? All those questions are important, but today I want to look at a different kind of research. …
Quick Reference Guide to Research Methods
by Laurie Alice Eakes Recently, I enjoyed the privilege of giving an ACFW chapter a short workshop on research methods. Others have found this helpful, so I am hopeful you all will, too. Although I have more historical romances than Regency romances in print, I am known as a Regency author. And if anyone knows anything about readers of the …
No More Mrs. Nice Guy
by Keli Gwyn Are you too nice to your characters? I was. I used to ache for the characters in the stories I read as the authors forced them to endure one trial after another. When I began writing, I couldn’t do that to my beloved heroes and heroines. I made things easy on them-too easy. I wised up when …