Research For Writing–The Painless Way...

Not Big Ned's Finest Hour

There's been a thread on the LinkedIn board for Historical Writers asking whether or not we do our own research. It's had dozens of replies and although I haven't read every one they all said the same thing as I did. Research is half the fun! When I was researching Lady Rascal, I was looking through a local newspaper archive for ideas and found the cautionary tale of a man in Georgian Bath who visited his brother, who happened to be eating his dinner.  Cheerfully offering a chunk from the roast, the host went to pass the carving knife. He dropped it, and slashed his femoral artery. The poor man was dead in minutes. From family visit to bloodbath...talk about truth being stranger than fiction.

I haven't written any historical fiction for a while. After listening to Carol McGrath and Pamela Hartshorne speak here, the idea of writing my own timeslip novel has been brewing in my mind. Silence and solitude helps me come up with ideas, so at this stage of research I spend long periods out in the greenhouses or garden. I didn't have much luck doing that this week though, as there were some brilliant history documentaries on TV.

First up was Michael Wood with Alfred of Wessex. The photography was stunning, and as always Michael Wood's enthusiasm for his subject draws you in then tugs you along until you're completely absorbed. It's always such a shame when his programmes end but good news–it's available online, with another episode on Tuesday, 19th August. See here for details

Then it was Dr. Susannah Lipscomb's Henry and Anne: The Lovers Who Changed History. I have two terrible confessions to make about this. I grew up in a staunchly White Rose household (Family Motto: Nos spoliatum :D) so Tudor-mania was something that happened to other people. The second shameful secret is that I only watched this because the guy playing Henry VIII (Jack Hawkins) bears an uncanny resemblance to the current Bishop of Tewkesbury. Well, in my overheated imagination, anyway. I didn't care for the presentation of this drama-documentary (apart from the bits with the Bishop of..sorry, King Henry in) but it sparked a great family discussion afterwards. That gave me several ideas for further research, which may or may not prove productive.

TV saved the absolute gem until last. If you haven't watched Dominic Smee's battlefield promotion from mild-mannered IT specialist to Last Real King of England (oops- a bit of "automatic typing" there by my father), then get a load of this. Nothing I can write could possibly do him justice, except to say if you see a guy walking around Tamworth with his underpants on the outside, then that'll be Dominic–the Superman of re-enactment societies everywhere.

So now it's over to you. Which historical period do you like reading about? The pre-and-post Battle of Hastings world of Michael Wood and Carol McGrath, the Tudor turbulence of writers like Phillippa Gregory, or England's very own Game of Thrones?

Writing (and Rewriting) Romance As Ebooks...

Photo by Bertil Videt

I love putting my own spin on historical events by using them as the background to romance. At the beginning of my fiction-writing career, I wrote six books for Harlequin Mills and Boon's Masquerade imprint under the pen name of Polly Forrester. These were originally only available in the UK so I'm currently working to introduce them to a wider audience by bringing them out as ebooks. Lady Rascal is already available and my next title, Jewel Under Siege, is due for release later this summer.

Jewel under Siege is set in Constantinople, at the time of the Crusades. Elena is a young widow who finds herself in an impossible situation when tough warrior Emil literally falls into her life. He is an enemy who has nothing but contempt for her people, but the lure of the forbidden means Elena and Emil are soon attracted to each other despite all the dangers.

Revisiting my earlier fiction means I can add a few little touches to the text. At the moment I'm taking the chance to make Elena and Emil's romance sizzle still more under the Turkish sun. How do you like your historical romances - hot or homely?

You can keep up with the progress of Jewel Under Siege towards publication by subscribing to my newsletter. Just send an email to me at christinahollis@hotmail.co.uk with the word "Subscribe" in the subject line.

Three Top Tips On Writing That Book...

By Johannes Vermeer

It's said everyone has a book inside them. These days it's tricky to forecast what is going to be the next  blockbusting best-seller that spawns a film franchise, but all successful writers have something in common.  E.L James, J.K Rowling and J.R.R Tolkien don't only share a love of initialising. Each of them did more than dream. They buckled down and did the work: day after day of drafting, researching, writing, re-writing, editing  and reading. It doesn't matter whether they had help with some of the grunt work. The fact is, their ideas wouldn't have made it around the world if they hadn't had the conviction to start putting them into words and then kept going until their stories were told. 

I can't promise that your dream project will outsell Shades, Potter or TLOTR, but there's nothing surer than this. To be in with a chance, you'll have to get your masterwork written. Here are three top tips for doing just that...

1. START... in the right place. I wrote Lady Rascal because I'd got bogged down while studying an Open University course on The Enlightenment. I really wished some of those posh, privileged gentlemen doing the Tour of Europe could get a taste of how the other half lived. My hero Philip Adamson has a lot in common with the Paris he's visiting: despite grand appearances, there's trouble on the horizon. At the same time, heroine Madeline discovers that changing her appearance can get her out of trouble. As I was writing an historical romance rather than a text-book on Eighteenth-century Paris, I wanted to get Philip and Madeline together on the page as soon as possible. Madeline's career as a revolutionary ends with a bang right at the beginning of the book, when Philip assumes her looted finery means she's an aristocrat in danger. She's swept off her feet, and whisked away to a new and completely alien life.

2...AND THEN... make sure your plot has enough twists to keep your reader turning the pages. A good way to tell if you're on the right track is how easy it is to stop writing. If it feels like your fingers are pushing through treacle, that's a warning sign. If you're scribbling or typing as fast as you can, desperate to capture the movie playing in your head, there's a chance your reader might be carried away by your story, too. Ironically, it's when the words are flowing easily that you should finish for the day. Then your enthusiasm will carry over to the next session, and you'll be raring to go. With that method, there's no sitting down in front of a blank page, wondering what to write. You've been thinking about your next scene since the moment you stopped work the day before, and that's a great way to avoid the scourge of Writer's Block.

3. FINISH...in a way that will satisfy your reader. They should have learned a lot about your hero and heroine along the way - and maybe something about themselves, too.  Tie up all the loose ends of your story. Never introduce a character or plot thread and then abandon them, thinking no one will notice. Someone always does! Nemesis, the last book in Lindsey Davis' Falco series, deals with huge, emotion-wringing themes of life, death and family relationships. I lapped all that up but discovered, too, that I'm an obsessive when it comes to animals. I thought I'd be the only reader left worrying over the fate of one of the most minor of minor characters - Nero (aka Spot) the ox. I needn't have worried - he wasn't forgotten after all. If his disappearance hadn't been explained at the end, I would have felt Nemesis was like the old jigsaw puzzle of Great Britain's counties we had when I was a child. The smallest county, Rutland, was missing. Apart from that our jigsaw was perfect, unless you were interested in that teeny-tiny- well, spot!

Three Top Tips: Writing Heroes

Jonas Kaufman 

My previous writing tips have covered the general themes of getting started, and how to keep going. Now it's time to focus on writing fiction, and more particularly romantic fiction. This is a brilliant form of escape for millions of people. It's a non-fattening, affordable indulgence and it relies on sweeping your reader into a fantasy world. That means you'll need a hero. Here are my three top tips for breathing life into your creation:

MAKE HIM ATTRACTIVE - This doesn't mean only drop-dead gorgeous, physically perfect specimens need apply! Good looks go a long way to seducing your reader, but they'll need more than that to keep them involved in your story.  Time spent in reconnaissance is never wasted. Write a short biography of your hero to discover what makes him the man he is. Give him a past and a future, as well as a present.  Upbringing and ambitions forge character, and suggest motivations. Little details such as whether or not he has a pet, what car he drives and the type of music he likes all add colour to your work.

MAKE HIM SUFFER - give him a problem that is too big to be solved easily. In Lady Rascal, Philip Adamson starts out by being too decent for his own good. He's a highly intelligent, hardworking man who has sacrificed his career as a doctor to return home and run the family estate. The strain has begun to tell, but he refuses to give up. Then Madeleine invades his life, and turns it upside down. Unless he can resist her, Philip faces following in the disastrous footsteps of his older brother. He was a man who tore the Adamson family apart.  The conflict between the way hero Philip works with cool efficiency to keep everything running smoothly, and the dangerous attraction he feels for Madeline keeps the action moving.  

MAKE IT WORSE - Once you've presented your hero with a problem, magnify it. In real life, men tend to work on instinct, rather than emotion.  Present your character with a dilemma. Make him choose between an easy decision, or a tough one - between his head and his heart. Will he do the right thing for the wrong reason, the wrong thing out of a sense of love or loyalty, or will he compromise? Whatever he does, make his action consistent with his character.  Imagine your heroine's car has crashed on a level crossing, leaving her trapped. A train full of children on a day-trip is running out of control and heading straight toward her. Who would your hero save? As this is romance and we want the story to end happily ever after, he'd manage to board the train, fix the fault and save both his heroine and the children, of course. But not before your reader has turned lots of pages, desperate to find out what he'll do, and how. 

Who is your hero? Is he fictional, or a real man of flesh and blood?

A Sense of Place

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If you’ve read the recent posts here about my current work in progress, you’ll know that I use inspiration boards as I write. There’s one in my office, and you can see my public one online here. These are just hints - I don't base my characters on any one person. They're an amalgamation of many different people, with a dash of pure invention added for good measure. 

The same doesn't always apply to places. Sometimes I use real life locations for my fiction work. As I was writing Lady Rascal,I had a very particular interior in mind for Philip Adamson's country house. My OH's office used to be based in Hollywood Estate Mansion, which is in Easter Compton near Bristol. As luck would have it, my father’s best friend used to work there back before the Second World War, so I had some background information about the place before I started. The exterior of the house didn't quite match my idea of Philip's house, so the trailer you can see at the top of this post includes shots of a completely different property. That's the great thing about fiction - you can fiddle with reality until it's exactly the way you like it.

While dialogue and action bring characters alive and keep the plot moving along, the “genius loci” or spirit of a place forms the background of your story. You can use this in two ways: as a straightforward clue to tell readers what to expect, or as a contrast to what goes on there. The forbidding Transylvanian castle on a crag is an instantly recognisable shorthand for a vampire story. Alternatively, you can use your setting to shock. Miss Marple’s St Mary Mead is a cosy country setting. Who would expect an idyllic English village like that to be the setting for murder? Yet Agatha Christie used it in the perfect contrast of place and event. In the same way bad things happen to good heroes and heroines, nasty things can happen in the best places.

What's your favourite fictional place? Whether you’re a reader or a writer, I’d love to hear from you.

Writing The Next Big Thing...

Gwen Kirkwood, who you can meet at http://www.gwenkirkwood.blogspot.co.uk is the author of Another Home, Another Love and has kindly invited me to take part in a blog event entitled THE NEXT BIG THING - a series of questions and answers about what is happening in my writing life.

What is the title of your book? 

My current release is called Lady Rascal, because my starving heroine Madeleine makes the most of being mistaken for someone - and something!- she’s not.

How did you come by the idea? 

At the time I was studying The Age of Enlightenment with the Open University, and to be honest I was finding the work a bit dry. I wrote Lady Rascal as a welcome escape from philosophy, and into romance. 

What genre does your book fall under? 

It’s an historical romance, set in France and England just before the Regency period. 

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Madeleine’s new happiness is threatened by a terrible secret that torments her dashing rescuer, Philip.

Is your book self-published or traditional? Lady Rascal originally appeared in both hardback and paperback versions for the Harlequin Mills and Boon Masquerade line. I’m releasing it now as an ebook on all platforms, so it’s available everywhere - from Amazon, iTunes, Barnes & Noble, and Waterstones, etc.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? About five months on and off, as I was working full-time in journalism at the time.

Who or What inspired you to write this book? 

I wanted to invent opportunities for my poverty-stricken heroine Madeleine in a period when anything seemed possible, before the Reign of Terror took hold in her native country.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

You can watch a book trailer for Lady Rascal here: http://bit.ly/STCfUy which gives a glimpse of the images behind the story. Hero Phillip thinks he is whisking Madeleine off to the safety of the English countryside, but soon discovers first impressions can be deceptive.

I hope you enjoy Lady Rascal, and my thanks go to Gwen Kirkwood for giving me the chance to take part in “The Next Big Thing”. There's a signed book from my backlist on offer to a comment here picked at random.

Margaret Mayo has kindly agreed to pick up THE NEXT BIG THING baton at http://www.margaret-mayo.com/blog/ next Tuesday, 4th December. Thank you, Margaret!

A Touch of Historical Romance...

The extract from my current Work In Progress, Spirit, provoked such a lot of interest I thought I'd follow it up with a snippet from my most recent ebook, Lady Rascal. This book originally appeared as a hardback and paperback, but it was sold only in the UK. Now it's available worldwide, downloadable from Amazon (Kindle), iTunes, Barnes and Noble (Nook) and loads of other ebook suppliers, too.

Lady Rascal is set in the summer of 1789, at the beginning of the French Revolution. As Paris descends into chaos, poverty-stricken Madeleine finds herself in a deserted Parisian dressmaker's shop. She grabs the chance to dress up in the glamorous accessories and impractical shoes she has only been able to dream about until now...

 Madeleine suddenly saw something she couldn’t live without a moment longer. Picking up one of the candles, she took three wobbling steps out from behind the safety of the counter. Balancing precariously in front of a long mirror, she took down the wisp of gossamer that hung beside it.

It was a shift of some description, needing only the hem to be finished. But what a shift! Almost transparent, the fine fabric rippled through Madeleine’s gloved fingers like water. It was all she needed to complete her outfit.

In a moment her work dress of coarse brown stuff had been cast aside. It took her a few minutes to work out how to get into the shift, which had no fastenings but pulled on over her head. At last she managed, arranging the folds of fabric about her painfully thin body.

It clung to her like pale mist, flowing with every movement and making graceful her stumbling steps in the borrowed shoes. She was entranced, and so beguiled that the running footsteps outside went unnoticed. Only when a foreign voice called out very close at hand did she jump out of her dream.

Then panic turned her to water. To be found here, dressed like this would be certain death. Like an idiot she had not thought to douse the candles, and now it was too late.

The door flew and a large shadow rippled through the shop towards her.

With a scream Madeleine dropped the candle she held...

Spirit and Lady Rascal are very different in both content and style. If you've read both, I'd love to know what you think of the contrast!

Epublishing: DIY or Bespoke...

White Mask with feather by Mark J Sebastian

This week I went to a session on ebooks and epublishing, organised by my local branch of the Society of Authors. The talk was given by author John Seely, and it was well worth my cross-county drive. You can find more details of John and his work at http://www.epublish10.com and his book ePublish! comes out on 31st October. John's background in educational publishing means it's an easy read, packed with information and all writers - whether working in non-fiction or fiction - will find it invaluable. 

As a total technophobe, I used a turnkey epublishing package from eBookpartnership  to produce and distribute my first ebook release, Lady Rascal. It was easy and trouble-free, but John Seely's step-by-step approach made me consider producing some of my non-fiction work straight to ebook myself. The only problem is something that plagues all writers. I would have to buy and accustom myself to using some new software packages. That would take time and money, while distracting me from my main task of writing. 

It's a decision everyone has to make for themselves. If you love learning new computer skills, DIY publishing is an exciting way forward. On the other hand, if you're happier typing than typesetting, it's a relief to know there are people who will do everything for you - although at a price.

What's your own experience of epublishing?

Self Publishing - The Story So Far...

Back on 4th August, I wrote a blog called "Smashwords - the future of Ebook Publishing at RWA 2012". This created such a lot of comment both here on my blog and via my mailbox (christinahollis@hotmail.co.uk), I did some more research. Much as I love browsing in bookshops and handling real books, I couldn't resist trying it out myself. The process was really easy, and led to the release of Lady Rascal, an historical romance set in Paris and the English countryside during the French Revolution. Over the next few months I'll be reporting regularly on what happens. If there's interest in a conventional version, I'll release it as a paperback title, too. Lady Rascal was originally published as part of the Harlequin Mills and Boon "Masquerade" line, so I've already had a lot of feedback from readers of the original hardback and paperback versions.

The new ebook version is now widely available on Amazon, iTunes, Kobo and elsewhere. And remember - if you like Lady Rascal, please don't keep it to yourself! Word of mouth recommendations and on-line reviews are great ways to let other people in on the secret.  They give a writer a real boost, and I'll be delighted to hear what you think.

So Here She Is At Last!

The Finished Article

The waiting is over - here's my new release, the historical romance Lady Rascal. The ebook is already up on Amazon (see the panel on right) and as it's available in both Mobi and ePub forms whatever device you have, there's a version for you! 

This release is by way of testing the water -I had so many comments and emails after my recent blogs on the epublishing explosion, I decided to try the system for myself. If the response to Lady Rascal as an ebook is good, I'll bring out a paperback version and my other historical novels will be issued in both 'real' and virtual formats. I'd love to know what you think, and if you've had any experience of epublishing. You can add your comment below, or mail me direct at christinahollis@hotmail.co.uk

To celebrate the release of Lady Rascal, I'm giving away new edition bookmarks and pens to the first ten new subscribers to my newsletter. Visit http://www.christinahollis.com and click on the link to subscribe. Don't worry, I'll never pass your details on to any third party.

*STOP PRESS* My New Release Is Almost Here!

So new, it's still got its watermark!

I had so many comments and emails after my recent blogs on the epublishing explosion, I decided to explore the subject in more depth. As a result I'm putting one of my historical novels, Lady Rascal, out as an ebook. It will be released within the next few days in both Mobi and ePub forms, so whatever device you have, there'll be a version ready for you.

This release is by way of testing the water - if the response to Lady Rascal as an ebook is good, I'll bring out a paperback version and my other historical novels will be issued in both 'real' and virtual formats.

I'll post more details on here soon but to be sure of hearing the latest, you can sign up for my newsletter at http://www.christinahollis.com. To celebrate the release of Lady Rascal, I'm giving away new edition bookmarks and pens to the first ten new subscribers to my newsletter!

What's Your Opinion?

My new ebook, Lady Rascal, comes out  in a few weeks' time and I've taken this opportunity to redesign my bookmarks. When my first Harlequin Presents, One Night In His Bed, was released I followed the example of lots of other authors and had thin, glossy bookmarks printed advertising simply that book. They were lovely but of course their life was only as long as the book! Learning from that experience, I had a local printer produce some longer lasting thick card bookmarks, which I tuck inside the books I send out as competition prizes. As they aren't advertising one particular book, I like to think they're more of a keepsake. 

I like this new gold leaf design so much, I may make it the background for my blog as well. What do you think?