A Wealth of Historical Detail

Research is one of my favorite aspects of writing historical fiction (my favorite part being taking that research and turning it into an immersive story), and I've come across some useful books I wanted to share.

Ian Mortimer has a great book focused on Medieval England

that takes you on a tour of the sights, smells, and daily habits of the English people during this time period. In general, it's a fun read, though you might wish to save the sections on medical care for when you're not eating. He apparently has one on Elizabethan England that I haven't acquired a copy of yet.

 Looks promising!

A nice followup is Bill Bryson's book--and I managed to score one of the illustrated editions at Costco for a good price!

This one goes into great depth (and on entertaining tangents) on the history of private life, using an historic house as a model. It's eye-opening how recent some of our homely comforts actually are.

What about you? Do you have a favorite history or nonfiction book you can lose yourself in?

Books: Light for writers everywhere

I came across this quote recently on Pinterest, and it's so true. Even though we writers still strive to read for the enjoyment of it, each ingested word strengthens our writing abilities by broadening our vocabulary, smoothing out our plot understanding, and gives us a window into what works and what works even better.

image found on Pinterest

That light enabling us biblio and logophiles (bibliophile, a lover of books; logophile, a lover of words) to continue and come up with new ideas and opinions is, basically a light of experience. We can look back at years previous and see how far we've come writing-wise, and a large portion of that new growth can be attributed to reading. Not only that, but I'm pretty sure most of us can recall exactly which book/s we were reading when inspiration struck and gave us the next "a-ha moment". 

As I was writing Pity Isn't An Option, I was looking for the overall feel of hopelessness and lack not in the present time, but from a different time period. I needed to understand how it was when less was more. My grandmother grew up in an orphanage during the Great Depression with seven of her siblings. Their way of getting by was engrained so strongly upon her that she carried most of those survival "skills" into her adult life. Though she didn't speak much about her upbringing to me, her hoarding the most random and simple things (like rubber bands and hotel notepads and No. 2 pencils) proved that it had to have been hard. When I was little and stayed over, I never could get her to allow the bath water to go past my waist; each sandwich I ate where crust was left on the plate hurt her to the core--I could see it in her eyes; and not eating an entire egg was the worst atrocity on earth. It wasn't hatefulness, or bossiness, it was waste. There was never, ever enough, therefore, you did not waste anything.

This was kind of the feeling I was looking for while writing Pity Isn't An Option. In the readerly path I was on at that particular time, about four specific books not only enabled me to feel that lack by providing the light, but showed how differently people react when faced with same circumstances. Out of those four, two really grounded me in that understanding while giving me a sense of families who worked together in spite of that oppression: An Owl on Every Post by Sanora Babb, and A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly.

What about you? Are there any books in particular that have been your light, your inspiration? Why?

Photos That Inspire Words

So I'm also a photographer and a history buff, with a habit of ferreting out local ruins and old homesteads and recycling them into my settings. But one source of inspiration is not so secret since it can be seen for miles around: Preston Castle in Ione, California.

And as if Preston Castle (the proper name was the Preston School of Industry) wasn't cool enough on its own, it's been recast in my novel as Wilson Castle, occupying a weak spot on the border between our world and Faerie. All the local legends of ghosts and strange happenings are faeries and monsters leaking into our world in the town of Crow's Rest.

Here's how it's described in the opening of my book:

July air streamed through the car window, coating my tongue with heat and iron-rich dust. Nearly there. . . As we took that last curve on the approach, tree branches arched over the road, blocking our view until there it stood.

A castle, its ruddy bricks warmed by the afternoon light. Looming over the Gold-Rush-era town at its feet, the Wilson School of Industry reformed bad boys for nearly a century before the state abandoned it to vandals and ghost hunters. The usual mass of turkey vultures and ravens soared above, sinisterizing the turrets even more.

There really are vultures and ravens!

 And the inside is a creepy, writer's delight

What about you? Is there a real-life place that you've featured in your writing? Or maybe you've made the pilgrimage to settings of other books like Forks, WA? Share some links in the comments if you have pictures! There's a video I took yesterday over on my personal blog too.

And don't forget our Mystery Agent Contest coming up on May 1st! The agent's wishlist is over there on the top right of the sidebar.