Have you thought about writing historical fiction? After writing her first historical fiction novel, Author Elaine Stock offers some tips. by Elaine Stock With the launch of We Shall Not Shatter, I might appear to have jumped from one genre to another (leaving behind the Inspirational genre), but I’ve doneContinue Reading
How can anyone—a bureaucrat, a librarian, a gardener, a writer—be both so undisciplined and so anal? Contradiction is, I suppose, a necessary element in writing fiction. It can lead to tension in the plot, conflict among the characters, doubts and fears in the protagonist. Probably not so helpful when theContinue Reading
Before I became a writer, I was a reader who enjoyed historical fiction more than other novels or non-fiction. In middle school, I enjoyed books written by Jean Plaidy, (one of Eleanor Burford Hibbert’s several pen names), because she depicted her characters as real people rather than names in aContinue Reading
Like many of people writing fiction, I have a background writing non-fiction for my day job. Over the years I’ve written lots of business reports, market overviews and policy outlines for public bodies, some published, some very definitely for internal use only. I’ve always wanted to write fiction, but afterContinue Reading
The poet Robert Frost once said, “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.” This sums up the emotional challenge of writing for me, which is to place myself so entirely in the world of my characters that readers experience their joy and sadness. A recent example fromContinue Reading
by Melissa Muldoon As I was finishing my second novel, Waking Isabella—a story set in Arezzo, Italy that tells the story of Isabella de’ Medici and her portrait that was lost during World War II—I realized I didn’t want my writing experience to end. So, before I had even publishedContinue Reading
My biggest, perhaps only, emotional challenge as a writer is motivation/self-discipline/time management. After I transitioned from traditional to self-publishing a few years ago, one of the many benefits was that I set my own deadlines. For my personality type (Ooh, shiny!) this is also the bad news. There are soContinue Reading
by Carol Pratt Bradley My family enjoys watching historical films and we loved the 2003 movie, Luther, about Martin Luther and the Reformation. I had also read a book about William Tyndale, the man who translated the Bible into English. At the time, I was searching for an idea forContinue Reading
I would say the biggest challenge to being a writer for me is trying to avoid late night snacking. I’m a night owl, so I write/work late into the night. When I’m done I tend to unwind in front of the television, catching up on shows I’ve saved on theContinue Reading