Researching and Writing Historical Fiction, by Catherine Czerkawska
Cover image, courtesy of Glasgow Museums I wrote this piece for a local (Glasgow) writers’ newsletter, but since I know a great many people who enjoy reading and writing historical fiction, including bloggers and visitors to Authors Electric, it seems worth while reblogging here, with a few tweaks and additions, especially since I’ve just agreed to tackle historical fiction for this year’s eBook festival. I’ve always written a mixture of historical and contemporary fiction and plays. My first degree, from Edinburgh University, was in Mediaeval Studies and then I went on to do a Masters in something called Folk Life Studies, essentially a form of social history. I still love research of all kinds and that can be a curse as well as a blessing for an author. You have to know when to stop. But you also have to know when you need to know more and you have to learn to ‘give yourself permission’ to fictionalise something that may well be an unwieldy collection of miscellaneous facts spi...