If I were a painter, I would daub oil paint across a large canvas. I am not a miniaturist, not one for too much introspection. Back in my dancing days, my dance partner and I choreographed ambitious full-length productions with just the two of us. Later, as an arts manager, I loved producing big-scale theatrical events. When I made a documentary film, it was feature-length. 

As a writer, I love pitching characters into big worlds or challenging situations. In my debut novel, Wayward Voyage, I pitched Anne Bonny into the gritty 18^th Century world of piracy. With Blind Eye, I sent my main character into the murky world of illegal logging. Before becoming novels, both stories were conceived as screenplays i.e. visually.

In my novels, I want to put readers bang smack in the middle of my world. But how do you make scenes real?

Let’s begin with research.

Building the world for The Find

My third novel, The Find, was published in autumn 2022. The seed for this story began with my husband. He told me his idea when recovering from a fever, and I reckon his brain was still scrambled! I loved the off-field premise and urged him to write it down. 

The Find is a high concept “What if…?” Here’s the story outline:

When human remains are found deep in an Ireland peat bog, the National Museum of Ireland takes charge, and their bog body specialist, Dr. Carrie O’Neill, begins to investigate. As more is revealed about the bog body, repercussions ripple throughout the world.

I love research, but bog body science? Where to start?

1. Desk Research 

The internet is my friend. I always work with two monitors open, my laptop to write on, and a screen to my left with the internet ready to explore.

Academic papers by scientists are readily available. I read some, gleaning information that might be useful, and I watched YouTube videos of well-known bog body finds being cleaned. That was visceral, and I could imagine myself in a laboratory picking flakes of peat off old leathery mummified skin.

When considering philosophical angles and differing beliefs, I dusted off old study texts, bought or borrowed new ones, and listened to YouTube and podcast lectures.

And Google Earth was a handy tool.

Over several months, I drafted and redrafted The Find manuscript. My husband was fully invested, loved researching with me, and thrilled to see his initial idea flower into a fully visualized world. He made valuable suggestions on edits and additions, and we argued about one of two things… as you do.

Take away: Anything and everything is available to research on the internet. Make use of it.

2. Specialist Advice

Amongst online content, one academic paper caught my eye. It was an undergraduate thesis from a few years earlier dealing with the practicalities and ethics of displaying bog bodies. Just what I needed! I contacted the British University that had published it, reaching out to the student who by then was completing her doctorate. Might she assist me?

Dr. Emma Tollefsen entered the spirit of my story knowing instinctively to keep the scientific touch “light”. She ensured bog body science procedures and timelines were correct and provided specific information I would not otherwise have known. 

I emailed the National Museum Dublin’s Assistant Keeper. This real-life bog-body specialist provided me with readily available documentation.

Take away: Never be embarrassed to reach out to specialists. They’ll usually be happy to help and the worst they can say is “No”.

3. Boots on the Ground

With my husband, we booked five nights in Dublin combining holiday and research.

First to the National Museum’s Archaeological Museum. This institution is central to my story, with one particular (real) exhibition of major significance.

The Kingship and Sacrifice Gallery is where some of the museum’s own bog bodies are displayed. It was important to experience how human remains were sensitively contextualized.

I paid attention to the layouts of museums and worked out the travel time between sites, driving and public transport. I took photos and videos of interiors and exteriors and became familiar with locations that Carrie O’Neill and her colleagues inhabited.

I was disappointed to find the Irish Times building closed with journalists working from home (Covid restrictions) as I had wanted to see where my character, Finn, worked. However, I know the deli across the street is where he’d pick up a coffee, and I passed a newspaper kiosk where he would pick up morning paper. All helps.

I traveled by bus and tram so I could figure which suburbs I wanted Carrie and Finn to live in, taking photos of streets and houses, and figuring out routes to work.

At St. Stephen’s Green, a city park, I recreated one scene where my character, Carrie, is sitting on a bench soaking up the wintry sun. Did a shadow pass across her closed eyelids when someone walked past, as I had imagined? Did the slatted seat move as someone sat at the other end? My husband re-enacted. Yes!

Take away: Experiencing environments for yourself can be invaluable. There are distinctive smells, sights and sounds that can add color to your story, and details you can only pick up by being there.

4. Beta Readers

It was time to test my story. From some, I wanted general reactions, from others I sought specific feedback. Had I got the nuances of Irish life correct and did the dialogue ring true? 

For example, police are called garda in Ireland, but either name is used. Two readers who grew up in Ireland assured me my story felt authentic. Emma gave me the “all clear” on redrafted scientific sections. As The Find touches on faith-based belief, I sought feedback on whether my story might offend? All good.

Take away: Before offering a manuscript for editing/proofreading, prior to publication, you must be confident the world you have created hangs together. Get feedback from a variety of readers who can comment on different aspects of the story. 

Does research work? The proof is in the pudding.

Once published, nothing gives me greater pleasure than endorsements from people who live and breathe the worlds I sought to create. Here are two favorites.

Wayward Voyage: “Anna is a natural storyteller and a gifted writer using colourful language that makes the reader so absorbed they feel part of the adventure.” Jim Lawlor, The Bahamas Historical Society.

Blind Eye: “This book may be a fast-paced environmental thriller, but for me it is real. Thank you.” Dr. Leonie van der Maesen, life-long rainforest campaigner.

Stories with big themes written as page-turners are Anna M Holmes’s speciality. She loves research–exploring and building worlds and complex characters. The Find is her latest novel following Wayward Voyage and Blind Eye. Initially, she worked as a radio journalist before a career in arts management working with UK Arts Councils and as a creative producer. Writing, reading, dance, and yoga shape her life. Originally from New Zealand Anna lives in South-West London.
To discover more about Anna M Holmes you can find her on her website or follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

The post Research: The Key to Immersive World Building appeared first on DIY MFA.

In fact, I started out writing a novel about Elisabeth (as I called her, although in some sources they refer to her as Louise—the French double-first-naming thing is tricky). I thought at first it would be another in my growing oeuvre of young adult historical novels. Although her youth in a convent school and her father’s death when she was twelve were poignant—as well as her training and friendship with pastellist Rosalie Filleul—I soon discovered that the most interesting parts of her life occurred when she was an adult. She was under thirty when she became Marie Antoinette’s official portraitist, and had an inside view of court life.

However, Elisabeth fled Paris in 1789, when it was clear her ties to the court made it unsafe for her to remain. She spent the Revolution traveling around Europe from court to court, painting portraits and being celebrated. Her husband divorced her in absentia during the Terror to preserve his own life (he’d stayed behind, she took their daughter with her), and she didn’t return to Paris until 1800. 

Early attempts

After I figured out that Elisabeth’s story should be an adult novel, I started writing it in the first person. I think I got about fifty pages in and realized that I was just sort of rewriting her autobiography. I didn’t want to do that. I figured I’d have to switch to third person at the very least.

In the meantime, I thought I’d find out what Elisabeth had to say about her chief rival, Adélaïde. After all, they’d both exhibited publicly for the first time at the Académie de Saint-Luc salon in 1774, and were elected to the Académie Royale at the same time, in 1783. Surely they knew each other.

The advantage to reading something as an eBook is that you can search the text. I searched all three volumes of Elisabeth’s autobiography for every version I could conjure of Adélaïde’s name, and—nada. I found a couple of places where she made a veiled reference to her rival, but she never mentioned her by name.

Hmmm.

And the manuscript thickens

This started me thinking: What did the two women artists, the most famous women artists of their time in Paris, know of or feel about each other? How might they have interacted? For that, I had to dig into research about Adélaïde.

I was soon frustrated by the relative paucity of existing material. Thank heavens for Laura Auricchio’s book, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard: Artist in the Age of Revolution (The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2009). That source, along with a much earlier short biography by Roger Portalis (1902) furnished most of the information I was able to glean about her life and career.

Armed with this, as well as some fascinating research about Rosalie Filleul—who drew portraits of her neighbor in Passy, Benjamin Franklin, and was guillotined during the Terror—I wrote a massive (for me) novel with three points of view.

Writers always look for beta readers when they have a draft polished enough for people to read, and I’m so grateful to my friends who slogged through that manuscript. I also workshopped it, and submitted it for a meeting with an editor through the Muse and the Marketplace conference.

Response was virtually unanimous: It was just too much. And the character that resonated most with everyone wasn’t Elisabeth or Rosalie, but Adélaïde. She was the one who had to struggle in her career. The true underdog. She was also the one who became involved in the politics of the Revolution, worked (unsuccessfully) to reform the Académie, painted a portrait of Robespierre, and fled Paris (but not France) during the worst years of the Terror.

Kill all your darlings

So, I started again. I had some material I could salvage from the earlier draft, but really, it was a complete rewrite, which I began in 2020. After several drafts, many revisions, and chopping off the first fifty pages, The Portraitist: a Novel of Adélaïde Labille-Guiard came into existence. And this focused, more manageable novel is a vast improvement over its predecessor.

I was able to make a logical progression of Adélaïde’s career, of the choices she made or might have made—lack of documented history can be a boon to a fiction writer. Reader, I invented stuff. I hewed closely to the known facts, but that still left a lot of room for filling in motivations and emotions.

I fell so in love with Adélaïde. But that left me still wondering about Elisabeth. She had made such different choices. And even with the abundance of information available, an autobiography is notoriously unreliable. She wanted to control the narrative about her life. Why? I wasn’t finished with her.

Elisabeth will rise again

I have already written enough to make an entire second novel about Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun. But I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m creating a series of novellas, called Behind the Painted Fan, which I have yet to figure out how to publish so readers can enjoy them as a gloss on The Portraitist. As I deepen my acquaintance with Elisabeth, I’m finding so much more in her to celebrate that gets beyond the rather egomaniacal self-portrait in words. As always in such cases of professional rivalry, the two women probably had completely mistaken views of each other.

The novellas are my attempt to give modern readers a chance to get to know not just Adélaïde as I envision her, but Elisabeth, too. Whichever one of them was more successful, they both faced similar challenges and found ways to survive and prevail. And that’s nothing short of inspiring.

Susanne Dunlap is the author of twelve works of historical fiction for adults and teens, as well as an Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach. Her love of historical fiction arose partly from her studies in music history at Yale University (PhD, 1999), partly from her lifelong interest in women in the arts as a pianist and non-profit performing arts executive. Her novel The Paris Affair won first place in its category in the CIBA Dante Rossetti awards for Young Adult Fiction. The Musician’s Daughter was a Junior Library Guild Selection and a Bank Street Children’s Book of the Year, and was nominated for the Utah Book Award and the Missouri Gateway Reader’s Prize. In the Shadow of the Lamp was an Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Book Award nominee. Susanne earned her BA and an MA (musicology) from Smith College, and lives in Biddeford, ME, with her little dog Betty.
You can find her on her website or follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

The post Why the Underdog? Or, How I Came to Write a Novel about Adélaïde Labille-Guiard appeared first on DIY MFA.

Have you signed up to be a DIY MFA Radio Insider yet? This is an exciting new monthly newsletter, especially for our podcast listeners. Every month, you’ll get an email from our podcast producer with recaps of the most recent episodes, a curated Listening List of episodes on a particular theme, and other fun goodies we only share via email. Best of all, it’s free to join! The theme for April is Picture Books, and you can become an insider by signing up with your email at diymfa.com/insiders.

In this episode Leslie Johansen Nack and I discuss:

• Why she leaned into fiction for this project as opposed to writing a biography.
• Her research process and how she chose which scenes to fictionalize.
• How she balanced writing about the public and private personas of her characters.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

About Leslie Johansen Nack

Leslie Johansen Nack’s debut, Fourteen, A Daughter’s Memoir of Adventure, Sailing, and Survival received five indie awards, including the 2016 Finalist in Memoir at the Next Generation Indie Book Award. She lives in San Diego and enjoys sailing, hiking, and reading. 

Before she started writing, she raised two children, ran a mechanical engineering business with her husband, took care of her aging mother, and dreamed of retirement when she could write full-time. She did everything late in life, including getting her degree in English Literature from UCLA at age thirty-one.

You can find her on her website or follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The Blue Butterfly, A Novel of Marion Davies

New York 1915, Marion Davies is a shy eighteen-year-old beauty dancing on the Broadway stage when she meets William Randolph Hearst and finds herself captivated by his riches, passion, and desire to make her a movie star. Following a whirlwind courtship, she learns through trial and error to live as Hearst’s mistress when a divorce from his wife proves impossible. A baby girl is born in secret in 1919 and they agree to never acknowledge her publicly as their own. In a burgeoning Hollywood scene, she works hard making movies while living a lavish partying life that includes a secret love affair with Charlie Chaplin. In late 1937, at the height of the depression, Hearst wrestles with his debtors and failing health, when Marion loans him $1M when nobody else will. Together, they must confront the movie that threatens to invalidate all of Marion’s successes in the movie industry: Citizen Kane.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, or Google and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 407: Public vs. Private Personas: Crafting a Novel Based on Historical Figures – Interview with Leslie Johansen Nack appeared first on DIY MFA.

Have you signed up to be a DIY MFA Radio Insider yet? This is an exciting new monthly newsletter especially for our podcast listeners. Every month, you’ll get an email from our podcast producer with recaps of the most recent episodes, a curated Listening List of episodes on a particular theme, and other fun goodies we only share via email. Best of all, it’s free to join! 

The theme for April is Picture Books, and you can become an insider by signing up with your email at diymfa.com/insiders.

In this episode Jody Hadlock and Lori discuss:

• The research process and how to blend primary and secondary sources.
• Why finding the right point of view is so important to the writing process.
• What role context plays in writing about the past and how to integrate it into your plot.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

About Jody Hadlock

After studying journalism at Texas A&M University, Jody Hadlock was a television news reporter and anchor in Bryan-College Station, Texas; Charleston, South Carolina; and San Antonio, Texas. She now lives near Fort Worth with her husband. For several years Jody served on the board of directors of North Texas Special Needs Assistance Partners (SNAP), a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities live the fullest lives possible in their communities. The Lives of Diamond Bessie is her first novel.

You can find her on her website or follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Goodreads.

The Lives of Diamond Bessie

Inspired by a true story….

Pregnant out of wedlock, sixteen-year-old Annie Moore is sent to live at a convent for fallen women. When the nuns take her baby, Annie escapes, determined to find a way to be reunited with her daughter. But few rights or opportunities are available to a woman in the 1860s, and after failing to find a respectable job, she resorts to prostitution in order to survive. 

As a highly sought-after demi-mondaine, Annie—now Bessie—garners many expensive gifts from her admirers and eventually meets and marries the son of a wealthy jeweler, a traveling salesman with a gambling problem. With her marriage, she believes her dream of returning to proper society has finally come true. She’s proven wrong when she suffers the ultimate betrayal at the hands of the man she thought would be her salvation. But Bessie doesn’t let her story end there. 

Set against the backdrop of the burgeoning women’s rights movement, The Lives of Diamond Bessie is a haunting tale of betrayal and redemption that explores whether seeking revenge is worth the price you might pay.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 404

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, or Google and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 404: How to Turn Historical Figures into Characters for Your Novel – Interview with Jody Hadlock appeared first on DIY MFA.

Finola Austin, also known as the Secret Victorianist on her award-winning blog, is an England-born, Northern Ireland-raised, Brooklyn-based historical novelist and lover of the 19th century. Her first novel, Bronte’s Mistress, was published in 2020. When she’s not writing novels or her blog, she works in digital advertising.

In this episode Finola and I discuss:

• How household and gender roles have and have not changed since the 19th century.
• The difference between being “accomplished” and being “clever” and why it’s problematic.
• Why she created a timeline to help fill in gaps in knowledge as she drafted her novel.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

About Finola Austin

Finola Austin, also known as the Secret Victorianist on her award-winning blog, is an England-born, Northern Ireland-raised, Brooklyn-based historical novelist and lover of the 19th century. Her first novel, Bronte’s Mistress, was published by Atria Books in 2020. By day, she works in digital advertising.

You can find Finola on her website or follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Goodreads.

For more from Finola Austin, check out her article on LitHub or her introduction in The Tenant in Wildfell Hall. 

Click here to read the article Finola refers to on AI analysis of Jane Austen’s work.

Bronte’s Mistress

This dazzling debut novel for fans of Mrs. Poe and Longbourn explores the scandalous historical love affair between Branwell Brontë and Lydia Robinson, giving voice to the woman who allegedly corrupted her son’s innocent tutor and brought down the entire Brontë family.

Yorkshire, 1843: Lydia Robinson—mistress of Thorp Green Hall—has lost her precious young daughter and her mother within the same year. She returns to her bleak home, grief-stricken and unmoored. With her teenage daughters rebelling, her testy mother-in-law scrutinizing her every move, and her marriage grown cold, Lydia is restless and yearning for something more.

All of that changes with the arrival of her son’s tutor, Branwell Brontë, brother of her daughters’ governess, Miss Anne Brontë and those other writerly sisters, Charlotte and Emily. Branwell has his own demons to contend with—including living up to the ideals of his intelligent family—but his presence is a breath of fresh air for Lydia. Handsome, passionate, and uninhibited by social conventions, he’s also twenty-five to her forty-three. A love of poetry, music, and theatre bring mistress and tutor together, and Branwell’s colorful tales of his sisters’ elaborate play-acting and made-up worlds form the backdrop for seduction.

But Lydia’s new taste of passion comes with consequences. As Branwell’s inner turmoil rises to the surface, his behavior grows erratic and dangerous, and whispers of their passionate relationship spout from her servants’ lips, reaching all three protective Brontë sisters. Soon, it falls on Lydia to save not just her reputation, but her way of life, before those clever girls reveal all her secrets in their novels. Unfortunately, she might be too late.

Meticulously researched and deliciously told, Brontë’s Mistress is a captivating reimagining of the scandalous affair that has divided Brontë enthusiasts for generations and an illuminating portrait of a courageous, sharp-witted woman who fights to emerge with her dignity intact.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 374

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, or Google and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 374: Historical Fiction, the Bronte Family, and the Original Mrs. Robinson – Interview with Finola Austin appeared first on DIY MFA.

I’ve met and become friends with lots of writers over the years. If there’s one thing we all have in common, it’s that we’re curious. I believe it’s curiosity, that insatiable desire to explore and push boundaries, that leads many of us to spend hours, months, and even years sitting behind a computer or scratching out a story with pen and paper. Certainly this is true for non-fiction authors. I believe it’s true for fiction writers, too. The topic of this piece is hands-on writing with a focus on non-fiction. How can you write about something you know little about while staying authentic and not ending up with something that sounds like a Wikipedia article?

Writing for me starts as a whisper. There is a tiny waft of interest that floats like a dandelion’s parachute seed into my consciousness. If it’s a good idea, it stays entrenched, and soon tugs and pulls and prods me into finding out more. If I’m truly interested and want to pursue it further, I’ll start some hands-on research. This ‘head writing,’ the initial phase of writing, comes far in advance of any actual composition. It’s time for me to get to know what I’ll write.

Research Tip #1: Talk to People

I can claim to be an expert on, well, not much. But for every topic under the sun, with nearly eight billion people on our beautiful planet, there are plenty out there who do have the relevant expertise. Lately I’ve been writing biographies. Obviously, with a story about a specific person, the best source is that person. My job, then, is to tease out a story from the subject’s rambling thoughts. I don’t usually start with the interview, however. My thoughts—and theirs—are too disjointed. Whenever I’m writing about someone’s life, I begin by finding out what I can from books and online sources. I take notes and even go so far as to write a rough outline. That way, when I finally do talk to the person, I know what I want to ask. I already have threads that seem interesting. I pinpoint my questions for my hands-on research to learn about and expand these threads, thus creating a viable and engaging story.

Research Tip #2: Find out the “Why”

To understand a topic, it’s valuable to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. Or, if you’re writing about extreme sports, you can climb, run, or parachute in someone else’s figurative shoes. For example, I interviewed nearly two dozen people for Thrill Seekers. One theme that kept coming up over and over was that, hands-down, these women were fervently invested in their sport. They lived, breathed, and adored what they were doing. But why? There was often little if any tangible reward. Despite the challenge and even danger of the sport, the women remained deeply rooted in their passion. I spoke with one person who quit her 6-figure job to pursue professional skydiving. I interviewed someone who relocated to Europe with little money and just her sports equipment in her suitcase. And let’s not forget the grit and sacrifice it takes to exercise your body into becoming a top athlete. I found out the “why.” In pursuing these outside-the-line activities, pushing themselves to greater and greater challenges, each had found a beautiful appreciation of what it means to be human.

Research Tip #3: Try it Yourself

I’m not and never have been a super athlete. With my exercise videos, walks, and occasional runs measured at a slightly more than snail’s pace, let’s give me the benefit of the doubt and say I’m average. So what is the allure of extreme sports? When I was lucky enough to sign up for a scuba lesson at a local resort, I had no idea how scary it was going to be to sit 5 feet underwater and breathe through a mouthpiece. It felt wrong. It wasn’t logical. But then when it was okay, I walked into the ocean and witnessed the flight of a stingray firsthand. Then I felt the adrenaline rush of the racetrack, a noisy, high-octane affair in Richmond, Virginia. The ride-along in a Formula race car was exciting, enlightening, and made me feel alive. The pinnacle of my hands-on research was tandem skydiving, a total rush that awakened my senses and gave me an inkling into what propels my subjects into such a life. Maybe now I could start to write from experience—at least a little.  

Research Tip #4: Check for a Different Perspective

When I was sitting on the bottom of a swimming pool in scuba gear, I looked up and I wasn’t drowning. It was a bizarre and novel experience to breathe underwater, as different a perspective as humanly possible. Similarly, when studying history or learning about extreme sports, hands-on research that includes diverse viewpoints is crucial. If it’s people I’m writing about, I try to solicit a broad assortment of backgrounds and viewpoints. If it’s a topic area, I’m careful to read widely and to incorporate a variety of outlooks to avoid bias. When I’m including facts, I check multiple sources—at least three—to verify the accuracy. When gleaning information from the web, it’s easy to find mistakes in articles and other sources. Wherever possible, I look for reputable sources to confirm information.

Research Tip #5: Get Organized

It’s fun to learn and discover but easy to get overwhelmed. Without some sort of organizational process, pieces of insight gather together into a tangled mess, sort of like how I recently packed away the Christmas lights. But moving on. Organization really is a key component of getting from A—excellent but untried idea—to B—cohesive writing project. Of course, depending on the size of the project, there are steps C through Z as well … When I begin a project, I buy spiral notebooks for my note taking. I prefer the feeling of pen on paper for this initial step. I read books, either from the library or purchased, and I comb the internet. While the web is limited, I find that videos are often extremely helpful, especially when I’m writing about real people and want to know what they’re like. I also reserve a couple of pages in my notebook for a timeline. Having a chronological record of important events helps frame the hands-on research. Once I have several pages of notes, I go over them and highlight pieces that are especially relevant. Then I come up with my inciting incident, that first anecdote or discussion that I hope will hook the reader as strongly as it hooked me. I prepare a brief outline and then dive in.

Finding out something new is, to me, a privilege and a pleasure. In the end, I do end up writing what I know more about—but only after the process of hands-on learning.

A high school English as a Second Language teacher by day, Ann has eight traditionally published books—she recently signed a contract for a ninth. While she is represented by James McGowan at BookEnds Literary, for many years she worked without an agent. She learned the craft through dogged determination and believes strongly in the concept of community. Her critique group is integral to her success. Today, reading, writing, and exploring are Ann’s hobbies. She is intensely curious and looks for the goodness around her. Here is some video buzz about her newest book. 

The post #5onFri: Five Hands-On Research Techniques for Spot-On Writing appeared first on DIY MFA.

Write about a time period that you love or has some significance for you because you will be doing a lot (a lot) of research.  

I chose the three historic time periods for A Witch in Time based on my personal interest in Belle Époque France, my obsession with Hollywood in the 1930s and my personal experience growing up in the 1970s.  By now, I’ve probably read almost every history book from those time periods, but those hours immersed in research were labors of love for me.  For A Witch in Time, I have an entire bookshelf for the three periods and find that I tend to think in those time frames for all future novels so I might get multiple novels from my initial research.  By contrast, as a reader, I love historical fiction based on time periods that aren’t of interest to me.  For example, one of my favorite historical fantasy writers, Nicola Cornick, often writes time slip novels during the Elizabethan period.  It’s not one of the time periods that I actively work in, so this distance actually allows my brain a bit of time to indulge, rest and “enjoy” her books and admire her craft. 

Write small, big and universal.

This is one of the best writing hacks for a historical writer. Strategically pick a few areas to research so you don’t get overwhelmed.  For example, start with the big, over-arching historical details of the period. What were some of the major political and social themes going on?   How would those have impacted your characters?  This exercise can be different if you’re writing a book on the fictional version of Richard III versus a commoner living during that time. You don’t need to bite off every piece of history from the time period.  Remember, you’re not writing a non-fiction history book. 

After the big major themes, you can write small.  What is the typical day in the life of your character?  How did people dress or wear their hair?.  Think about the food of the time.  Were people hungry?  Were certain things rationed?  Drink?  Music?  Art?  Those are all important aspects of daily life.  What was the price of theater ticket?  A glass of wine?  Find one or two things (tangible and small) and write everything about them. 

In my novel, The Ladies of the Secret Circus, one of the best writing hacks I discovered was simply finding a cookbook called, The Found Meals of the Lost Generation: Recipes and Anecdotes from the 1920s Paris by Suzanne Rodriguez-Hunter. The author was specific about what foods were trendy during the time and the ingredients that were available.  In my research I also found a nice detail about all the poor artists stealing both food and silverware from the Café de la Rotonde in Montparnasse. 

These tiny details actually make the time period authentic and tangible.  In this phase of my writing, I actively search Pinterest boards for research use them as notebooks for each of my novels.  If you’re looking for an example of how tiny, daily details can really define a time period, I recommend Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women (1952) which makes even the most mundane elements of post WWII British life fascinating. 

Some extra writing hacks: pick a universal topic or detail and write it.  As a modern-day guest at the Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, I took special note of the smells and sounds of the hallways. Since it was an old hotel, I could imagine that many of the senses involved were the same then as they are now, so I used these details in the scenes where Nora lives there in A Witch in Time.  In another example, eating French Onion soup probably hasn’t changed much since the turn of the century in Paris, so I used soup in The Ladies of the Secret Circus where Cecile and Emile have their first date.  When placed in an historical fiction piece, a universal detail can take on the antique aura of the time period.  Make sure the detail fits first.  If the item wasn’t invented yet, then obviously you won’t want to use it.  It’s a bit of a cheat, but there are just some things that haven’t changed much and readers will actually be drawn to familiar details they know. Your writing is a balance between identifying timeless, universal truths and serving as a tour guide to another time period.

More bonus writing hacks:  an overlooked aspect of an historical fiction is the setting.  Try to find an old photo or a painting of the place you’re writing about and write every detail you see in it. Think about how the place felt, smelled, sounded.  Trust me, you will use this “sketch” somewhere in your description of your setting.

What you read while you’re writing is really important. 

When writing, your reading list should be prescriptive to your goals. I’m such a fan of writer Philipp Meyer and recall him telling The New York Times, that he has an exhaustive reading list developed to address his current writing goals, saying that, as writers, “you have to treat your mind the way an athlete treats her body.”  Set writing goals for the book your working on and try to balance your reading list for craft elements you’re trying to work on to improve your craft. My next book features many late 1960s gothic romance features, so my reading list includes, the old Victoria Holt romance novels from that time period.  For A Witch in Time, I read Emile Zola’s L’Assommoir.  These books help get the language right.  Figure out what “style” you want your book to be and begin a reading regime to match.  This also extends to music of the time period and films (if they exist) of the time period.  “Trapeze” was very important to my research for The Ladies of the Secret Circus and films from the 1930s (William Powell and Carole Lombard in particular) were so helpful in “hearing” the language of the time for A Witch in Time.

You need a story that is timeless. 

This is probably the most important thing so I saved it for last. Yes, you’re writing an historical fiction novel, but you must throw all that out and flesh out a good story—a story of solid plot and character that transcends the historical timeline you are going to build around it.  Your characters have to feel “real” regardless of the time in which they live. Don’t have a full plot?  Think like a screenwriter and write down 8-10 key scenes you need in your book and let those “frame” the narrative so you don’t wander. 

At the end of the day, it’s the story that drives the book, not the history. 

Constance Sayers is the author of A Witch in Time. A finalist for Alternating Current‘s 2016 Luminaire Award for Best Prose, her short stories have appeared in Souvenir and Amazing Graces: Yet Another Collection of Fiction by Washington Area Women as well as The Sky is a Free Country. Her short fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

She received an MA in English from George Mason University. She lives outside of Washington D.C. Like her character in The Ladies of the Secret Circus, for many years, she was the host of a radio show from midnight to six.

The post Four Historical Fiction Writing Hacks appeared first on DIY MFA.

When writing, always conduct extensive research.

Undoubtedly, a lot of research is needed for those with no medical background. In this regard, assistance of someone in the field and or an expert on the subject is beneficial while writing a proposal and certainly during or after completion of the manuscript.

My novel “Have A Heart” deals with the intertwined lives of three individuals: Anna, a Russian ballerina who defects to America, develops heart failure, survives a cardiac arrest, and ultimately is in need of a heart transplant. Dr. Ali, the head of the heart transplant program at a New York Medical Center, and Nancy, Ali’s wife who dies on 9/11.

My experiences as a Cardiologist informed my medical fiction novel.

As a Cardiologist and a specialist in Heart Rhythm Disorders, I was well aware of the techniques of heart catheterization, the diagnosis and treatment of heart rhythm disorders, the technique of implanting a defibrillator, as well as the technique of heart transplant firsthand. Moreover, I knew the complex histories of patients, their trials and tribulations dealing with their heart ailments, and the long and tedious journey, a road filled with cracks and crevices while awaiting a heart transplant and post-transplant. Thus, I did not have to do any research regarding these issues; however, for someone not in the cardiology field even if she or he is a doctor, this would be a most challenging task. Being an expert in the field also has its disadvantages when writing a novel. 

I wrote for the lay reader and not for the experts.

One has to carefully fine tune all the technical elements so that the writing is understood by the lay reader. I had to constantly remind myself that I am not writing for the professional, but for the reader who does not know about the complexities of heart disease and heart transplantation. This in itself is not an easy task and takes multiple revisions and re-revisions. 

For the novice my advice is that writing fiction of whatever genre comes down to re-writing until you get it all together and are ultimately satisfied with the product. It is also important to get feedback, not from friends or family members, but from writers. 

In this regard belonging to a writers workshop is useful. You will get many different opinions since impressions of fiction are after all subjective and not objective, unlike in the sciences. Ultimately, the author will have to decide on what advice he or she will take and what advice will be discarded. Before sending a manuscript to an agent or a publisher it is worthwhile to get a professional line editor to look at the manuscript.

 Most writers do a reasonable job in editing their own writing, but in the process they are apt to miss spelling mistakes, commas and the like for the simple reason that they have read the manuscript so often, perhaps a hundred times or more and therefore the mind is unable to recognize errors in writing and syntax.       

I researched a variety of topics outside of medical fiction.

It is noteworthy that my novel not only deals with medical issues, but also ballet, religion, culture, the political upheavals of our times, including 9/11 and its consequences, as well as the search for inner truth. 

I am not a ballet dancer, nor am I a critic of ballet, which is an art form I knew little about except for attending some performances. Thus, I had to do considerable research on ballet which included attending several ballet performances, and since Anna was a Russian ballerina, I visited St. Petersburg, Russia and attended the Mariinsky Theater and a performance by the Kirov Ballet. I also had to research the Islamic faith and Russian culture to better portray Ali’s and Anna’s character.

In conclusion:

Writing a novel is a complex undertaking that involves: the beginning, the middle, the end, the arc of the story, and the complexity of the characters. In this regard, one has to develop the characters and give them free reign to tell their stories and in the process create a storyline. In this novel the main protagonists: Anna, Ali, and Nancy, came from very different and diverse cultures. 

Indeed in literary fiction often and in particular my case, it is the characters (the main protagonists) that create the story. They take control of the writer while writing the story. For example I knew the beginning and also knew that the novel would be about heart transplant, where one of the main protagonists would suffer from a severe cardiac ailment known as cardiomyopathy that results in heart failure and cardiac arrest. I also knew that there had to be a doctor as a main character who would provide health care for Anna, but beyond that I had no idea where I was going. I did not know how the story would unfold and the role the characters would play in the story. 

I let the characters shape the story. And after the manuscript was complete, and the story unfolded, I took control of the characters during the revisions to better shape the story line. In this process, more narrative is added, some removed and a timeline is adhered to. 

Good luck and all the best in your writing.

Dr. J. Anthony Gomes MD, also Antonio Gomes (nome de plume) and commonly referred to as Tony, hails originally from Goa, India. He studied both English (in Mumbai) and Portuguese (in Goa). Besides English, he fluently speaks Portuguese, Spanish, Konkani (local Goan language) and understands French and Hindi. He immigrated to the US in 1970 after medical school.

His book Have a Heart (Serving House Books, September 2020) explores the intertwined romantic and professional lives of three individuals. It explores a torpid romance between a patient, Anna, and her doctor, Ali, the clash of cultures, the political upheavals of our times, the tribulations of waiting for a heart transplant, and the search for inner truth. Fans of dance and the performance arts, films like The Red Shoes and Black Swan, and shows like ER and Grey’s Anatomy will love diving into this story. 

His third book written for internists, medical students and the lay public in general is entitled: Rhythms of Broken Hearts due to be published in mid 2021.

The post Writing Medical Fiction appeared first on DIY MFA.

Bald’s eyesalve (from a 10th-century medical text) is made of equal parts of garlic and another allium (think leeks or onions) finely chopped and ground in a mortar for two minutes then mixed in a brass vessel with wine and cow bile, stored in a cool cellar for nine days, and finally strained through a cloth before being administered to a patient. 

It first came to my attention from a report by the BBC on research at the University of Nottingham that had shown the stuff could kill MRSA (the antibiotic-resistant staph infection that gets into hospitals and is often fatal). Another study at the National Institutes of Health has reaffirmed that the mixture does, indeed, have antibacterial properties.

Writing the passage reminded me that medicine, like food, is one of those details that need to be correct for the time and place of our stories.

Whose medicine?

Humans have been devising remedies for what ails us since long before we could write them down, but medicine isn’t just a universal thing that sprang from a single source. Western medicine evolved from the traditions of Galen and Hippocrates into today’s medical-industrial complex (to borrow a phrase from Eisenhower). 

Eastern medicine arose from different beliefs and theories. Arab physicians were among the most advanced of their day, and many of their skills and remedies became incorporated into the medical practices of the cultures they touched during the peak of their empire. And we mustn’t forget the medicine of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, Australia and New Zealand, and remote parts of human habitation.

And when?

My story is set in the fourteenth century, so Bald’s eyesalve would be a well-known remedy at the time. But let’s think about some other remedies and where they fit on the human timeline.

Most of us might not remember a time when penicillin wasn’t part of the physician’s arsenal against infection. That particular remedy, however, has only recently made the cut for something that could be included in historical fiction (if you subscribe to the conventional definition that the events of the story had to occur at least fifty years in the past). Even though Alexander Fleming proved its antibacterial efficacy in 1928, it wasn’t until 1942 that it was commercially produced – and even then, the world’s entire supply of penicillin was enough for only ten patients. Production ramped up during World War II, but it wasn’t until after the war that the remedy was widely available for the average patient.

Vaccines are an entirely different story. We tend to think of them as very modern inventions, perhaps because of the recent controversy over disproven side effects. But they’re much, much older. Today, we don’t give smallpox a second thought, but it was once as feared and as deadly as the plague. 

As early as the 10th century, the Chinese had a method of preventing smallpox that involved blowing powdered smallpox material into a person’s nose. This idea came into Western medicine as a result of European exploration in the Far East. In 1796, Edward Jenner proved that inoculation with cowpox was effective in preventing the contraction of smallpox, thus launching the development of ways to prevent deadly diseases rather than simply hoping to cure them.

The germ theory of disease was proposed by Arab physicians as early as the 11th century but didn’t definitively displace the miasma (bad air) theory until the work of Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch in the late 19th century.

It wasn’t until the 1870s when Joseph Lister did his own research developing techniques for sanitation and antiseptics that significant advances occurred in preventing the transmission of disease from one patient to another by the very doctors who were trying to provide care. So if your story is set before Lister’s time, disinfecting medical instruments between patients would have been highly unlikely. Even hand-washing when caring for patients didn’t really become a standard practice until Florence Nightingale introduced it during the Crimean War in the mid-1850s.

And what about the physicians and others providing care? Even the ancient Greeks recognized that infections could be contracted by those in the presence of sick people. (This likely contributed to the miasma theory of disease.) But it wasn’t until the late Middle Ages that the notion of PPE began to emerge with the idea of wearing a mask when tending very ill people. This culminated in the 17th-century plague doctor’s “uniform,” which may have offered some protection, though the breathing holes in the long snout of the mask might not have been the most well-thought-out part of the gear.

Getting things right for your narrative

This article is little more than a set of thought-starters for things you might need to research if the characters in your story find themselves in need of medical attention. My objective was to identify a few milestones to help guide any specific research you might need to undertake to be sure your details fit your setting and period.

And to end with a bit of fun

A shout-out to Karen Brooks for a social media post that led me to a fun little book entitled Revolting Remedies from the Middle Ages. It’s published by the Bodleian Library of Oxford University and is a compilation by Daniel Wakelin and 7 students from his Master’s-level course on “handling and reading manuscripts from the seventh to the sixteenth centuries.” In the Introduction, Wakelin says the intent of the compilation was not to choose remedies that were representative of an era, but to pick those that struck him and his students as “funny or freaky in some way.” The following are excerpts from the book:

“FOR A ZITTY FACE

Take urine eight days old and heat it over the fire; wash your face with it morning and night.”

“FOR FEVER CHILLS

Take three drops of milk from a woman who is breastfeeding a baby boy, and put it inside a soft-boiled hen’s egg, and let the sick man snack on that for this disease.”

Pamela Taylor’s inspiration for her first book turned out to be that final straw that pushed her to leave the corporate world behind for the world of words and imagination. Now an author and an editor, she loves helping others polish their stories almost as much as she enjoys writing her own. She’s a member of the DFW Writers Workshop and the Editorial Freelancers Association and is in her fourth year on the judges panel for the Ink & Insights Contest. You can learn more about her books at secondsonchronicles.com, and about her editing services at editing4you.com. 

The post Creating Authentic Details: Medicine appeared first on DIY MFA.

As I was trying to figure out what my next column would be about, I got a bit of a promotion here at DIY MFA. I am now the Web Editor (among other responsibilities). While reviewing the contact page and submissions guidelines, inspiration struck! I could write my next column about how to pitch to a publication.

Without further ado, here are tips for pitching a guest blog. And while I use DIY MFA’s policies and procedures as examples, this advice is definitely applicable across the board for any online publication. 

Research Before Pitching

This should be pretty obvious, but unfortunately it isn’t. We get a lot of pitches for do-it-yourself plumbing projects and other home renovation topics. People see the DIY in the site title and they don’t even click to read what we’re about. 

Assuming you actually visit the website, take the time to read a few of the more recent posts or articles. You don’t have to go through the entire archive, but check out what is current. This will give you an idea of what kind of topics they post about, who they feature, etc. It also clues you into the format of guest posts, so you can determine if your voice and style are a fit. This knowledge will help you pitch the best, most relevant piece you can. 

Search for Submission Guidelines

Some publications make them easy to find; others like to play hide and seek. A good starting point is the contact page. At DIY MFA, our contact page lists the email for general inquiries. But if you look at the whole page, we have a section for Guest Submissions. We even link to our Guest Article Submission Guidelines, where we spell out the A-Z of pitching for DIY MFA. 

The New Yorker  and New York Times both have their submission guidelines on their contact page. The Write Life and ProWritingAid blogs offer links to the guidelines in the website footer.

Follow the Directions

But in those cases where the publication makes it a bit harder to find the submission guidelines, use the all-seeing Google. Enter “(name of publication) submission guidelines” or similar query in your search bar. You might have to look through a couple of pages, but they should pop up if the publication accepts pitches.

I cannot stress this enough—follow the directions. 

Our guidelines specifically say where to email pitches for guest posts, yet we still get a bunch that go to the general email account. We also give specific instructions for everything to include in the pitch, yet we still get incomplete submissions. When we see these blatant disregards for following instructions, we delete the emails with no response. This is how the vast majority of publications operate.

If an editor is constantly responding to pitches that don’t follow directions, that’s time they’re not spending on finding the right writers to serve their audience. By not following directions, you also show you won’t be easy to work with and will likely ignore further instructions for a full submission. 

Proofread Your Submission and Accompanying Email

It’s cringe-worthy to receive a pitch with tons of grammatical errors, some even starting in the subject line. This doesn’t inspire confidence for an editor that you can piece together a coherent article. Blog copy editors are amazing, but they have other stuff to do than fix your misspellings.

In your pitch email:

• Be personal: Address the email to the right person. You’ll probably find their name if you look for the guidelines. Also, if there is a connection, mention it. Maybe you met the editor at a conference or you know someone else on the team who gave you the editor’s email. Starting with a personal connection is a great way to break the ice.
• Be specific: Tell them exactly what you are pitching. Ideally, you’ll send 2-3 ideas that are vivid enough the editor knows what your post is about and whether it will serve the audience.
• Be concise: At the same time, be concise. Don’t write out your entire article in the email unless a full submission is requested. 
• Include links to your work: Writing samples are great. It gives us an idea of how you typically write, so we can tell if you’ll be a good fit. If you don’t have any professional credits yet, don’t worry. You can link to your personal blog.

Double-Check the Directions

Once you’re done double-checking that you followed the guidelines—triple check! Seriously. You don’t want to wind up in the trash box simply because you failed to follow one tiny step. If it says email a particular account, email that account. If it says to include a particular subject line, include that subject line. If you’re reading this blog, then we know you’re a better writer than folks who don’t do their homework or follow the guidelines.  

There you have it, some simple tips on how to write a pitch from someone who has recently dealt with a lot of them. Fortunately, it really can be as simple as following the directions. Yes, you have to have writing skills, but the rest will get easier with practice. Promise!

Lori Walker is the Operations Maven at DIY MFA. Though she’s fallen off the wagon as a writer, she’s hoping to return to writing essays (perhaps even a novel!) through her involvement with DIY MFA. She also teaches yoga part-time in Smalltown, Oklahoma, where she lives with her husband and their cat, Joan Didion. You can follow her on Instagram at @LoriTheWriter.

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