by Pippa Brush Chappell | Aug 12, 2020 | Writing tips
We all know what historical fiction is. It’s stories that are set in the past. Easy. Next question? Except it’s never going to be that simple. History isn’t simple, and neither is fiction, so we can hardly expect a combination of the two to be straightforward.... 
by Jack Shannon | Jun 22, 2020 | Writing tips
In this post, we’re going to explore historical cuisine and how to incorporate it into your writing. No matter when or where your story is set, your characters are going to need to eat. The presence (or importantly, the absence) of food is a great way to set the... 
by Pippa Brush Chappell | May 27, 2020 | Writing tips
It is a truth universally acknowledged, it seems, that editors and agents and readers don’t like prologues. Don’t like them, don’t need them, don’t read them. But if this is true, why do writers keep writing them? What purpose do they serve?... 
by Charlotte Betts | Apr 9, 2020 | Writing tips
When you love writing, it’s terrifying to find yourself staring at a blank screen or an empty notebook, completely unable to summon a single word. Most authors have experienced mind-numbing episodes of being unable to write but, don’t worry, you can break free! What... 
by Jack Shannon | Mar 18, 2020 | Writing tips
It is a universal truth of historical fiction that sooner or later, there is going to be a sword fight. Don’t try to deny it. If your book is set any time before the Victorian era, someone is bound to have a swordfight sooner rather than later. Physical violence is... 
by Tim Hodkinson | Feb 7, 2020 | Writing tips
Writing historical fiction presents its own particular challenges, not least when it comes to dialogue. How does an author create a sense of time and place without sounding faux-archaic or having characters proclaim “ye olde clichés”? Worse still, the unwitting author... 
by Jack Shannon | Dec 16, 2019 | Writing tips
Unless your historical novel is set in a single location, your characters are going to need to travel. And that means horses. Till the turn of the century, the horse dominated the way we travelled, and in rural areas, that continued right up to the start of WW2. It’s... 
by Andrew Noakes | Nov 14, 2019 | Writing tips
There are a lot of good reasons to write a book series: it allows you to spend more time with the characters you’ve invested in, you can make repeated use of all the research you’ve done for your setting (something that historical fiction is particularly heavy on, of... 
by Pippa Brush Chappell | Oct 31, 2019 | Writing tips
Historical fiction, as we know, is that fusion of history and story, fact and fiction coming together to offer a fascinating insight into the lives of those who’ve come before us – real or imagined – set against a background of delicious historical detail. Love... 
by Andrew Noakes | Sep 26, 2019 | Writing tips
Free indirect discourse is one of the most useful and effective tools available to those writing from a third person point of view. It sounds kind of fancy, but it’s actually quite a natural technique (you may have even used it without realising!). So what exactly is... 
