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...

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? And how come they have...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 it,...

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...

The process of writing historical fiction can throw up some pretty tough challenges, but with a bit of knowledge, practice, and determination, it’s certainly possible to overcome them. To help you along, we’ve put together this post on the top five challenges of...

Even if your story is not a historical romance, you may still want to incorporate a romantic subplot for that extra dose of spice and emotional depth. But you want to do it well. You’ve read your share of predictable, throwaway relationship subplots that left you...

The first chapter of your novel – or your prologue if you prefer – must contain a compelling opening hook, giving the reader a taste of what’s to come and persuading them that the rest of your story isn’t to be missed. Get it right and your reader will commit to your...