writing

Researching a historical novel is a daunting task, albeit fascinating. But if you know where to look, the process will be more effective, and quicker, too. Other than the two obvious sources of research--books and the Internet (such as digitized collections of primary sources, not Internet chat rooms)--here are seven other ways I have bolstered the research for my own novels. I hope they can be helpful to you, as well. 1) Site visits. Whenever possible, I visit the location I'll be using in my book, for three reasons: I want to get a sense of place. I want to feel the weather, see the trees, hear the birds. What does this place do to one's spirit? Is it vast and wild? Close and suffocatingly hot? Is it tranquil? I love to put myself in my character's shoes, quite literally, whenever I can. Usually there is a museum or two with not only excellent exhibits, but a great gift shop with little gems I would never find otherwise. During research for Spy of Richmond, the Museum of the Confederacy gift shop had real treasures for me. A Pictorial Tour of the White House of the Confederacy will be dog-eared and underlined as I'm writing Spy of Richmond. If there are historical archives with primary source materials at a location, I want to get in there. The Adams County Historical Society archives in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was an absolute goldmine of information. My book Widow of Gettysburg was informed by dozens of eyewitness accounts I could not have found anywhere else. 2) Museum staffers. Whenever I write a historical novel, I pray that I will find a friend who works at a museum that specializes in my subject material. There is simply no substitute for a real-live person who will answer my questions. Among other things, Denise Doyle at the Seminary Ridge Museum counted the number of stairs in the old seminary building for a certain scene I was writing. When I asked Trevor Beemon at the Atlanta History Center about architecture and typical furnishings for a middle class Atlanta home during the Civil War, he went so far as to describe the color schemes and send me photos. (I pinned them on my Yankee in Atlanta Pinterest board, if you're interested.) Sara Henderson at Atlanta's Oakland Cemetery described what the cemetery looked like in 1863, right down to the foliage and wildlife. The list goes on. These people are absolutely invaluable to me. Anyone can do this. Hop online, find a museum you wish you could visit, and email the research specialist. Tell him or her what you're doing and ask for help. More often than not, I get a response, and we go from there. It's a beautiful thing. 3) Paper dolls and coloring books. When it comes to getting the fashions of the era right, I am a loyal fan of Peter Copeland's coloring books, and Tom Tierney's paper dolls. I learn what fabrics and colors were appropriate for which season, which fashions would have been worn by which generation (from the underwear to the accessories) and which occasion merited which ensemble. I love these books! They have them for several different eras, not just Civil War. Find them on Amazon. [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"993", "attributes":{"class":"media-image aligncenter size-full wp-image-1807", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"600", "height":"300", "alt":"7waystobolsterresearchcollage2"}}]] 4) Specialty experts. When I have a medical question, my go-to-gal is Jordyn Redwood, an E.R nurse and the author of medical thriller/suspense novels. She has this lovely Web site which features questions from authors/aspiring authors and her replies to those questions. Not only has Jordyn featured a few of my questions on her site, but she has graciously answered other random emails I've sent. Visit her Web site here: http://redwoodsmedicaledge.com/ For Civil War firearms, I consult Wesley Harris, who is in his 36th year of law enforcement. His broad range of experience includes virtually every position in a police agency from dispatcher to patrol officer to detective to police chief. He also serves on the Criminal Justice faculty of the University of Phoenix. He has been super helpful to me, and if you write anything to do with crime (including modern, of course) I'm sure he can be of help to you, too. Visit him at his Web site here: http://writecrimeright.blogspot.com/ His blog posts alone are extremely valuable! 5) Other authors. Jordyn and Wesley have established their own consulting services for authors, but think about the other authors you're friends with.  If they have written about a similar time period or topic, they may already know that tiny detail you're looking for. Peter Leavell, author of Gideon's Call, answered my questions about Beaufort, South Carolina, as well as two other topics I know he's researched. When I remembered that Laura Frantz featured smallpox in her book The Frontiersman's Daughter, I pinged her to help clarify my understanding of the disease. Laurie Alice Eakes wrote The Midwives series, so I went to her to ask about possible injuries to babies during delivery. [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"994", "attributes":{"class":"media-image aligncenter size-full wp-image-1808", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"600", "height":"300", "alt":"7ways to bolster research collage1"}}]] I happened to know each of these authors already, but you need not rely on friendships to ask authors a specific question. Recently, I read the nonfiction book Libby Prison Breakout, which was wonderful, but I still had a burning question. So I emailed the author, and guess what? He wrote me back with a thorough answer within 24 hours. Not all authors do that of course, but it's always worth a try. Finally, I utilize e-loops of other writers in my genre. Chances are, there is someone else out there who has the answer for what I'm looking for, even if that answer is an idea on where to search. 6) College professors. When I was researching Widow of Gettysburg, I had a lot of questions I wasn't finding answers for in terms of the cultural climate toward black people in Gettysburg. So I emailed a handful of professors at Gettysburg College and told them what I was looking for. Not surprisingly, most of them didn't have time to help me. But one of them gave me a list of ten sources to look into for all my answers. Jackpot! I was on my way. 7) Far-flung friends. This one was astounding for me to learn. Some people actually get a kick out of helping their author friends with research. My friend Bettina Dowell, who lives in Northern Virginia, went to the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. for me and scoured microfilms of old Atlanta newspapers until she found what I was looking for. Another friend, Mindelynn Young, was visiting Independence, Missouri, and took the opportunity to gather some information for me and get an in with a museum staffer who was more than willing to help. Other friends have pitched in to do online research when time was tight for me. I just sent them my questions and they sent me the answers. Think about your own friends and family. Would any of them consider it "fun" to help you--and are they in strategic locations so they could act as your proxy? For a work of historical fiction to ring true, the research behind it must be solid.  Readers will notice! The highest praise my first book earned came from the Historical Novel Society: The research behind this shines. Green’s descriptions of the first hospitals, the horrors of battlefield medicine, and the extraordinary courage and vision of the women who took on this challenge carry the whole book. For this alone it’s worth the read. That's what I want--to depict the truth while telling a compelling story. To do that, I gratefully and humbly rely on all the help I can get! The final product is worth the effort. [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"995", "attributes":{"class":"media-image aligncenter wp-image-2900", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"600", "height":"239", "alt":"4novels"}}]]  

[[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"679", "attributes":{"class":"media-image alignright", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"193", "height":"300", "alt":"WeddedtoWarcover-193x300"}}]]by Jocelyn Green I should have known better. But when the local reporter came to interview me about my newly released novel, Wedded to War, I told her that my kids, ages 3 and 6, would be home with us, but that they “knew how to stay quiet.” Can you guess how that interview went? Let’s just say that by the end of it, the reporter shifted her line of questioning from the Civil War inspiration to: “This is your fifth book since I was here last time. How do you write with two little kids running around?” Great question! I’m practically starved for writing time most of the year, and if you have a family or a job or some desire to do anything other than write, I know you can relate. I do have one writer friend who, when a book deadline approaches, packs up and heads to her cabin in the mountains for weeks at a time to just get ‘er done. How nice for her. But since we can’t all have the cabins of our dreams, and the time to use them, what’s a writer to do? The only answer is to maximize the time that we do have. Here are ten tips I’ve picked up over the past several years. 1) Write without editing yourself. (Yet.) I was an editor before I wrote any books. But when I let my editor’s brain take over my writer’s brain, I played a mental tug-of-war on the page, rewriting a scene (or even—dare I say it?—a single paragraph) several times and not making any actual progress on the word count in a given day. Since then I learned that we write with one side of our brain, and we edit with the other side. So don’t try to do both at once. Just write the thing first. You can edit later. In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott says: “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft—you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft—you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it’s loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy.” I have gone through more than three drafts, I’m sure, but that’s beside the point. The point is—get it down. Editing slows the process in the initial stage. 2) Don’t do the laundry. At least, not during your writing time. Writing from home, it’s so tempting to “just throw in one load.” But if you put a load in the washer, you’ll probably want to put it into the dryer. And if you put it in the dryer, chances are, you’ll want to fold the clothes before they wrinkle. The interruptions pile up faster than the laundry. The same concept goes for washing the dishes, dusting, etc. It might seem like just a few quick minutes to straighten up, but if it’s taking away from your writing time—and more importantly, from your focus—it’s not allowed. I read somewhere that after every interruption, it takes about 20 minutes to get fully back into the groove of your previous momentum. I can’t cite this source, and I’m not sure how they did this study, but it feels true enough, or close enough to the truth, for me to ruthlessly squelch the urge to do just a tiny chore during writing time. 3) Set goals. And make them just beyond what you think you can achieve. Whether you try to hit a word count or write a certain number of scenes per day, aim for something. If you’re at a loss in this area, the book 90 Days to Your Novel spells out all the daily goals for you. You can adjust the timeframe as you see fit. 4) Write “as the bullets fly.” I’m stealing this phrase from Pamela Redmond Satran in a recent article she wrote in a recent issue of Writer’s Digest. She shares how after she had a baby, she waited until the quiet moments of nap time or after bedtime to write, but it was never enough. Then, she had an epiphany. She says: “Forget about waiting for the quiet moment alone in the pristine room: I was never going to get that again, at least not for a long time. And so rather than stealing writing time in my office, I moved my laptop to the living room. Instead of writing late at night or early in the morning before my child woke up, I started doing it while she was right there. I wrote while I watched the 802nd viewing of Cinderella. . . ” And the pages added up. This is something I am learning to do right now. My “office” (aka laptop) now travels with me to the playroom, the family room, and the backyard. I use www.logmein.com to access the files and email on my desktop computer. 5) Be anti-social. When you’re up against a deadline, shut down your email, turn off Facebook, Twitter, etc. One writer I know deactivates her Facebook profile when she’s writing, and reactivates it once she’s done. If you really can’t go totally dark, tell yourself you will only do social media during one (or two) designated small slots of time a day. Being anti-social in real life helps, too. For weeks or months, I just have to say no to most of my social life. Pampered Chef party? I'll order online. Girls Night Out? I'm eating at my desk in my writing pants. Fantastic movie playing? I'll see it on Netflix later. (You get the idea.) One important exception-I make a point of deliberate one-on-one time with my husband, and of course some quality time with the kids. I can make all kinds of sacrifices in the name of deadline, but I do draw the line somewhere. 6) Write when you’re fresh. If you do your best writing in the morning, don’t whittle away that time responding to emails. Write first. The emails can usually wait. I used to tell myself I could write in the evenings, but I’m so exhausted by the end of the day, one hour in the morning is worth three hours at night! 7) Get up earlier. Hey, I’m not a morning person either, but I found that by getting up at 5am instead of when my kids get up at 7, I can double the amount of writing time I usually get in a day. Amazing! 8 ) Skip writer’s block. If you have trouble writing a certain scene, skip it and move on to something else you can get into. You can always go back to that trouble spot later and fill it in. Just keep writing. 9) Create time. What can you delegate to others to free up more writing time for yourself? Would it be worth it to have a maid service come in so you can use that time to write? Child care is always a dilemma when they are young. I hired a babysitter (make that seven babysitters—long story) last summer. This summer I am bribing them. If they are good in the morning, we go bowling or to the water park in the afternoon. I’m also trying to write as the bullets fly! If they are too young for this to work, you might want to find another mom and swap kids a couple times a week. The other relentless time-consuming issue is meal preparation. I don’t want to spend hours in the kitchen before and after we eat dinner, but I also don’t want to resort to fast food or take-out. So I make meals ahead of time and stock the freezer with them. Check out the book Don’t Panic! Dinner’s In the Freezer for plenty of recipes. When I run out of my own freezer meals, I'm not above Stauffers, Marie Calendar, etc. 10) Pray. This is the easiest thing to do, and so important. Before your fingers touch the keyboard, pray. Pray that God will give you focus, clarity, creativity, whatever it is you most need on that day. And ask others to join you! Many writers, myself included, have a prayer team supporting them throughout their writing project. Or just ask a few trusted friends for prayer on a more spontaneous basis. I cannot even count the number of times I have asked friends to pray, and then within days (sometimes within hours) that specific request was answered above and beyond my expectations and hopes. Stories are powerful. Jesus used them (parables) to communicate profound truths. Why not pray that God will help us tell the story He wants us to tell, the way He wants us to tell it, and that He would help us do it before our deadline? If he could feed the five thousand from two loaves of bread and five fish, He can help us make the most of our writing time. How do YOU make the most of your writing time?

[[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"679", "attributes":{"class":"media-image alignright", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"135", "height":"210", "alt":"WeddedtoWarcover-193x300"}}]]We are 30 days away from the official release date of Wedded to War, and the pace is picking up to spread the word! Check out these three pieces, all published just today: Review of Wedded to War at Novel Reviews An interview with me about Wedded to War at Wordsmith Journal Magazine (scroll down about halfway down the page to find it) This link will be good for the interview until the next issue comes out July 1. A column written by me for writers, in Christian Fiction Online magazine: Grilling Your Characters: 7 Questions to Make Your Plot Sizzle. Again, this link will only have my column until July 1, when the next issue is published. (Update: I reposted the content here!) Please consider sharing any of these above links with friends who may be interested! Thank you!

I’ve been a writer for as long as I can remember. But up until recently, it’s been solely nonfiction. So when I first got the bug to try writing a novel, the first thing I did was write to my fiction-writing friends and call my agent. “Am I crazy?” I asked. “Can I possibly make the switch from nonfiction to fiction? Because if you tell me it will never work, I’ll put the idea out of my head right now and just stick with what I know.” I meant it. But they all said the same thing. “If you want to write fiction, write fiction. If you can write, you can write fiction. You already know how to tell a story. Everything you need to know about telling a fictional story can be learned.” They meant it, too. And so it began. I polled my favorite authors about their favorite books on the craft, consulted Writer’s Digest for their top picks, and spent a small fortune learning how to spin a tale. So I’d like to share with you the best books I’ve found on writing fiction. (I’m sure there are more, but these are the ones in my stack so far.) In no particular order, they are: Getting into Character by Brandlilyn Collins The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler Story Structure Architect by Victoria Lynn Schmidt 20 Master Plots and How to Build Them by Ronald B. Tobias 90 Days to Your Novel by Sarah Domet From First Draft to Finished Novel by Karen S. Wiesner Make a Scene by Jordan E. Rosenfeld Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass How to Write and Sell a Christian Novel by Gilbert Morris The Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass Self-editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King Have you found other great books on writing fiction? If so, I’d love to hear about them.

I realize this blog has been pretty quiet lately--and for good reason. I've been writing my first novel, and my goodness, is it all-consuming. But recently, Brittany Biggs, editorial assistant and author relations extraordinaire at Moody Publishers was in town, and she wrote a blog post about our visit. It originally appeared at River North Fiction, but I'd like to share it with you here too: Hello Fiction Friends, I had the pleasure of meeting one of our great authors this weekend. When I first started working here at Moody Publishers, I was corresponding with Jocelyn Green and noticed on her email signature that she lives on the same street that I did when I attended the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. It was a fun little coincidence to me. Well, my husband and I took a little trip back to that area this past weekend for a get together with some of his college buddies and their wives and I was able to pop in on Jocelyn and finally meet her face to face. This was my first sit down with an author and it was really neat to hear about her process and see firsthand the different ways in which she organizes herself and her thoughts. Here are 5 fun little facts that I learned about Jocelyn and her writing process: 1) The 4 Civil War fiction novels that Jocelyn is writing for us are her first fiction novels. She has done so much research. In order to keep her ideas organized, she tapes colored index cards to the wall with one line running east to west with actual historical events and then cards running north and south that are fiction lines she is adding in. 2) She also keeps bulletin boards that are packed with pictures of real people from the specific time and place she is writing about, samples of clothes, and pictures of the actual places. 3) She has her own writing room where she keeps all of her materials and said her necessary items include a cup of coffee, her coffee cup warmer, a candle, and writing pants. 4) Jocelyn is a wife and mother of 2 children on top of being a busy author. She keeps her house rolling smoothly by preparing dinners in bulk and freezing them so that her family can still sit down together for dinner at night even though she is working hard at writing. 5) My favorite thing that Jocelyn told me is that at one point in time it was relaxing to have her cat pounce around while she was writing but now she has to keep an eye on the cat because not too long ago he caught his tail on fire while playing too close to Jocelyn’s candle. That would be a little stressful I would say! He looks so sweet and innocent here! It was so great meeting Jocelyn and getting a chance to learn firsthand what a writer does in preparation for a novel. Thanks again for your time and hospitality! Go Panthers! ~Brittany