|
|
 |
The Setting of Your Novel
The setting of your novel is about many things.
Your novel may be set in a bleak, unforgiving wilderness or a luxury hotel. It may show people working in a high-tech environment or on another planet; it can have adventurers in the Amazon or space travellers on another planet.
Wherever your characters play out their story, it's essential that you make the setting believable. How do you create that elusive 'sense of place'? These articles will help you do it..
|
Knowing Your Place
Vashti Farrer
Getting that sense of "place" or "setting" right, can make or break a story, but too often, we spend so much time tackling our characters, making them behave and speak the way we want them to, that "place" seems like extra slog and is relegated to the "too hard" basket. If you can enable your reader to feel he was there, you allow him to become an eye-witness to the events and your story will remain memorable long after he has finished reading. It doesn't matter if he doesn't know the actual place, what's important is to make him feel he was there, and it's all in the detail. . . . keep reading
|
What's All This Research Stuff?
Steve Martin
In her article, 'Getting Hysterical About Historicals', Vashi Farrer spoke of the need to be accurate when writing historical fiction. Accuracy requires research. What is research? how do we go about it? What do we do with it when we get it… and how much is enough? . . . keep reading
|
THE SHALOTT TRILOGY -
Turning History and Legend into Fiction for Teenagers
Felicity Pulman
The idea for the Shalott novels came to me from Tennyson's poem. It raised so many questions: who was the Lady of Shalott? Why was there a curse on her? Why, when she saw Sir Lancelot and left the tower, did she have to die? After that came the 'what if' questions that authors so often ask themselves, the first one being: what if it were possible to go back in time and change a legend (or history)? . . . keep reading
|
Writing History That SellsGhost Boy and the Quarantine Station
Felicity Pulman
I have always been fascinated by the unknown in our world, and enjoy exploring the idea of knowledge travelling through time, time slip and parallel universes, reincarnation and ghosts. This all came together when I started asking myself: what if a ghost from the past could bring information into the future, information which helps to solve a family mystery? . . . keep reading
|
Setting - Why It Can Make Or Break Your Story
Marg McAlister
If you don't truly understand the relevance of your setting, then you're not going to do it justice in your book. And if the READER can't see the relevance of what you've written, they're not going to spend time on it. (That breeze you can feel has been created by the reader flipping through the pages to find something more interesting to read.) Relevance means that the setting is so integral to your story that it can't be extracted without affecting the whole flow and meaning of the story. . . . keep reading
|
Getting Hysterical About Historicals
Vashti Farrer
Every time you need to provide information, ask yourself - Does my reader need to know this? Chances are he won't and as a general rule: If in doubt, leave it out. Most of your research will probably end up on the cutting room floor, but none will it go to waste. If you steep yourself in the period it can't help but show itself by a process of osmosis. You won't, for instance, make anachronistic mistakes. You won't dress your 18th century heroine in a crinoline, or feed potatoes to your 10th century English peasants. . . . keep reading
|
Historically Speaking
by Carol Harvey
So, you want to write an/a historical novel? Well, apart from a passion for history, you will need to do a lot of research -- very little of which you will actually use. Still interested? Good, a kindred spirit; read on! . . . keep reading
|
|
|
|
|
Ann Harth
