Dear Dr Darwin You’ve talked elsewhere about finding the “white space between the facts” on which we can write, and I think I’ve found a time and place – the run-up to Waterloo – which gives me (just about) enough white space for fiction. But I’m finding it very hard to write anything on those […]
Writing About Writing
Emma Darwin ponders the challenges of writing her new guide to historical fiction. I’ve been known to argue that writing historical fiction is the ultimate challenge for a novelist, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that when John Murray Learning commissioned me to write Get Started in Writing Historical Fiction for their Teach Yourself imprint, […]
How to make us believe your bucklers are swashing and your Tyrian is truly purple
Dear Dr Darwin, You keep saying “make it vivid and convincing”, but how do I do that? When I put in lots of detail my writers’ circle say it slows up the story; when I cut it back they say they don’t believe in the places. When I make my characters act/think/react differently from how […]