The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is a great – and little-known – resource for historical novelists. Frances Quinn found the idea for her new book, That Bonesetter Woman, there. As anyone who’s had dealings with the publishing industry will know, one of the things it loves best is ‘the same, but different’; in other […]
Historia interviews: 2021 Gold Crown Award winner Chris Lloyd
Chris Lloyd won the HWA Gold Crown Award in 2021 for The Unwanted Dead, a tense thriller set in Paris at the start of the Nazi occupation in 1940. Detective Eddie Giral, still traumatised by his experiences during the First World War, is helpless in the face of this menace. There’s one thing he still […]
Six tips on researching your historical novel
Stephanie Merritt (SJ Parris) is the author of the bestselling historical thriller series about Giordano Bruno. The latest book in the series, Execution, is out now. She is also the tutor of Curtis Brown Creative’s six-week online Writing Historical Fiction course. For Historia, she shares six tips on how to get going with your historical […]
Battling with history: how to write fight scenes and battles in historical fiction
How do you write a battle scene which engages your readers and drives the story on? It’s a question many authors of historical fiction fight with. Matthew Harffy, well known for his action-filled Bernicia Chronicles series, gives Historia his advice. All good stories need conflict, and what better way to convey conflict than to have […]
Historia interviews, 2020 Crown Awards shortlists: John Larison
John Larison is the author of Whiskey When We’re Dry, a remarkable novel which, with its compelling voice, challenges the traditional values of the Western and which is shortlisted for the HWA Gold Crown Award. This is the fourth in Historia’s series of interviews with writers shortlisted for the 2020 Crown Awards. Congratulations on being […]
Historia interviews, 2020 Crown Awards shortlists: Anita Frank
Anita Frank’s first novel, The Lost Ones, is shortlisted for the 2020 HWA Debut Crown Award. She tells Historia about her love of history, the inspiration for her book – including big houses, spiritualism and the First World War – and passes on some tips for new writers. The HWA Debut Crown celebrates new voices […]
Historia interviews: Clare Mulley and Carolyn Kirby
The biographer Clare Mulley has been in the news recently for her success in obtaining an English Heritage blue plaque to commemorate wartime SOE agent Krystyna Skarbek, also known as Christine Granville, who was said to be ‘Churchill’s favourite spy.’ Krystyna was the subject of Clare’s bestselling 2012 biography The Spy Who Loved and Clare […]
Writing historical fiction to an anniversary: some tips
If you’re writing a novel to mark the anniversary of a historical event – perhaps the most unmovable deadline there is – you may find these tips from Carolyn O’Brien, who learned them the hard way, will help you succeed. When my debut novel The Song of Peterloo was published in August 2019 to coincide […]