Historical Fiction

[mrsf]

Old writer, newly minted college student at Mount Holyoke. One year down and received a research grant for my book. Lots of questions, new to Scrivener. Hope you won't mind

[KyCoo]

Hello. I'm new here too.

[Ahab]

Folks here are remarkably forthcoming with answers to questions, from technical arcana to the proper listening music for writers. Though the first questions are often answered by variations on a Did-You-Do-The-Inbuilt-Tutorial? theme.

[YorkshireMom]

MR - I'm also new to Scrivener, and new to Historical Fiction. Although I've published three nonfiction books, this feels like baby steps. I just spent an hour figuring out how to make new character sketches!

Good to have a friend out there.

I'll be at the Writers Digest Novel Writing Conference in Pasadena this week - hopefully will come home ready to go. I'm going to use NaNoWriMo to kick start my book

[tarzanofmars]

I do historical fiction as well. Infinitely harder than freeform fiction. I estimate that I've spent 12 hours researching for every 1 spent writing.
I'm at 160k words so far, with a long way to go, but I'm well over the hump on research now, the further I move along the less I will need to research and the more I can write.

How is yours coming along?

[NsKu]

I too write historical fiction, or something to that direction anyway. I have been fan for history as long as I remember, been reading actual history and fiction for ages. Much comes from there what I remember, and its a true.. really much goes when you search something...

[SkyPilot]

My favorite genre. And, while I do a lot of research, I've found that using just a few kernels of truth, give me a launchpad for a fictional aspect that can be as simple or elaborate as I want it to be. As a for instance, in the latest attempt, I took a few easily researched facts about The Boneyard, out at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson....some facts about the C5 Galaxy, and the Antonov 225, and created a smuggling ring that operated in plain sight, with the Antonov easily hidden among the stored bombers and transports on the field. Great fun. Since very, very, very few people get up close and personal out there, the storyline only needed a few facts to give it believability. Additionally, that gave me leeway to write about gov't recycling efforts, START-2 verification, historical aircraft...none of it lengthy, but colorful, anyway.

In an earlier novel, I got stumped with a submarine sequence. A very good friend is a retired Trident Commander. At breakfast one morning, I expressed my "block", because I knew nothing beyond the hatch on the submarine. His comment was eye-opening and liberating: "Neither does anyone else". Only a few thousand men and women have ever been in the command center of a Nuke. All I had to do was find a few easily researched facts, and I was off and running with the story. Except for those relatively few people who've been in a SSBN, no one would know whether much of my story was truth or fiction, and I was then able to create a (non-existent, but storyline-critical) means of sub communication, when it is very far below the surface.

Here's wishing you much success in your writing, MRSF.