Tag: Research

Too Much Research  (Or Why You Must Leave Awesome Things Out Of Your Book)

Too Much Research (Or Why You Must Leave Awesome Things Out Of Your Book)

Case Study: WHERE THE SWEET BIRD SINGS Subject: Canavan Disease Authors choose to write about a subject, location, or timeframe because there’s something about one or all of these things that makes them tick. They’re willing to spend time, often years, rolling around in the details, envisioning the scenes, researching. But if the work is […]

July 31, 2017 | By | 1 Reply More
How Newspapers Inspire Fiction Writers

How Newspapers Inspire Fiction Writers

Historical documents can be treasure troves for fiction writers. We’ve all read stories based upon real historic events, or people, and no doubt some authors were inspired by historical manuscripts, either accessed in an archive, online, or in biographies. Letters, diaries, wills, government records – these are rich seams for writers to interrogate and use […]

May 24, 2015 | By | 1 Reply More
Qaisra Shahraz: Researching a Novel in Morocco

Qaisra Shahraz: Researching a Novel in Morocco

Qaisra Shahraz, born in Pakistan, is a critically acclaimed novelist and scriptwriter and has lived in Manchester since she was nine.  Her books have been published in numerous countries and translated into various languages. We asked her if she could tell us about her latest research for her novel based in Morocco. Apart from journalism, research […]

October 18, 2014 | By | 3 Replies More
Researching Kipling and his Sister

Researching Kipling and his Sister

I loved everything about the research for Kipling & Trix: old letters in archives, childhood photographs, biographies, memoirs, histories of the Boer War—but most of all I loved the license to roam. Not just permission but an absolute demand for travel, tracing lives passed between India and Britain. For it was my plan to follow […]

September 22, 2013 | By | 6 Replies More