If you look under Tips on my website, you’ll find tips on research and writing and also on writing historical fiction, which you may find useful. The best advice I can give to anyone writing historical fiction is to ‘walk the walk’, visit the places you’re writing about to get a feel for the location: what your characters might see (you’ll have to use your imagination sometimes!) in terms of buildings, topography, flora, fauna etc. Also on site, if you’re writing historical fiction, you’ll usually find really useful guides, either handouts or books, maps, brochures etc, all of which will help to flesh out the research you do online.
And, of course, the most important thing is what Bryce Courtney called ‘bum glue’ – you have to sit in that chair and WRITE. And edit. And write some more. Repeat. Repeat! Finally, when you’ve polished your mss to perfection – send it out to publishers. Remember: persistence pays off in the end, but do pay attention if any of them offer advice on your story. They know the market and what sells and that’s about 90% of what they’re looking for in a story! Entering your stories/novels into competitions can also be helpful. Great if you win but it’ll also give you a taste of what publishers are looking for and you might even get feedback, which is gold. Belonging to a writers’ group is also helpful, so long as you trust the group to give you honest and useful feedback, and you trust their judgment. Finally: at the end of the day this is YOUR story with YOUR name going on it, so you need to be confident that this is what you want to say and that you’re proud to own it!
