Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Colleen Gleason | Research & the Paranormal Historical
Romance / September 11, 2007

I’ve been asked many times about whether I research before writing my historical novels, or as I go. The short answer is: I research as I go. But that’s partly because I’ve been writing, reading, and watching historical fiction for a long time. So, I already have at least a sense of the era. I know the basics about what the people wear, how they travel about, what conveniences they have and don’t have, etc., so when I sit down to write a book set in the past, I have enough information just to be dangerous.But the fun part comes as I’m writing, because that’s when things start to happen. Usually, I have the bare bones of a plot, but not the details. And the details, in my opinion, are what make a book. And the details are what I research when I’m in the process of writing. When I have to make decisions–about what someone is wearing in particular, about where a certain house or building is located, about what they might eat at a ball or fete, about a political event that’s happening–that’s when I do the research for that particular thing. I stop writing and start searching….