Whenever I say I write medieval romance, the first comment I get is “But you have to do so much research!” Let’s leave aside for the moment that for me, research is a “get to,” not a “have to.” The truth is, contemporary authors have to do research, too. I had breakfast with Mary Alice Monroe the other day and she is about to go out in the Atlantic Ocean on a shrimp boat in total darkness for the sake of her next book. This seems to me an entirely different level of commitment than Googling “forms of address Richard II.” The point of all the research, of course, isn’t to educate the reader. That sort of “information dump” kills the story. We do it because we want to plunge you into a world you can see, hear, taste, smell, and touch. We want to draw you in so deeply that you forget about the “real” world and live in the fictional one, at least for awhile. We try to create an experience so authentic that you believe not only the world, but the truth of the characters who live there. For me, it’s not a only a question of…