Some people feel J.R.R Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings are pure genius, with Tolkien being one of the most influential writers of his time, maybe even all time. Others find his writing a bit heavy and dull, as the novel is filled with hundreds of pages of backstory… Read More »J.R.R. Tolkien – Brilliant or Boring?
Constructed in little more than 12 months by Richard I of England (“The Lionheart”), Chateau Gaillard was an imposing castle upon the French landscape, built to deter King Philip Augustus of France from invading Richard’s Norman territories. The stronghold was placed along the Seine River on a cliff extending above… Read More »The Siege of Chateau Gaillard
I came across this article, written by Leo Babuata, that deals with developing good writing habits. A lot of these are logical ideas you’ve probably already heard, but reinforcing those ideas and putting them into practice is another thing. I think his approach is simple and very do-able; it’s just a… Read More »Simple Writing Habits to Complete Your First Novel
Just a couple of recent historical fiction resources I’ve run across in the past few days: Reading Historical Fiction Squidoo Lens by Susan Higginbotham Enjoy reading historical fiction? Just getting interested in it? Here are some useful sites for readers (or prospective readers) of historical fiction. You’re bound to find something… Read More »Historical Fiction Resources
In my post yesterday — “What is Historical Fantasy?” — I touched briefly on the definition of historical fiction. For a more in depth look at this defintion, The Historical Novel Society has an entire section devoted to this topic. There are links to articles that discuss: the rules for historical… Read More »The Definition of Historical Fiction
What is the definition of historical fantasy? How does it differ from historical fiction? Fantasy? I’ve often seen the term “historical fantasy” to classify a certain subgenre of literature but have never really understoood what, exactly, that refers to. What types of works are classified in this category? I did a… Read More »What is Historical Fantasy?
The following are some medieval history resources I have run across online. Please let me know of any interesting sites you may have found as well. Internet Medieval Sourcebook – contains many writings by contemporaries of the medieval period The-ORB: Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies – an academic site for scholars… Read More »Medieval History Resources Online
I was chatting on a forum the other day, and the conversation sparked the idea for this blog post. When writing your novel, what is the best way to incorporate research and historical details into your writing? I’m not sure there is a best practice for doing this; everyone most likely… Read More »Writing and Historical Research