Honing the Historical

One of the many reasons I wanted to attend the RNA conference this year was to catch Michelle Styles, Harlequin Mills and Boon historical author, workshop on Making Your Historical World Come Alive. Now, strictly speaking I'm not writing an historical since my setting is mythological and the time period is so-called prehistory, but since it's definitely not contemporary I really wanted to soak up her advice.

So I was really happy when she offered to send anyone who was interested the notes from her workshop. And they are proving to be very helpful.

I especially liked the section on imagining your novel is a movie and then justifying each scene in terms of the budget available, as to whether or not that scene is working hard enough. Since I always imagine my novels are movies unfolding in my head (I've never pretended I'm not deluded!), I can really relate to this, and it makes a lot of sense to me.

Once I finish with Lil and start on the editing (oh joy... yeah right...!) I'll be using Michelle's notes to help tighten and polish. Considering I've just hit 91k and STILL have a fair amount of loose ends to tie up, I definitely need all the help I can get!