Since I write primarily historical fiction, I glean inspiration for stories, scenes, settings, plot points, characters, etc., mostly from history itself. "I can use this" is a constant mental refrain as I scour historical sources, looking for fodder for fiction. For example, my Silver Rush mystery series is set in the 1880s, with the first five books in Colorado, primarily Leadville, and the three most recent in San Francisco, California. Why did I pick Leadville as the starting point? Well, that also springs from history, in this case, my family's history. When I was in my mid-forties, I learned that my paternal grandmother had been raised in Leadville. I knew nothing about the place, so at the urging of my uncle, I began to dig around into Leadville's beginnings as a silver-mining boomtown, with an eye to setting a novel there. I found many parallels between those heady days of the late 1870s/early 1880s, when folks rushed to this remote Rocky Mountain location, a...
Sharp and pointed advice about writing, editing, and publishing. Take your novel to the next level.