Tag: how can I research historical fiction

Rowan Coleman: “I Was a Bit Grumpy…”

Special guest Rowan Coleman, bestselling author of Never Tear Us Apart, reveals how a research trip to Malta started with her being ‘a bit grumpy’ but resulted with her making a magical connection with the island…

TRANSCRIPT

MARK: You went to Malta to research this. So what’s your process when you go to a place to research? Do you have like a shopping list of things to do, or do you just step out the hotel and go, right, where do I go now?

ROWAN: I was a bit grumpy about it, actually. Because, believe it or not, because the island itself is… but it’s sort of tied up with my own feelings about my relationship with my father. And so I was like, well, I expect I’m just gonna hate it and it’s going to be rubbish and I won’t like it. But when I turned up, it was the opposite. I did actually feel weirdly, immediately connected to it. And my shopping list is… I don’t really have a specific set of things for this book, because I first visited before I started writing it, really. If I’ve written a book already, like with The Summer of Impossible Things, I knew that I wanted to get to various locations in Brooklyn. But for this book, I was just getting a sense of the island for the first time, and so I just let it lead me. And it’s very small. It’s about the size of the Isle of Wight. And so the first thing that drew me were the ancient temples, and there are many Mesolithic temples on the island that are absolutely magical and fascinating. And that kind of was like my my first step on a very organic journey into putting all the components of the book together.

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The Tiny, Weird Obsessions of Writers with Julie Owen Moylan

There’s a lovely bit in this week’s Bestseller Experiment podcast with novelist Julie Owen Moylan where she talks about writers wanting approval, ‘We want to get our homework marked.’ And it’s true, we set out as writers with dreams of our work getting great reviews and being loved by all… But one of the lessons you learn as soon as people start reading your stuff is that you can’t please everyone. It’s a fool’s errand and you’re much better off writing to please yourself first. And that can start by leaning into what Julie calls her ‘tiny, weird obsessions’. These are the things that you think no one will get. The thoughts, jokes and peculiarities that you think are completely unique to you. And they probably are, but that doesn’t mean others won’t understand. Because all those strange little idiosyncrasies are your voice. That’s what makes you unique and will make you writing unlike any other. Some people won’t get it, but those who do will absolutely love it. Be true to yourself. Be weird.