Guest Blog Post
Laraine Stephens
Writing Historical Fiction
Welcome to this week’s #TuesdayTip.
Today, I am delighted to welcome Laraine Stephens as a guest blogger.
I am a writer of contemporary police procedurals, so I am especially excited to feature a writer of historical crime fiction.
Laraine lives in Beaumaris, a bayside suburb of Melbourne, Australia. After a career as a teacher-librarian and Head of Library, she decided to turn her hand to the craft of crime writing. She is a member of Writers Victoria, Sisters in Crime (Australia), the Australian Crime Writers’ Association and the Crime Writers’ Association of the UK.
Laraine’s debut novel, The Death Mask Murders, is the first in the Reggie da Costa Mysteries series. It was published by Level Best Books in June 2021. Her second book, A Dose of Death, is due out in May 2022.
Today, I am delighted to welcome Laraine Stephens as a guest blogger.
I am a writer of contemporary police procedurals, so I am especially excited to feature a writer of historical crime fiction.
Laraine lives in Beaumaris, a bayside suburb of Melbourne, Australia. After a career as a teacher-librarian and Head of Library, she decided to turn her hand to the craft of crime writing. She is a member of Writers Victoria, Sisters in Crime (Australia), the Australian Crime Writers’ Association and the Crime Writers’ Association of the UK.
Laraine’s debut novel, The Death Mask Murders, is the first in the Reggie da Costa Mysteries series. It was published by Level Best Books in June 2021. Her second book, A Dose of Death, is due out in May 2022.
Laraine’s #TuesdayTip
CREATING AN HISTORICAL SETTING
If you are writing an historical novel, it is important to create an authentic and accurate depiction of the period you have chosen. A writer should evoke a sense of a particular time and place, weaving information seamlessly into the narrative and dialogue.
In researching The Death Mask Murders, set in Melbourne in 1918, I used digitised newspapers from the time, which were available through the National Library of Australia’s archive, Trove (free). In the United Kingdom, there is, for example, the British Newspaper Archive (pay) and in the United States, the Newspaper Archive (pay).
From these sources, you can gain a wealth of information on the social, political and economic circumstances of the time, including specific events. Another advantage of using digitised newspapers is discovering whether a word or expression was in common use at the time. For example, when was ‘meal ticket’, ‘serial killer’, ‘dodge a bullet’, ‘tuxedo’ or ‘boyfriend’ (in the romantic sense) first used? Advertisements and even the Classifieds will provide information on subjects as diverse as stage shows, entertainment, cars, prices, product brands and clothing. Without this resource, Reggie da Costa, The Argus’s senior crime reporter, in The Death Mask Murders, would never have worn his impeccably cut linen suit, high-collared cream shirt, and green striped tie from Wallace, Buck and Goodes of Queens Walk. Nor would he have driven a 1917 Dodge Roadster, a flashy, two-seater automobile with a wooden steering wheel, black paintwork, and shiny large headlamps, which was his pride and joy.
I finish with a word of warning. When it comes to writing, historical background and detail should never overwhelm the plot. Our readers buy novels with the expectation that they will enjoy a cracking, good story, rather than drowning in a reservoir of information.
(c) Laraine Stephens 2021.
CREATING AN HISTORICAL SETTING
If you are writing an historical novel, it is important to create an authentic and accurate depiction of the period you have chosen. A writer should evoke a sense of a particular time and place, weaving information seamlessly into the narrative and dialogue.
In researching The Death Mask Murders, set in Melbourne in 1918, I used digitised newspapers from the time, which were available through the National Library of Australia’s archive, Trove (free). In the United Kingdom, there is, for example, the British Newspaper Archive (pay) and in the United States, the Newspaper Archive (pay).
From these sources, you can gain a wealth of information on the social, political and economic circumstances of the time, including specific events. Another advantage of using digitised newspapers is discovering whether a word or expression was in common use at the time. For example, when was ‘meal ticket’, ‘serial killer’, ‘dodge a bullet’, ‘tuxedo’ or ‘boyfriend’ (in the romantic sense) first used? Advertisements and even the Classifieds will provide information on subjects as diverse as stage shows, entertainment, cars, prices, product brands and clothing. Without this resource, Reggie da Costa, The Argus’s senior crime reporter, in The Death Mask Murders, would never have worn his impeccably cut linen suit, high-collared cream shirt, and green striped tie from Wallace, Buck and Goodes of Queens Walk. Nor would he have driven a 1917 Dodge Roadster, a flashy, two-seater automobile with a wooden steering wheel, black paintwork, and shiny large headlamps, which was his pride and joy.
I finish with a word of warning. When it comes to writing, historical background and detail should never overwhelm the plot. Our readers buy novels with the expectation that they will enjoy a cracking, good story, rather than drowning in a reservoir of information.
(c) Laraine Stephens 2021.
Laraine Stephens is a writer of historical crime fiction. Her novels are set in Melbourne, Australia in the early years of the twentieth century. Her debut novel, The Death Mask Murders, is available from Amazon
You can learn more about Laraine by visiting her Website or Facebook Page.
You can learn more about Laraine by visiting her Website or Facebook Page.
