Rose McCauley, Christian Author

We have a contest winner and we are all winners with notes from Tricia Goyer's historical writing class!

Congrats to Delia, and a copy of A Valley of Betrayal by Tricia Goyer will soon be on its way to her. Everyone (except Delia) who leaves a comment on my blogs during the month of October who also leaves or emails me their contact info will be entered into a drawing for DiAnn Mills' new book When the Nile Runs Red. You can read more about her book on my last blog.

I'm posting a picture of me with Tricia at the ACFW conference in Dallas last month. I took her very interesting and informative class on Historical Writing, and she has graciously given me permission to share some of the notes from that class on this blog.

Here are some of the steps from her "system":

à I read a general overview of the time in history to discover plot points. Then I put them in a PLOT document
à My plot is a BREAKDOWN OF SCENES.
à I color-coded the scenes by character.
à I work with through the Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook, and the assignments lead to information about character (which I put in the character file) and plot points (plot file).
à THEN I research the information I’ll need for of plot and characters.
à I check important dates/events.
à I research specifics that will be in my scenes.

The details for the scenes that I research are:
à Who does what?
à Who goes where?
à Motivation?
à Conflict?
à Setting?

As you can tell the “factual research” usually happens later in the process. It’s important for me to get a general overview of the time in history, but the more novels I write the more I’ve disciplined myself to focus on exactly what I need for each scene. It helps me to focus where the information is needed the most. It saves time. And it saves me from running away on rabbit trails.

I love:
www.wikipedia.com
http://dmarie.com/timecap/step1.asp
Used books. (The closer to the time period I’m writing about the better!)
I do look for information on the Internet, but I’d rather have an old, musty book in my hand.

Anyone desiring more info can check out Tricia's sites at www.triciagoyer.com or
www.triciagoyer.blogspot.com or you can order the whole set of 4 CDs from her class or many other great classes by going to www.acfw.com/conference and at the bottom of the screen it will tell you where you can order all the sessions. Happy learning!