Welcome to the conversation!

Join historical novel writer Marilyn Weymouth Seguin here every week for conversation about digital tools you can use for researching, writing, revising, publishing and promoting your work! Buy the eBook at this link.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

How accurate do you need to be?

As a writer of historical fiction for children and young adults, I was mortified to find one of my books shelved as nonfiction--biography in my local library. Historical fiction, I tell my readers, is a blend of fact and fiction. The writer has to balance telling an engaging story with telling the truth according to the historical record.  Guest blogger Anne Cleeland explores this conundrum in an article found at http://bit.ly/XCbPcd.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

A Writers' Resource Site

Jane McBride Choate, a writer for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Bulletin, alerted me to the site GalleyCat: The First Word on the Book Publishing Industry. It offers a link to Writer Resources that is particularly useful to writers who self publish, as well as those who publish mainstream. This week, the link has an article on “How to Write a Long Novel” and an info graphic on “How to Write a Scene in Eleven Steps.”  You can comment on what you read or share the articles on social media sites, making this site interactive for those of us in the writing/publishing community.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

This afternoon I went on a field trip to the Smithsonian’s Museum of National History—a virtual field trip, that is. The 22-minute video tour of the site is introduced by author David Baldacci and divided into four sections:
1.       Welcome; Lewis and Clark Compass
2.       Star Spangled Banner
3.       David Drake Pottery
4.       Lincoln’s Pocket Watch
The field trip is designed for K-12 students and their teachers who want to explore historic objects and connect them with American history. Anyone can take the free field trip and download the supplementary materials and activities at the site, however.
As a writer of historical fiction, I often use objects (such as a compass, a flag, a pot, a watch) as symbols for something going on in my plot. Exploring the objects on the virtual field trip reminds me that I should do more of that in my narrative text.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Free Online Historical Dictionary

Today I discovered a free online historical dictionary at History Today. According to the website, “The dictionary is a compendium of facts, figures, mini biographies and definitions of historical terms.  It covers people, places, key events and epochs. “

To access information, simply type a term into the search box. I typed in “Battle of
Gettysburg,” and got a 100-word article of basic information about that event. Although the site is not very useful for in depth research, it might be good for finding quick information about minor events that occur in the time period about which you are writing. You can also browse the site by period, location and themes. This site is a companion to the magazine History Today.