English Christmas through History

The Writing Life: A Passion for Christmas through History
posted by Donna Fletcher Crow

When asked to give advice for up-coming writers the first words out of my mouth are usually, "Write from your passion." Few things in my career give a better example of that than do my Christmas novels. 

I love Christmas! I love English history! I love novels! So what greater joy than to be able to combine these loves in telling stories that give us glimpses of English Christmases through the years and have allowed me to call on my own experiences in forming the stories, such as my first English Christmas in a Cotswold village in 2000.

Glastonbury, my epic of the Christian history of England, includes a Christmas story. After all, one could hardly tell 1500 years of history without including Christmas. As a matter of fact, the book opens with a druid on Glastonbury Tor observing the Star of Bethlehem.

It is in the section on Norman England, however, that we experience a full, Medieval Christmas when young Bors returns home to the manor house from schooling in the monastery. (Although not as young as my grandson when he slew his first dragon.) The full Twelve Days of Christmas are meticulously observed, complete with yule log, wassail, a roasted boar’s head, a Lord of Misrule, and mummers performing St. George and the Dragon.

Christmas celebrations in England became more subdued after the Reformation with suspicions that many of the former festivities were pagan. In 1647, Cromwell’s Puritan government actually canceled Christmas. Not only were traditional expressions of merriment strictly forbidden, but also shops were ordered to stay open, churches were closed and ministers arrested for preaching on Christmas day.

By the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries, although the traditions of a full-blown Dickensian Christmas had not yet been introduced (many of them started by German-born Prince Albert) festivities had been restored. My Where There is Love series encompasses six novels of love and faith—stories of real people and stirring historic events. Where Love Restores, book 4, recounts Granville Ryder’s struggle to find his place in his illustrious family, in God’s work and in Georgiana’s heart. The book takes the reader through the seasons of a late Regency year, including Christmas on an English country estate which included a fox hunt and hunt ball, constructing an English kissing ring, midnight Christmas Eve service, and alms-giving on Boxing Day. All as it was celebrated in Georgiana's home, Badminton House, which I had the delight of visiting many years ago.

For an out-of-the ordinary contemporary English Christmas I draw on the Christmas I spent in an English monastery “helping” my daughter prepare for her Epiphany wedding. Although, I hope I wasn’t quite as pushy as my heroine’s mother.

An All-Consuming Fire, book 5 in my Monastery Murders, finds Felicity and Antony happily planning a Christmas wedding in the monastery. It’s all idyllic until Felicity’s over-bearing mother arrives and tries to turn the whole event into a royal wedding. And Antony is drafted to narrate a television documentary on the English mystics. And then Felicity takes on the challenge of directing a Christmas pageant for Kirkthorpe’s troubled youth on a long-disused stage in an abandoned quarry at the back of the monastery grounds.

At least most of the vexing disruptions occurring on the filming locations are miles away from the Community of the Transfiguration. Until the threats move closer. Close enough to threaten the joy of Felicity and Antony's Christmas wedding.

I hope that one of my stories might help enrich your Christmas season with an understanding of past traditions and provide a few leisure hours spent reading by the light of your Christmas tree. I’d love to hear of some of your favorite traditions—whether from history or all-new.

See more at: https://www.donnafletchercrow.com/

What is Tack?

 Rita Stella Galieh @RitaSGalieh

Have you ever decided to write about something of which you have scant knowledge? Actually my 19th century hero is an estate or land agent in England. Now I need to know something about what his work entails. Before I knew it, my research has led me to find out all about farms in that century. What sort of farming and in which shire would it be? After hours of searching on Google, I decided on Wiltshire with the closest town being Swindon (because it needed to be on a rail line - the Great Western actually.) And was it set on the Midland Ridge or Clay Vales? groan....

What did I get myself into? Even so, I am learning so much and glad I'm living in the twenty-first century. My hero needs to ride a horse. So even though my niece, Jesse, is into horses and therefore knows what tack is all about, it was completely new to me.  I probably won't even use most of what I am discovering, but I need to be comfortable about its use. And I'll sure check with someone who knows all about tack supplies. I never before had the faintest idea of all the bits and pieces needed with horse riding. Now a working horse is an entirely different matter. It might be a draft horse, or one used for mill grinding, or ploughing!

I have to disagree with the someone who once said... 'write what you know.'  That's impossible if you happen to be a historical romance author. Still, wouldn't it be wonderful to find everything you need in one book?  I wonder if our readers know what we writers go through just to write a story?  I can tell you I never thought about the amount of research needed before I had to do it myself. It would be interesting to know what type of research our writers have done that's important to their story. How long it took and whether it was something you had scant knowledge of before you began.


Indie Publisher, Rita Galieh, has written a trilogy of historical novels & also contributed to several US anthologies. She is now completing a third historical romance series. Besides her weekly blog, she is on Facebook and www.ritastellapress.com  

Rita studied art at the National Art School then after their marriage, she and her husband attended Emmaus Bible College. Currently she co-presents Vantage Point, an Australia-wide Christian FM radio program. She enjoys giving her fun-filled presentations of ‘Etiquette of the Victorian Era’ in costume.

Doing Research Right

By Elizabeth Musser @EMusserAuthor 

My inspirational fiction is historical. 

I write what I like to read. With a novel, I want the author to have done her homework and present me with a well-crafted story that fits believably within whatever time-period she has chosen. I will very rarely pick up a history book and read it (I was not very good at reading my history books even in college), but I’ll gladly learn from a novel.

So, I do lots of research. 

Sometimes as a writer, it’s a bit maddening to realize that I’ve spent days and maybe weeks understanding a particular part of history that may in fact only be mentioned in a couple of paragraphs in my book. But the research must be done well to lend credibility to the story, and, in the end, I am richer for it.

A few months ago, I was blithely reading a historical fiction novel, one that had made it on many bestseller lists and came highly recommended. I was enjoying it immensely, especially because this engaging and harrowing story was recounting an unknown-to-me part of history in America. I turned the pages quickly…

Until… 

…the author did something that made me mad. She used a caricature for a character, grossly exaggerating something supposedly historical to the point that I just didn’t buy it.

And I felt deflated. 

Suddenly all of her exquisite prose and careful research unraveled for me. I finished the otherwise fine novel, but that one little slip by the author had tainted the story for me. It also served as a fresh reminder to do my research ‘right’.

I remembered all too well my first historical hiccup… 

In my debut novel, Two Crosses, I included an Author’s Note at the end, explaining the details of the Huguenot cross as it fit into French history. Somewhere between my writing the note and the publishing of the novel, the course of history got changed! I was mortified to discover that I had inadvertently destroyed the meaning of The Edict of Nantes*. (I actually think my editor changed it, and I never got to proof that part.)

Boy, was I embarrassed.

Fortunately for me, Two Crosses was reprinted (and re-edited!!!) a few years ago. My dear editor friend and I giggled at the mistakes we had made way back when.

How do we do research ‘right’? 

I’m obviously no expert, but here are three things that have helped me:

1) Whenever possible, get a first-hand account. 

 

This could come through an interview, research in a reputed history book or magazine, visiting a museum that has documented the history—something a little more trustworthy that Wikipedia (although I sometimes start there, just to get an idea.)

2) Visit the area.

As often as possible, I travel to the place I’m writing about to see it ‘up close and personal’. I need a visual to inspire my writing, so that my descriptions are accurate. If I can’t visit, I watch documentaries or find photos online of the actual place.

I visited the town of Aigues-Mortes in France while doing research for Two Crosses. The Tower of Constance, where Huguenot women were imprisoned in the 17th century, is seen in the distance.

3) Have smart and informed historians read your work.

(ie family, friends, professors, teachers, experts in the field). I’ve often been saved embarrassment by having someone wiser than I correct me.

My latest inspiration comes from a recent trip to Florida to visit Fort Caroline, the very first place that French Huguenots landed in what is now the United States. Or is it? A Huguenot descendant just told me last weekend that a reputable source is claiming that Fort Caroline was actually in Georgia.

At Fort Caroline

And so I go back to the drawing board…for a little more research…and trust that it will be worth it. 

*In 1598 The Edict of Nantes granted religious freedom to the first French Protestants (called Huguenots) until it was revoked by King Louis IV in 1685.

About Elizabeth Musser

ELIZABETH MUSSER usually writes ‘entertainment with a soul’ from her writing chalet—tool shed—outside Lyon, France. For over twenty-five years, Elizabeth and her husband, Paul, have been involved in missions’ work in Europe. To be closer to family, the Mussers have moved back to the Southeast for 2017-2018 school year and are living in the Chattanooga area near their son, daughter-in-law and three grandkids. But you can read about her humorous Thanksgiving experiences in France here. Find more about Elizabeth’s novels at www.elizabethmusser.com and on Facebook, Twitter, and her blog.


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Plumbing the Depths for a Great Story

Hello, Sandra Orchard here to talk about my latest research adventure.

Last week, a writing friend treated me to a four-day Bahamas cruise she'd been awarded and since I finished my last manuscript the week before, my plan was to brainstorm my next book with her. I find traveling is always a great time to flesh out characters, because I there is so much more time to people watch--while waiting for planes, boats, and meals or simply while sitting on the beach.

I even thought visiting a few islands might inspire ideas for the Serena Jones follow-up novel fans have been asking me to write about her honeymoon mystery in the Greek Isles.

But I didn't anticipate the inspiring sights I'd find BENEATH the water, while snorkeling!

Sure I knew there'd be a few fish eager for their fifteen minutes of fame on my next blog. 😉

Although who would've thought they'd literally line up to take turns posing for my camera. Honestly, they did! It was hilarious.

And this downed airplane was a surprise. It definitely got the creative juices churning.

Then there were these sea mines.

Thankfully the ones we found were already detonated, but my friend Lisa Belcastro told me 18,000 were recently cleared from around Martha's Vineyard (the location of Serena's last adventure) and several thousand were still live! Oh, the fun I could've had with that while writing Over Maya Dead Body.

There's always next time, of course. 😀

The best source for the contracted mystery I needed to brainstorm turned out to be a retired Navy man who was seated at our breakfast table with his wife. My friend and I had already plotted the bones of the mystery set on Orcas Island and knew we wanted "something" to be stolen from "someone high up in government", but we couldn't decide what or from whom.

Our source, who'd actually worked security in the navy, shared some amazing ideas and even scared us a little with how true-to-life many or our "fictional" ideas actually are!

We had another couple at the table who'd been in the airforce for a few years and a real estate agent and everyone soon started tossing out ideas.

And would you believe, I'd gone to breakfast without a notebook and pen?! 😧

What was I thinking?

My wise friend asked the waiter if he could bring us pen and paper, which he did, and I was soon madly jotting down all the ideas. By lunchtime, I had them culled into a timeline for the first third of the book. It was awesome!

Sadly, you'll have to wait awhile, before you can read how it turns out. The mystery will be #20 in Annie's Attic Victorian Mansion Flower Shop Mysteries, but Digging Up Secrets comes out in a few months and next time I visit, I'll share the not-so-fun way I dreamed up the idea for that mystery, based on real life . . . mine.

Until then, please visit me on Facebook and my blog for more anecdotes from the trenches.

Sandra Orchard—winner of several Canadian Christian writing awards, the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award, and the National Readers’ Choice Award, among others—leaps off the garden trails of her herbal-medicine-researcher-turned-amateur-sleuth (Port Aster Secrets) series, to the museum corridors of her plucky FBI art crime agent Serena Jones, in A Fool and His Monet, Another Day Another Dali and Over Maya Dead Body. When not plotting crimes, Sandra plays make-believe with her young grandchildren or hikes with her hubby and husky near their home in Ontario, Canada. 

The Joys of Serendipitous Research

My father always told me, “You never learn anything you don’t use sometime.”

Just like most of the things my father taught me, I have found this to be true—especially when it comes to research for my novels. Because I live in the western US and set most of my novels in England, and because I try never to write about a place I haven’t visited, research looms large in my writing life. And because I’m always working on a tight schedule I’m very focused in my research.

I always set out knowing what I need to know and where I hope to find it. At least, I always “think” I know what I need to know—and how it will fit into my story. When something unexpected turns up—someone answers a question I didn’t ask, or suggests I go someplace I hadn’t planned to go—I used to dismiss that “extraneous” information.

Until at least the third or fourth time I was back in my office writing and discovered that that superfluous material was just what I needed—if only I could remember it, since I had failed to write it down.

I had an example of this when my husband and I visited the Royal Pavilion in Brighton as background for the novel I’m currently writing—A Lethal Spectre, book 5 in my Victorian true crime series Lord Danvers Investigates—I was enchanted to encounter a Regency dance group rehearsing to perform a program for an event later that night. But they were Regency, a whole generation earlier than the 1857 setting for my story. It was charming, but I needn’t take notes.

But wait, this was something I could report to the JaneAusten Society of North America newsletter. I sought out a pavilion official and got permission to take pictures—in spite of the prohibition against photography. 

Although I submitted the article to JASNA News, it was never published. A few days ago, however, when I needed to place my Victorian characters at a ball in the Royal Pavilion, I had my pictures to refer to for accurate details—adjusting for the changes in dance and dress fashion, of course.

You can see the results when A Lethal Spectre is published early next year, but in the meantime, my latest release is the all-new edition of ATincture of Murder, book 4 in Lord Danvers Investigates:

A devastating fire at Danvers’s ancestral home induces Charles to accept his brother Frederick’s plea for help with his work among fallen women and impoverished orphans in York. Charles soon finds himself struggling to identify a ruthless murderer while Antonia helps feed the women and children living in the asylum Frederick runs. The trial of notorious poisoner William Dove leads to surprising discoveries and sets legal precedent still followed today.

Posted by Donna Fletcher Crow. You can see more about all her books on her website.

                                                                                                                          

What to Do with All That Research?

By Morgan Tarpley

The other day I was thinking about all the research and idea notes for my current novel and their various forms of organization. I will admit that I’m easily overwhelmed when it comes to all the methods that are out there to utilize. I’ve tried many of them.

There are so many ways to organize research and ideas for a project that I thought I’d go through some of the ones that I’ve tried over the years on the path to the perfect combination for me. I still haven’t gotten it just right yet, but I feel I’m close.

My current manuscript is my guinea pig, and by the time I start my next novel I hope to have narrowed the methods down some more. I would love to hear if any of these particular ideas work for you.

The first method involves collecting digital research material on my Kindle Fire. I’ve created a host of collections for each of my upcoming novels that contain both non-fiction and fiction books which I will use for research.

The next methods of research/idea organization are creating folders through email and Dropbox. Before I got Dropbox, I started creating a folder for each upcoming novel and if I found items of interest online I would email them to myself and save the emails in a folder. I guess I was pretty much doing a makeshift Dropbox. I still use my email folders, but I’ve expanded to Dropbox to directly upload documents and images, etc. for my research. It’s very handy.

Another method of mine is one that I’ve borrowed from the late great Michael Crichton using notecards and a shoebox. I actually wrote a blog post about it and more here last year. I write down ideas and tidbits of information on notecards and toss them in a shoebox for that certain future novel. I have to say it’s been a really great system.

The methods I started when I began novel writing and that I still use involve a simple binder system with tabs for different research topics and a notebook/journal that I take notes in and explore ideas, etc. I’m a total visual person so actually writing and doodling help my creative process.

The newest method I’ve explored is the use of Evernote to collect information through a partial screenshot, etc. straight to my account online. It’s really a smart way to organize information, but I haven’t gotten the exact hang of it yet. It’s definitely work checking out. Another method I’ve used a little bit that I know many writers love is Scrivener. I got the program last year, but unfortunately haven’t really explored it much yet either.

Well, these are the methods I’ve entertained so far on my writing journey. I would love to hear from you what you use and if you have any suggestions. Thanks!

Morgan Tarpley

Morgan Tarpley is an award-winning newspaper reporter and photographer in Louisiana. She is also a novelist currently seeking representation. Besides writing and traveling to over a dozen countries, her interests include acting in her local theater, genealogy, photography, and singing. She resides in Louisiana with her husband.

For more information about Morgan, visit her website (www.morgantarpley.com). You can also connect with her on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest.

On-the-Ground Setting Research

Whether you set your stories right where you live, across the country, or elsewhere in the world, you'll need to research your setting. If your story is set in a galaxy far, far away, I give you permission to make everything up.

Research for your hometown or somewhere else you're very familiar with takes a different shape, for sure. You'll need to decide how much to fictionalize in any real setting. Business names? Street names?

But let's pretend for a few minutes that you plan to set your story or series somewhere you are less familiar with.

Can you visit the setting?
If so, do it! Unless it is near enough to visit often, plan your trip carefully so you can be sure to get the information you need in one trip. If you're visiting in spring but writing a Christmas story, keep that in mind, too.

• Take a digital camera with an extra battery and an extra SD card. You definitely don't want to lose the capacity to record the details partway through your day.
• Take a lot of photos, including of signs. A recent one-day trip to Spokane, Washington, for my upcoming series resulted in over 300 images. Some of them were easy deletes when I returned home and processed them, but most stayed in the album. I often open this digital album when writing.
• Take a map you can write on, especially if you plan to use the setting "as is." Make notes on it!
• Close your eyes. Smell. Hear. Feel. These are important senses, and the information you absorb by focusing on them are much harder to get from online research. Make note of these in a notebook.

Can't go?
All is not lost if you cannot visit the setting in person. Online research is your friend!
• Google
• Wikipedia
• YouTube
• Google maps/street view
• Blogs
• Flickr
• Join a "local" FB group and read the listings.
• Contact the tourist info with specific questions

Know someone who lives there?
• Ask for a one-hour interview on Skype or a Google Hangout before starting to write. Ask what they like and dislike about where they live. Mostly listen, and keep good notes.
• Ask if they will beta read your story and point out setting errors.
• Ask questions via email during writing. Keep the questions specific so as not to waste their time.

I wrapped up my Farm Fresh Romance series in February with the release of the sixth book. For a few months before that, I spent time making decisions about the next series. I decided to create a spin-off series in an urban setting and, after much deliberation, chose Spokane, Washington. It is close enough both to the fictional setting of FFR and to where I live in Canada that I knew I could nail the setting.

I combed through Spokane on Google maps, looking for the right neighborhood. When I found a likely prospect, I switched to "street view" and went up one street and down the next, taking in the surroundings as much as the program allows. My husband was up for a one-day road trip, and off we went.

Thankfully the area was just as inviting in person as it had seemed in Google maps. We ate lunch at the neighborhood diner, walked along the river, climbed the sidewalk stairs from one street to the next, enjoyed glimpses of a fat gray squirrel and a golden-mantle marmot, listened to the birds sing, and walked amid the raised beds in the community garden.

All of these things became backdrops to Secrets of Sunbeams, the first book in my new Urban Farm Fresh Romance series.

Good fences make good neighbors.
Especially if your neighbor is a goat.
Eden Andrusek knows she should have fixed her fence last week. It’s too bad her runaway goat makes a less-than-ideal first impression on her new neighbor, who turns out to be cute, brilliant… and a little uptight.

Solar architect Jacob Riehl is furious when he returns outside to find a goat eating his presentation. As someone who likes everything in its place, he has little sympathy for a farm animal in the city or its tattooed owner, but there’s something about the lovely Eden that captures his attention.

What will it take to win over a man whose only pet was a goldfish? And how long can Jacob and Eden go without addressing the goat in the room?

Secrets of Sunbeams releases first in a multi-author box set, Whispers of Love, which also features a novel by ICFW member Marion Ueckermann plus ten other contemporary romance novels. If you haven't pre-ordered your copy of Whispers of Love, don't delay! The fantastic price of $0.99US is only guaranteed until July 4.

Click here for more information or to order for Kindle, Kobo, Nook, or iBooks.

Valerie Comer's life on a small farm in western Canada provides the seed for stories of contemporary inspirational romance. Like many of her characters, Valerie and her family grow much of their own food and are active in the local food movement as well as their church. She only hopes her creations enjoy their happily ever afters as much as she does hers, shared with her husband, adult kids, and adorable granddaughters.


Valerie writes where food meets faith and fiction in her Farm Fresh Romance series and Riverbend Romance novellas. Visit her at ValerieComer.com.

Hitting the Road for Research!

By Morgan Tarpley

I’m always up for a good road trip, especially if it includes research for a future novel.

In just a few weeks my husband and I will embark on a 10-day road trip up the East Coast of the U.S. We’ll start in Louisiana and drive through Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia to Maryland. I’m so looking forward to it.

I’ve actually never been farther northeast in the U.S. than Georgia. We will also go to Washington, D.C. and New York City. I’ve planned out a full itinerary. (You can tell from that statement I am most certainly a plotter. Lol) However, the main reason for our trip is not just as a vacation but because my brother-in-law will graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. We will attend graduation as well as the Graduation Ball. Talk about book ideas galore!

Anyway, the point of this post is about book research on location. So, when this trip started forming months ago, and we decided to drive instead of fly there was one stop I knew we had to make along the way – Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia.

According to their official website, “The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation operates the world’s largest living history museum in Williamsburg, Virginia—the restored 18th-century capital of Britain’s largest, wealthiest, and most populous outpost of empire in the New World. Here we interpret the origins of the idea of America, conceived decades before the American Revolution. 

"The Colonial Williamsburg story of a revolutionary city tells how diverse peoples, having different and sometimes conflicting ambitions, evolved into a society that valued liberty and equality…In Colonial Williamsburg’s 301-acre Historic Area stand hundreds of restored, reconstructed, and historically furnished buildings. Costumed interpreters tell the stories of the men and women of the 18th-century city—black, white, and native American, slave, indentured, and free—and the challenges they faced. In this historic place, we help the future learn from the past.”

We’ll only be able to spend about five hours there, but I am looking forward to it. The number one reason is that there is a store there dating back several centuries ago called Tarpley and Thompson Company. Tarpley is my maiden name, so I have wanted to visit this store for many years now. I’ve done genealogy research on my family and traced us back to the 1700s in Georgia and South Carolina, so it’s not a stretch that the man who started the store could be related to me. And it’s all quite fascinating!


The second reason to visit is that I already had the inspiration for a novel set there. I’ve done research of all the interesting places to see in the Revolutionary City to make sure I don’t miss seeing something I believe might inspire my current novel idea. 

Their official website contains a lot of useful information as well as an interactive map of the whole city and its many points of interest. After completing the initial online research, I feel now I can visit and have an open mind for the story to start taking form before my eyes. I’m sure many of you fellow writers have done plenty of preparation before a research trip.

I’d love to hear a bit about how you prepared. Any advice or tips? What’s been one of your favorite research trips whether on location or online? What did you enjoy most about it?

Morgan Tarpley

Morgan Tarpley is an award-winning newspaper reporter and photographer in Louisiana. She is also a historical novelist currently seeking representation. Besides writing and traveling to over a dozen countries, her interests include acting in her local theater, genealogy, photography, and singing. She resides in Louisiana with her husband.

For more information about Morgan, visit her website (www.morgantarpley.com) and blog (www.pensonaworldmap.com). You can also connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Goodreads.