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.
