Ideas for Novels and Character Profiles

When someone asks me: Where do you get the ideas for your historical fiction?:  I reply that reading historical non fiction often triggers an idea. For example, while reading about James I's flight from England, I sympathised with noblemen whose honour did not allow them to swear an oath of allegiance first to his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange, who ascended his throne, and, after their deaths, to his daughter Anne during his life. I asked myself what the effect of their refusal would be on their children. With the plot an theme in mind, I imagined the hero and heroine and their circumstances. Next I named them. Finally I filled in detailed character profiles. When they were completed I wrote the first sentence of Tangled Love. I find lengthy character profiles for major characters and shorter ones for minor characters very useful to refer to as I write. Instead of pausing to consider, for example, who their parents are or where they went to school I already the answers. However, this doesn't mean they can't surprise me.

Plotting a New Novel - Tuesday's Child

After my visit to The National Portrait Museum I jotted down my ideas for Tuesday's Child, a follow on Regency Romance from Sunday's Child and Monday's Child. This morning I typed my notes, the first step to writing my new novel. Afterwards I completed some preliminary research.


I don't plan my novels in detail because I like my characters to surprise me, but I do consider how to begin, what might happen in the middle and possible endings that leave no unravelled threads.


Before I write the first sentence I complete profiles of my main characters. These not only include their appearance, their likes and dislikes, their eccentricities and much more, such as their family trees, where they were educated and their life experience. I don't reveal some of the information about the protagonists but it helps me to create believable characters.