How research into the germ of an idea revealed my character and his story. (I’ve developed a reading-plus-presentation on this topic and have been taking it to libraries and historical societies across Vermont and New Hampshire. Here are the basics.) I spent more than two years researching and writing the first draft of Finn’s Clock, a fact that never fails to surprise the students I speak to as a guest author in their English classes. Now, every novel requires research, even if the story is a complete fantasy. My first novel, Sky Carver, is a good example. It’s not set in any country that I know of; it’s certainly not on the Earth we know. Instead, Carver’s World is an amalgam of river valleys I’ve visited or read about, with the additions of a city of canals and a wide bay marked with an archipelago of tall sea stacks. My research Read More […]