WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR CHARACTERS SPEAK TO YOU.

LISTEN!

With my historical romance novel, LADY MIRIELLE'S FLIGHT,complete and emailed to the agent who requested it, I thought I'd have some leisure time to "fool around" with short stories and contest entries, but my secondary characters in the story had something else in mind for me.

No matter how I try to keep them at bay, they infiltrate my thoughts, and my dreams, or should I call them nightmares? I find myself constantly creating mental images, scenarios and plot lines for sequels.

That is all well and good, but the problem is the research. When I finished Lady Mirielle's Flight,
I thought if  I ever wrote another historical piece I'd be hysterical.  Hysterical as in madness."Too much research!

 I am now an expert (almost) on the type of clothing, foods, horses, housing, money, mannerism etc. etc. of the Middle Ages. Want to know what kind of bread folks ate in the mid- 1500s?  Depends.
Were they the upper or lower class of society?  No choice was simple. Did they drink mead or malmsey? Did they ride horses or ponies?  Which kind? Bays or Northumberlands?  What kind of armor? Do you know the difference between a shield and a buckler? Getting the picture?

I've developed a new admiration for those authors who write in this venue.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to listen to my characters. One  of them might persuade me.