Today I welcome author Dienece Darling as she shares about writing historical fiction.

One of the biggest pitfalls for a historical writer is research. It’s necessary to write a good story, but we can also waste hours down endless rabbit holes. However, sometimes, we stumble upon gold.

A few years ago, I was researching English politicians in the 1700s, and Henry Fox, 1^st Baron Holland appeared.

·      His wife was made a baroness in her own right before her husband. Henry had to wait eleven months for his own title.

·      He was the second son of a knight who ran off with the daughter of a duke twenty years his junior!

·      Unlike most of his contemporaries, he didn’t keep a mistress and was faithful to his wife (at least as far as I could tell). They were reportedly madly in love.

·      He was a skilled debater and able to hold his own against the mighty William Pitt.

·      He was run out the country for his debts as a young man, but he found himself a wealthy patroness who got him back in.

·      Somehow, he managed to legally steal ‘unaccounted millions’ from the government. Yes, you read that right. He legally stole.

Once a writer has gold, it can be tempting to use everything we’ve learned, but readers don’t want to bite into a block of gold. And not everything we learn will actually improve our plot or fit the point of our story. So, the next challenge is learning how to make gold flakes and dust out of our research. Because who doesn’t like to see the shimmer of gold dust sprinkled over their dessert?

Would you like to see how I dusted my story with Henry Fox? I gave him a fictional first wife (I mean he was twenty years older. He had time to marry someone else first!)

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Everything should have been Catherine’s and hers alone.

In London 1733, Catherine Fox expects to inherit everything from her father until he remarries just before passing away. With a possible heir jeopardizing their future, Catherine’s husband is furious. Not even the possibility of the babe being a girl soothes him, but surely, sharing her inheritance with a sister must be better than losing everything to a little brother. Perhaps prayer will help. Only, can she trust God to give the right answer?

As time passes, Catherine begins to wonder if the pursuit of prayer ever results in anything more than bruised knuckles against the closed doors of Heaven.

Dienece Darling is a former George Belle and missionary’s kid who now calls Australia home. When she’s not reading or spending time with her family, she loves to write devotionals and stories of faith on her blog at www.dienecedarling.com/blog. You can also catch her at Dienece Darling, author | Melbourne VIC | Facebook.