Story Play by Play

I just finished writing a new story for the History Press book. Notice I didn't say finished working on it, I said finished writing it. There's a difference. This particular story needed a back story, information that leads up to it and sets the scene. After that was written, I began the story I originally set out to write, which isn't exactly a truth as this one came out of another one I was in the process of researching. That is the next story I hope to get to.

Once the writing was finished I sat down with my notes and looked for mistakes and discrepancies in the facts of the story and will go back and see if I can plug in some additional interesting information I found while doing that. Then I need to edit for flow and spelling and grammar. After all of that, I give the pages to my reader to edit further, that happens to be Thomas and he is very good at being honest.

This story is historical with a lot of dates, times, places and details that I want to get as close to accurate as I can with the research I found, while keeping it interesting to readers who are not historians but love a good story.

I usually sit down with that research and read over one or two different accounts of an event, highlighting key points and getting a sense of the story that interests me. Then I free write getting that on paper. If there are really crucial details that are unfamiliar to me, I sometimes develop the story paragraph by paragraph writing that out from one or two sources in outline form, creating my own story as I go. I will add tidbits from the other versions I found, but only after verifying that they are accurate. If something is way out of the norm of what I found elsewhere and I decide it needs to be in the story, I have to find a way to state that it is one account and not substantiated. There's a fine line between reporting and storytelling. I try to find the balance.

Once this is done, I reread my research, set aside things that might be good for an additional story and move on to the next.

It took longer than I expected to get to this story, but once I got going and got the back story in writing, the main story went quickly.