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asked
Helen Lundström Erwin:
Do you ever find that you suddenly realise that the spirit of the time demands a character behaves in a way you had not planned for, taking your story off in an entirely unplanned direction?
Helen Lundström Erwin
Thank you for your question Peter.
Yes it happens quite often. I usually do historical research at the same time as I write and my characters have to change a bit as I learn things about my time period. It´s more often smaller details that changes things but not always. In James´ Journey for example I learned about Virginia Slave Laws as I wrote and it complicated James and Katherine´s circumstances quite dramatically.
Right now I´m writing a novel set in the 17th and 18th Century and I learned that farming was done very, very differently than I expected.
It requires a lot of rewriting but it will make for a very interesting historical detail once my novel is done and bring to light something that I think will be a surprise to most people.
Yes it happens quite often. I usually do historical research at the same time as I write and my characters have to change a bit as I learn things about my time period. It´s more often smaller details that changes things but not always. In James´ Journey for example I learned about Virginia Slave Laws as I wrote and it complicated James and Katherine´s circumstances quite dramatically.
Right now I´m writing a novel set in the 17th and 18th Century and I learned that farming was done very, very differently than I expected.
It requires a lot of rewriting but it will make for a very interesting historical detail once my novel is done and bring to light something that I think will be a surprise to most people.
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