As writers, we’ve all heard the old adage that we should ‘write what we know’. This is problematic, at best, for writers of romantic fiction! Janet’s presentation was a goldmine of much more useful advice on what to do when, as often, we need to write what fascinates us and our readers without knowing the facts beforehand. As she opened by saying, tackling the unknown is a fantastic opportunity to ‘stretch our writing wings’. All novels require research, not only historicals, and there are simple things we can do to avoid those mistakes that jerk a reader out of the story.

Impressively, Janet used not one but two computers in her practical demonstration of some of the research tools all smart writers need, based on her own experience. This demonstration involved Janet researching the job of rodeo clown (chosen since it was safe to say no one present had ever been one!), while members shared their own surprising, funny and always useful advice on making their characters, and their jobs, that bit more real by always grounding them in reality.

We learned to research character backgrounds, settings, events and activities using internet-based tools like job advertisements, Google image search, maps and Google Earth, Youtube, blogs, travel websites and itnsource.com for news coverage of real events. Janet also imparted her tips for using personal contacts and interviews for the details we can’t find (or verify) online, guide books like those from Lonely Planet, news archives, colleges and universities, libraries, and even cookbooks.

Janet reminded us of why we should use all of these sources and any others we thought of to build whole worlds, rich in detail and culture and designed to inspire in readers the same fascination we feel as we look at the sources. Her listing of romantic phrases in Zulu was encouraged us to use foreign languages on the page with similar playfulness.

Thanks to this slice of her real writing life, not to mention her enthusiasm, ingenuity and technical savvy, I’m certain we’ll all grow in confidence as we research and create our fictional worlds. I, for one, will heed Janet’s final warning and try never to let my zipper show! 

Written by Leanne Bibby