Robert Wilton: How Archduke Franz Ferdinand almost lost me the plot

Historical fiction readers are even more obsessive about detail than sci-fi fans, so writing my latest novel, The Spider of Sarajevo, was like navigating a minefield

So, the writings coming along nicely. My intrepid English adventuress Flora Hathaway has reached the hunting lodge in eastern Germany, purloined the document case of the aide-de-camp of the Chief of the German General Staff, and secreted herself in her bedroom to skim through the vital papers. This is happening at least a week before the end of May 1914, to give time for the theft to be discovered, for Hathaway to be attacked during a hunt the next day, for her British military contact to retrieve the secrets, travel on to Constantinople, and make it back to Vienna in time for a mini-climax when all of the British agents are lured into a trap, this all still leaving us in good time to get to Sarajevo for 28 June 1914 and the sparking of the first world war. Much the most interesting of the secrets has come out of the Kaisers meeting with the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary, a meeting which we know from the historical record occurred in the Archdukes residence at Konopischt on... [checks notes] 26 May.

Which is too bloody late. The narrative cant work as planned: the necessary chain of events is now impossible. My brilliantly constructed plot has just thundered into a damn great historical fact, plonked there inert and immobile, and has staggered back rubbing its head.

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