Lisa
asked
Julia Quinn:
I absolutely love your characters especially the Bridgertons. I feel like I am revisiting old friends as I read. My questions are "How much historical research do you do before beginning a book? Have you visited England?
Julia Quinn
I have visited England. I actually lived there twice (short-term; about four months each time.)
I don't do a whole lot of research before beginning a book. I write what are called costume dramas--books in which the characters are entirely fictional and the actual politics of the time do not play a major role in the story. This means that I generally already know what I need to know to get started on a story. I do, however, do a fair bit of research as I go along. There are always little things that crop up--whether a certain word was in use, for example, or how long it would take to get from one point to another in a certain type of carriage. In The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy, a few things I remember researching while I was writing were: what types of flowers are in bloom in Yorkshire in April/May, the 1825 Treaty of St. Petersburg (not at all important to the story, but I needed something about which my heroine might have read in the newspaper), and what language Queen Victoria spoke as a young child (German, as it happens.)
I don't do a whole lot of research before beginning a book. I write what are called costume dramas--books in which the characters are entirely fictional and the actual politics of the time do not play a major role in the story. This means that I generally already know what I need to know to get started on a story. I do, however, do a fair bit of research as I go along. There are always little things that crop up--whether a certain word was in use, for example, or how long it would take to get from one point to another in a certain type of carriage. In The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy, a few things I remember researching while I was writing were: what types of flowers are in bloom in Yorkshire in April/May, the 1825 Treaty of St. Petersburg (not at all important to the story, but I needed something about which my heroine might have read in the newspaper), and what language Queen Victoria spoke as a young child (German, as it happens.)
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