How important is research when writing historical fiction?
Research is essential in historical writing because the details need to be accurate. On a visit to the reading room at the Red Cross Museum I discovered that passports were not needed for international travel before the First World War but they became required documents during the war. Things were looking dicey because Alexandra passes herself off as a nurse who has been given the authority to go abroad. I needed to find out whether a nurse going to the field hospitals would have been able to travel without a passport. Then I read about a document that could stand in place of a passport and didn’t have a photograph. It was a great relief because I wanted the details to be authentic and the only other alternative would have been to gloss over it which wouldn’t have been satisfactory. Q: Was it important to visit places as well as read original source material? A: Yes, one of the things in visiting the scene is that you discover things out that you didn’t anticipate when starting out. I
