1) Select the time and place of my novel.
2a) Begin to research the time and place – broadly at first, reading biographies, searching online, taking out armfuls of library books, watching documentaries, reading memoirs, and then drilling down to newspapers, restaurant menus, train timetables, etc. I take notes by hand, keeping good track of where each note is from.
2b) Travel! I ALWAYS go to see the place of my setting. For A More Perfect Union, I went to Barbados.
2c) Next, I compile my infamous daily calendar (time) and map (place)
Step 3) I create a mega-list of every fact I deem important, organizing them into categories.
Step 4: Once I’ve written my chapter outline, I cut and paste all the facts I think I’m going to want in each chapter so they’re “at my fingertips” while I write the first draft.
- Document
Jodi Daynard is the author of a bestselling historical novel trilogy that began with The Midwife's Revolt and continued with Our Own Country and A More Perfect Union. Her fourth novel, A Transcontinental Affair, is about two women on the first-ever transcontinental railroad excursion in 1871. A writer of fiction, essays, and short stories, her work has appeared in numerous periodicals, including the New York Times Book Review, the Village Voice, the Paris Review, AGNI, and the New England Review. Ms. Daynard has taught writing at Harvard University, MIT, and in the MFA program at Emerson College.
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