I have been getting quite a few questions since my announcement that I finished writing my novel, and figured I would share the answers here. The novel, In a Time Never Known, is historical fiction based during the American Civil War. My two main characters are female spies for the Union, however they are both married to Confederate officers. Without further ado, here are the questions I’ve been asked.
Q – How long is the book?
A – 113,000ish words which breaks down into 450ish pages, broken into 50 chapters.
Q – Was this part of NaNoWriMo?
A – Nope.
Q – Where did the story idea come from?
A – I was in Richmond, VA visiting a friend and we were out one day doing the obligatory touristy stuff, which meant we took a tour of the White House of the Confederacy. In the gift shop, I found this tiny little 48 page pamphlet about female spies in the Civil War. I was fascinated, so I bought it, took it home and promptly forgot that I had it. However, the seed had been planted. My brain started to formulate a story, and about a year later, I dug out that pamphlet and began my research.
© Claudelle Girard / istockphoto
Q – How long did it take you to do the research, and what were your sources?
A – There is no way that I can come up with a quantitative number for that, I spent too much time over too many years to count. I did research before I started writing and while I was writing all the way up to and through the final rewrite. For the research, I read books both fiction and non-fiction. I watched several multi-part documentaries – my favorite by far was by Ken Burns and I also bought and read the companion book that goes along with it. I also did significant amounts of research on the internet. Before you ask, not Wikipedia. NEVER Wikipedia.
Q – How did you stay organized?
A – Copious amounts of notes and spreadsheets, baby! As I had multiple things that I was keeping track of at any given point in time, I created a spreadsheet and would alter the parameters of it depending on where I was in the process, or what I needed to focus on. This is the last incarnation that I used. Yes, it is color coded.
Q – How long did it take to write the novel? Did you work chronologically?
A – From when I started writing the book, five years. However, only the last year and a half of that was focused work. Before that I would work on a chapter, then ignore it for a couple of months, then work on another chapter then ignore it, etc. And no, I did not work chronologically. I wrote the last chapter of the book, before I tackled the first chapter. My style was more Memento-esque.
Q – How many editors did you have?
A – I haven’t yet had a full grammatical edit done, but I had the help of around ten people for content edits.
If I missed yours, please feel free to ask!