The Maine Crime Writers
Tag Archives: research
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
Kate Flora: When people ask about a writer’s process, the questions are usually about whether we are plotters (outliners) or pantsers–writing by the seat of our pants. Sometimes the questions are about the number of hours we write, and whether we … Continue reading
Over 2000 Women and Still Adding More (and a giveaway)
Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, today writing as Kathy. As some of you know, under that name I write (mostly) historical novels set in the sixteenth century. My interest in that period of history and the women who lived in … Continue reading
Nostalgia For Fun And Profit
Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here. As readers of this blog know, I’ve been working on the first in a new series (Crime and Punctuation, a Deadly Edits Mystery) to be published in June 2018, in which the widowed retiree sleuth … Continue reading
Popular History: You Can’t Judge a Book by its Publisher
Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, offering a few observations based on having read (or at least skimmed) just about every nonfiction book on Tudor history and most Tudor biographies that have come out in the last 40 years in search … Continue reading
Kathy’s Great Adventure
Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett here. The first thing you have to know about me is that I’m a chicken. The second thing is that I’m a worrier. Combine these two and you get a certain reluctance to try new things, … Continue reading
The Marvels of MARVEL!
Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here. I bet, from the title, that you think I’m going to talk about Marvel’s Agents of Shield. Or maybe Marvel’s The Avengers. Or even Iron Man or Agent Carter. Okay. I admit I have a … Continue reading
Hindsight
(a “guest post” from Kate Emerson, Kaitlyn Dunnett’s “evil twin”) One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that research is never-ending. Another is that historical “facts” are not set in stone. This was recently brought home to … Continue reading
The Ups and Downs of Living with an In-House Expert
When I first began to write contemporary mystery novels, I figured that I had a big advantage when it came to research—a husband who worked in law enforcement. He had been a deputy sheriff, working first at the county jail … Continue reading
Tips on Research: Evaluating a Secondary Source
Welcome to the next installment of my irregular series of tips for writers. The material that follows is adapted from How To Write Killer Historical Mysteries: The Art and Adventure of Sleuthing Through the Past (Perseverance Press, 2008) by Kathy … Continue reading
Charlene D’Avanzo 
Lea Wait/Cornelia Kidd