Once Upon a Time It Was Now: The Art & Craft of Writing Historical Fiction

Learning historical stories is easy, creating stories based in history is not.

In Once Upon a Time It Was Now, best-selling author James Alexander Thom (Follow the River, From Sea to Shining Sea, Sign-Talker) gives you the tools you need to research and create stories born from the past that will move and inspire modern readers. His comprehensive approach includes lessons on how to:

Find and use historical archives and conduct physical field research

Re-construct the world of your novel, including people and voices, physical environments, and cultural context

Achieve verisimilitude in speech, action, setting, and description

Seamlessly weave historical fact with your own compelling plot ideas

With wit and candor, Thom's detailed instruction, illuminating personal experience, and invaluable insights culled from discussions with other trusted historical writers will guide you to craft a novel that is true to what was then, when then was now.