Writers Can Watch TV and Call It Work
There’s a joke I’ve seen on Pinterest, a cartoon of a writer watching TV. The character says, “I’m researching!” to the cynical-looking people standing nearby. For those of us who write fiction, we know that watching TV or movies, listening to music, or going for walks really is research because all of it becomes part of the writing process.
Writers, especially fiction writers, need their imagination fueled regularly, and it’s the little things we do, such as stealing an hour here or there to watch a favorite TV show or listen to our favorite music, that help to fill the creative well so that we have a brain full of ideas when we sit down to write.
When it comes time to write, especially if I’m writing a historical story, I try to immerse myself in the time period as much as possible. If I feel as if I’ve traveled back in time, then it’s easier for me to carry my readers along with me on the journey.
I loved writing historical fiction set during the Victorian era. Here are some of the places I found inspiration while writing my sweet Victorian Downton Abbey inspired romance, When It Rained at Hembry Castle. My hope is that by reading over my list, other writers of historical fiction will discover places to find inspiration of their own.
Nonfiction Books That Inspired My Sweet Victorian Romance
Up and Down Stairs: The History of the Country House Servant by Jeremy Musson
What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew by Daniel Pool
How To Be a Victorian: A Dusk-to-Dawn Guide to Victorian Life by Ruth Goodman (one of my new favorite historians—she lives what she studies)
The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens’ London and Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England by Judith Flanders
The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in Regency and Victorian England From 1811-1901 by Kristine Hughes
To Marry an English Lord by Gail MacColl and Carol McD. Wallace
Below Stairs: The Classic Kitchen Maid’s Memoir That Inspired “Upstairs, Downstairs” and “Downton Abbey” by Margaret Powell
The Essential Handbook of Victorian Etiquette by Thomas E. Hill
Novels That Inspired My Sweet Victorian Romance
When reading novels, I look for books written during the era I’m writing about as well as novels written about the era. Other times I’ll find inspiration in a novel that isn’t necessarily set in that time period but there’s something about the story that provides some ideas.
The Buccaneers and The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Snobs by Julian Fellowes
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
I read A LOT of P.G. Wodehouse (but really, can you read too much Wodehouse?)
I read A LOT of Dickens (but really, can you read too much Dickens?)
Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (set in the Tudor era—I know—but she’s such a master of historical fiction I needed to read the books again)
TV and Film That Inspired My Sweet Victorian Romance
For me, TV and film are the same as fiction—some of what I watch is set in the era, some is not, but all stir my imagination in one way or another.
Downton Abbey (Surprised, right?)
Upstairs, Downstairs
The miniseries of The Buccaneers
North and South
Lark Rise to Candleford
Cranford
Pride and Prejudice (Colin Firth’s version)
Sense and Sensibility (Emma Thompson’s—and Alan Rickman’s—version)
I tried to watch the TV versions of Bleak House and Great Expectations, but to be honest screen adaptations of Dickens’ work rarely thrill me. They get the drama down all right, but you’d never guess Dickens was one of the funniest authors in the English language from the dreariness of the adaptations. I’m doing a little better with Dickensian, if for nothing else but Stephen Rea’s performance as Inspector Bucket.
Keeping Up Appearances—Another Bucket (It’s BooKAY).
Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries—this outstanding Australian show is set in the 1920s, but I love Essie Davis’ Phryne Fisher so much I’ll use any excuse to watch it. Phryne Fisher’s clothes are even more fabulous than the costumes on Downton Abbey.
Listening to Victorian Era Music
Since my Victorian story is set in the 1870s, people were dancing to waltzes and polkas. Strauss and Chopin were favorite composers, which works well for me since I love to listen to classical music.
I was also able to find a few mp3s of Victorian-era music. I wasn’t concerned with whether or not these were songs specifically from the 1870s, and the music didn’t necessarily make it into the novel, but I really enjoy listening to music from the general time period while I’m writing. It helps me get into the right frame of mind.
Here are a few examples of what I found:
Victorian Dining by Peter Breiner and Don Gillis
Victorian Edwardian by Alexander Faris
Victorian Love Songs by Craig Duncan
If you’re writing historical fiction, I highly recommend listening to music from the era while you write. I find a lot of great songs on Amazon, and if you have Amazon Prime then you can listen to some of the music for free.
Pinterest Can Be a Good Source of Historical Inspiration
I adore Pinterest. For me, Pinterest isn’t social media as much as something I do for fun because I love it so much. When It Rained at Hembry Castle is the first novel I’ve written since I started on Pinterest, so it’s the first time I was able to use pictures from the site to inspire my writing.
When I needed to describe the sitting room at Hembry Castle, for example, I simply needed to go onto my research board, find the pin for the photograph I wanted to use as inspiration, and describe what I saw. If you’re writing your novel on Scrivener, you can import those photos directly into your novel file so they’re readily available when you need them.
When I was researching the novel, I created a private board for Hembry Castle because I didn’t want to bombard my followers with my many research pins. Then, when I had everything I needed, I created a public board so people could see the inspiration behind the story. Want to check out the board? It’s here.
Travel Can Be a Good Source For Writing Inspiration
I had a few things to say about traveling for research purposes in this post. Of course, it’s not always possible to travel, but if you can then do.
London, England: I’ll have more to say about my journeys to London for research purposes in a later post. For now, I’ll say that London is always a good idea.
Pittock Mansion in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon: An odd place to travel when researching a novel set in Victorian England, I know. I didn’t actually travel there for that purpose, but when I arrived I found Pittock Mansion, an American, smaller-scale version of an English country house.
Pittock Mansion provided a lot of inspiration for Hembry Castle. In fact, the music room and the library in Hembry Castle were modeled after rooms in Pittock Mansion.
What Does Your List of Creative Inspirations Look Like?
This is just the short list of places where I found inspiration for my Victorian historical novel. I hope you’ve discovered a few ideas for places you might seek inspiration for your own historical stories, whichever era they’re set in.