Quote

Historical fiction of course is particularly research-heavy. The details of everyday life are there to trip you up. Things that we take for granted, indeed, hardly think about, can lead to tremendous mistakes.

Sara Sheridan

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Sara Sheridan
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: June 7
Novelist
Writer
Edinburgh
Scotland
Things
Everyday
Hardly
Think
Research
Granted
Thinking
Lead
Details
Life
Fiction
Particularly
Mistake
Historical
Courses
Mistakes
Course
Heavy
Trip
Take
Indeed
Tremendous

More quotes by Sara Sheridan

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Research material can turn up anywhere - in a dusty old letter in an archive, a journal or some old photographs you find in a charity shop.
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Like most little girls, I found the lure of grown-up accessories astonishing - lipstick, perfume, hats and gloves. When I write female characters in my historical novels, getting these details right is vital.
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I find it inspiring to actively choose which traditions to celebrate and also come up with new ideas for traditions of my own.
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History at its best is a gritty, dirty business.
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I always thought that bagels and lox was my soul food, but it turns out it's sushi.
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A word out of place or an interesting choice of vocabulary can spawn a whole character.
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The sky was a sparkling succession of black diamonds on black velvet made crystal clear by the blackout.
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Something I notice speaking to writers from south of Hadrians Wall is that the culture is different. At base, I think Scotland values its creative industries differently from England.
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While I'm frustrated at the amount I'm expected to take on in the present, the 1950s woman was frustrated by being excluded - not being allowed to take things on at all.
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Today women have the rights and equality our Victorian sisters could only dream of, and with those privileges comes the responsibility of standing up and being counted.
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I had never really understood what an adventure life could be, if you followed your heart and did what you really wanted to do, which is what we must all do in the end.
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It is one of the benchmarks of a culture I always think – the page at which it operates. A good way to measure it is to order a taxi and see how irate local people get if it is late.
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A book is a story, even if it's non-fiction, and once I've read it, I have the story with me inside my head always.
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We can learn so much looking outside our core field of expertise.
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My father could talk about the Romany way of life and its culture. He could talk about freedom and the Scottish spirit. But that was all he could talk about. I was desperate for someone to talk to but there was just nobody there.
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Aunts offer kids an opportunity to try out ideas that don't chime with their parents and they also demonstrate that people can get on, love each other and live together without necessarily being carbon copies.
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History is full of blank spaces, but good stories, invariably, are not.
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For a novelist, the gaps in a story are as intriguing as material that still exists.
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Scotland consistently produces world-class writers.
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I jealously guard my research time and I love fully immersing myself in those dusty old books and papers. It's one of the most enjoyable parts of my job.
Sara Sheridan