Saturday 19 May 2012

An aid to creative writing





Can Trace your Roots help fiction writers? Author David Robinson believes it can. Here he tells us how it got him digger deeper into his characters' history.





All writers keep some research books to hand. But why would a writer of fiction keep a copy of Trace Your Roots nearby?

When Maureen sent me a copy of Trace Your Roots, I thumbed through it and tried one or two of the suggestions. Behold: within the space of an hour or two, I’d tracked down both sets of grandparents and their respective weddings, my father’s birthplace which had always been subject to some doubt, the births and marriages of several uncles and aunts, my own birth record in the parish registry and my brother’s.

I was suddenly interested in tracing the family line, but… I’m a writer. Somewhere along the line, I have to turn out the words. Hobbies like genealogy must take a back seat, especially when you’re sitting dangerously close to publication deadlines and you still have another 20,000 words to find.

It was only later, as the pressure eased, that I realised Trace Your Roots had another possible use.

The mainstay of my work is crime fiction, usually from a private detective point of view. How many times has Joe Murray needed to make a link between characters A and Z? How could Alex Croft have dug out the descendants of The Great Zepelli and narrowed down his search for TheHandshaker?

How do you conduct those kinds of searches? To be honest, until I read Trace Your Roots, I wouldn’t have had a clue. Now I have. I know how that person can be traced, I know how Joe can track down the heir to the fortune he’s stumbled across, and I know how Alex Croft can tackle the search for Julius Reiniger in post war Britain.

Taking a wider view of the matter, there have been novels written where the hero/heroine specifically searches out family history in an effort to come to terms with present problems. How much easier is it to produce that kind of work when you have all the research to hand in one volume, and I could see this working in most genres from romance to horror.

Maureen didn’t produce Trace Your Roots as a handbook for writers, but as a handy guide for budding genealogists, but like thrifty, “waste not, want not” devotees, we scribes can turn any book into a useful tool for our researches.


David lives and works as a novelist on the northeast outskirts of Manchester, England. He is a prolific author, having produced works in cosy crime, psycho-horror, sci-fi and humour. 
Visit David’s website HERE
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Tuesday 15 May 2012

Royal connections



We are thrilled to be appearing in the latest addition of the Townswoman.

The magazine of the Townswomen's Guilds.




Having been approached by the magazine's editor to write for their 10 top tips feature, I needed to come up with ten helpful tips on finding your roots.



Not a problem:
Trace your Roots is bursting at the seams with useful information, tips, weblinks and addresses.

The task was simple and writing for the magazine was a great pleasure.



Everyone's family is unique: why not discover more about yours?

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Saturday 5 May 2012

Featured in Writer's News


I have a spot in the June issue of Writer's News / Writing Magazine where I talk about Trace your Roots. The piece begins... 'Genealogy isn't all cerebral slog...' and it's true. It's a great pastime and can be huge fun too - ask anyone who's done it!