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Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Greetings from Lauralee Bliss

Hello! I'm Lauralee Bliss and it's great to be a guest here on Amber's wonderful blog, especially to introduce my first historical – Into The Deep.

Many have asked how I can come up with the setting and storyline for a book such as this that takes place in Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, circa 1840's. The way I do it is through my travels. I visited the cave some years ago, heard of the tuberculosis hospital that once existed there back in the 1840's and immediately saw a possible storyline begin to unfold. You can take various aspects of history and easily come up with a story with your own set of characters and their situations, which is exactly what I did with Into The Deep.

Once I formulated the proposal and had it accepted, then I returned to the cave for more in-depth research. This is where the park staff became my best informers. I had a free personal tour of the cave with a park ranger and saw places most visitors don’t see. I also had a two hour-long interview that I taped with another park ranger who knew the park's history. The combination of these two valuable resources enabled me to write a historical novel based on fact. While the characters and some of the plot are fictionalized, the history presented and the cave is all true to life. And this authenticity I owe to finding out what resources are available and making use of those resources. I also owe a great deal to the park rangers of Mammoth Cave for giving Into The Deep a richness that I could have never done by simple Internet research.

So the next time you are traveling, think – how can I make this place into a story? You'll be surprised what treasure awaits you.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on the release of "Into the Deep"! I'm always so impressed with people who write historicals, because the research is so integral, just as you explained in your post, and I HATE the research aspect of writing! (My laziness towards research made for a funny coincidence--I blogged about it a couple days ago--definitely taught me a lesson!) Best of luck with "Into the Deep" and whatever project you pursue next!

-Alison
blog.alisonstrobel.com