Melanie Dickerson here, and my guest is none other than the other Melanie D, Melanie Dobson! That's right, there are two Melanie D's in Christian fiction. Melanie and I also share an agent, Natasha Kern, which is how we ended up getting to meet in person, sitting together at an ACFW banquet. Melanie Dobson was just as sweet and delightful to talk to as I could have imagined her to be. And we did get a picture together, but alas, my photos are woefully unorganized and I couldn't find it in order to post it today. You'll have to imagine the two of us together, smiling and having fun. 😊
And now, without further stalling, here's Melanie Dobson.
When
I first started writing fiction, I was often told to “write what I know,” but I
quickly realized that I don’t know that much, at least not enough to sustain a
career as a novelist. After the release of my first novel, I wanted to learn
much more, so I developed a research process that works for me, using the five
resources below to build my contemporary and historical story worlds:
Surf
the Web
The
ideas for my novels come from many different sources, but I always partner with
Google in the beginning to explore dozens of possibilities. When I wrote Chateau
of Secrets, for example, I wondered if there were any Jewish men in
Hitler’s army. I discovered online that there may have been 100,000 Jewish men
who served in the Wehrmacht, and this startling fact became central to my plot.
In
the past twenty years, I’ve read countless interviews, watched dozens of how-to
videos, tested my main characters on sites like 16personalities.com, and connected
with experts on a variety of topics. I’ve explored potential settings around
the world through Google Earth VR and used social media to research the
contemporary portions of my time-slip stories.
For
my latest novel, Hidden Among the Stars, I searched online until I found
the history of the Austrian lake castle that inspired my story and then
contacted a violin maker in Salzburg who helped me create a character
passionate about her violin.
The
Internet is fantastic for connecting people and to verify a number of facts (on
reputable sites, of course), but online research is just the beginning. To dig
deeper, I have to go offline.
Explore
Museums and Living History
When
I’m writing historical fiction, I’ve discovered that museums along with living history
farms, exhibits, and towns like Williamsburg or Roscoe Village are gold mines.
Each place offers an educational window to the past, and at these towns and
exhibits, I’ve learned how to run a printing press, escape through a mine, load
a rifle, break into an ancient coffin, pan for gold, and drive an Amish buggy. Things
that would have been difficult to learn through written references or a video.
The
tour guides at living history landmarks and museums seem to have accumulated
more information than a textbook. The hands-on experience and the opportunity
to email guides later with more questions is invaluable.
Invade
the Library
Top
secret—that’s what was stamped across the folder in England’s National
Archives. To research Catching the Wind, I spent a day scouring recently
released spy files outside London to learn about British citizens who had spied
for Nazi Germany. The information I found in these files shaped my entire book.
Clothing
catalogs, research papers, personal letters, magazines, and diaries—reference
materials like these can be found in archives or a library. For historical
research, these references provide basic information about attire and food
during a specific era as well as more abstract concepts like how people
approached life and what world events shaped their thinking.
For
each new novel, I work closely with my local reference librarian to find the
exact resources I need, and she helps me find answers to any lingering
questions—like how British spies developed and hid microphotographs during the
war.
Interview
Experts and Locals
Many
people love to talk about their childhoods or hobbies or area of expertise, and
if I tell them I write fiction, they’ll often give me much more
information than I need for the book. Or at least, more than I think I’ll need…
Several
months ago, I had the privilege of meeting with a Dutch Jewish gentleman who
had been hidden away as a child during World War II. I befriended his sister
online after reading a local news article, and she and her brother graciously
opened up their world to me over coffee, sharing many personal stories about
their own journey and their mother’s struggles and determination living in a
concentration camp. Encounters like this one provide me with an enormous amount
of information to build my story.
Because
I write both historical and contemporary fiction, I’ve interviewed detectives, artists,
Quaker friends, World War II heroes, and families of men and women who were
part of the French resistance. I’ve spent hours listening to personal accounts
about the inner workings of the Mafia, what it was like to grow up in a
religious cult, and living in an England manor in the 1950s. Each person, each
memory, redirects my plot and adds another layer of authenticity to a fictional
story.
Visit
the Location
When I researched Love Finds You in Liberty, Indiana, I
spent several days climbing secret staircases and exploring other hidden places
in homes that had once been stations along the Underground Railroad. I
drove through the surrounding forest at night, and when I stepped out into the
darkness, the owls hooted and the cloud cover masked the stars. My heart raced,
and I felt terribly alone—a glimpse of what a runaway slave might have felt
like in that horrible blackness, pursued by a slave hunter and his dogs.
When
writers evoke the senses on paper, describing what the characters smell, hear,
or taste, we invite readers to step directly into our story world. It can be
challenging for me to describe the sensory information from a distant location,
so I always visit my main settings, meeting the people and learning their
stories even as I explore old towns and castles and gardens, scribbling down
all the sights, smells, sounds, and tastes along the way.
With
each of my novels, more than twenty of them now, I spend about a month slowly
compiling the pieces needed to engage readers, typing all the information into folders
on Scrivener. Because research has become my favorite part of writing, I have
to deliberately set aside my mounds of background work after a month to begin
putting my own words on paper. With the details now rooted in my mind, I’ll
become completely lost in a story, and for the next three or four months, I’m
writing about all that I’ve learned.
So now it's your turn, Seekervillagers! Tell us in the comments some things you learned from reading a novel that you didn't know before. Has there been a novel that got you interested in a new hobby or sent you to Google or Wikipedia to find out more? One lucky commenter will win a copy of Melanie Dobson's Hidden Among the Stars.
The year is 1938, and as Hitler’s troops sweep into Vienna, Austrian Max Dornbach promises to help his Jewish friends hide their most valuable possessions from the Nazis, smuggling them to his family’s summer estate near the picturesque village of Hallstatt. He enlists the help of Annika Knopf, his childhood friend and the caretaker’s daughter, who is eager to help the man she’s loved her entire life. But when Max also brings Luzia Weiss, a young Jewish woman, to hide at the castle, it complicates Annika’s feelings and puts their entire plan—even their very lives—in jeopardy. Especially when the Nazis come to scour the estate and find both Luzia and the treasure gone.
AUTHOR BIO
Writing fiction is Melanie
Dobson’s excuse to explore abandoned houses, travel to unique
places, and spend hours reading old books and journals. The award-winning
author of almost twenty books, Melanie enjoys stitching together both time-slip
and historical novels including Hidden Among the Stars, Chateau of Secrets, and
Catching the Wind. More information about Melanie’s journey is available at http://www.melaniedobson.com/.
