Ask the Author: Kate Quinn
Answered Questions (117)
Kate Quinn
A fantastic non-fiction book called "Women Heroes of WWI" (Kathryn Atwood) sent me down the rabbit hole with an essay about the historic Alice Network, of which I had never heard. As soon as I read about these ladies, I knew I had to write about them!
Kate Quinn
So glad you liked THE ALICE NETWORK! As far as my backlist, it depends what historical era you prefer: if you like the Italian Renaissance, start with "The Serpent and the Pearl" and then go on to "The Lion and the Rose." If you like ancient Rome, start with "Mistress of Rome." Hope you enjoy!
Kate Quinn
For me, there are four distinct research phases involved in writing a historical novel.
The Dog-Paddle comes first. You have a new book idea, probably something rather vague and unformed, and you’re reading everything you can get your hands on about Murano glass-blowers or the reign of Frederick the Great or Finnish lake mythology. This is the stage where you grossly over-use the One Click Buy feature on Amazon as you load up on used research texts to dog-ear and underline; you also make dire use of the “Customers who bought X also bought Y� feature. Your plot hasn’t firmed up yet, so right now everything is grist for the imagination, and blinding flashes of inspiration come from random footnotes. You have no idea what will be useful, so you read it all, dog-paddling in leisurely fashion through an ocean of sometimes only barely connected reading material, daisy chaining from a book about Polish airmen in World War II to the bombing of London to the building of St. Paul cathedral, and realizing that with a single brilliant plot twist you can tie it all together in one smash-hit novel. This is the fun stage.
Stage two is The Deep Dive. You have your book idea; the era and plot are chosen. Now you need to narrow your focus; understand EVERYTHING about the historical period and events you will be covering. This is where you read every account you can find on the Battle of Crecy or the early life of Machiavelli. You want the picture in your mind as complete as possible before you start playing on that historical stage. It’s easy to get lost in the research here, because no historical picture will ever be complete. There’s always more to know. At some point you have to stop researching and start writing.
Stage three is The Fast Patch. This is when you’re in the throes of writing, and hit a road-block. You cannot go any further in this chapter until you have accurately figured out the mechanical innards of a Pe-5, or figured out what boat will get your hero out of Dunkirk alive. So you repair to the books, the web, and the library for a quick research fix. You don’t need to dive deep here, find out every conflicting opinion out there on the building of a Pe-5 or every single kind of boat used at Dunkirk. You just need a fast, reliable bit of historical information that will bridge the gap to firmer, more well researched ground.
Stage four, and most dreaded of all, is The Rabbit Hole. This generally comes in the editing phase, the stage where you are tearing your manuscript apart in a haze of caffeine-fueled paranoia, fact-checking everything just to be sure you are catching every single historical error that could possibly have sneaked in there. This is when you stay up till 3am trying to figure out exactly when buttons replaced ties on women’s dresses. This is when you obsess over whether there were black bears or brown bears in Imperial Rome-governed Dacia. This is when you calculate centuries-old lunar cycles in an effort to see if your heroine really could have been looking at a full moon that night.
These are my four stages, anyway. Yours may be different. :)
The Dog-Paddle comes first. You have a new book idea, probably something rather vague and unformed, and you’re reading everything you can get your hands on about Murano glass-blowers or the reign of Frederick the Great or Finnish lake mythology. This is the stage where you grossly over-use the One Click Buy feature on Amazon as you load up on used research texts to dog-ear and underline; you also make dire use of the “Customers who bought X also bought Y� feature. Your plot hasn’t firmed up yet, so right now everything is grist for the imagination, and blinding flashes of inspiration come from random footnotes. You have no idea what will be useful, so you read it all, dog-paddling in leisurely fashion through an ocean of sometimes only barely connected reading material, daisy chaining from a book about Polish airmen in World War II to the bombing of London to the building of St. Paul cathedral, and realizing that with a single brilliant plot twist you can tie it all together in one smash-hit novel. This is the fun stage.
Stage two is The Deep Dive. You have your book idea; the era and plot are chosen. Now you need to narrow your focus; understand EVERYTHING about the historical period and events you will be covering. This is where you read every account you can find on the Battle of Crecy or the early life of Machiavelli. You want the picture in your mind as complete as possible before you start playing on that historical stage. It’s easy to get lost in the research here, because no historical picture will ever be complete. There’s always more to know. At some point you have to stop researching and start writing.
Stage three is The Fast Patch. This is when you’re in the throes of writing, and hit a road-block. You cannot go any further in this chapter until you have accurately figured out the mechanical innards of a Pe-5, or figured out what boat will get your hero out of Dunkirk alive. So you repair to the books, the web, and the library for a quick research fix. You don’t need to dive deep here, find out every conflicting opinion out there on the building of a Pe-5 or every single kind of boat used at Dunkirk. You just need a fast, reliable bit of historical information that will bridge the gap to firmer, more well researched ground.
Stage four, and most dreaded of all, is The Rabbit Hole. This generally comes in the editing phase, the stage where you are tearing your manuscript apart in a haze of caffeine-fueled paranoia, fact-checking everything just to be sure you are catching every single historical error that could possibly have sneaked in there. This is when you stay up till 3am trying to figure out exactly when buttons replaced ties on women’s dresses. This is when you obsess over whether there were black bears or brown bears in Imperial Rome-governed Dacia. This is when you calculate centuries-old lunar cycles in an effort to see if your heroine really could have been looking at a full moon that night.
These are my four stages, anyway. Yours may be different. :)
Kate Quinn
I use Scrivener, and I keep my research mostly in the file as I go. I also buy inexpensive used copes of all the books I'll need, so I can underline and margin-note to my heart's content.
Kate Quinn
The one I've got coming out next--all about the post-WWII hunt for Nazi war criminals fled to the US, tangled up with the war-time story of all female regiment of bomber pilots who flew against Hitler's eastern front and earned the nickname "the Night Witches." No title yet, but it should be out next February. So glad you enjoyed THE ALICE NETWORK!
Kate Quinn
I do miss my characters, yes. Which is why I like the idea of revisiting them in post-novel short stories, if I can ever carve out the time to write them!
Kate Quinn
The Colosseum for sure. The Forum. The Circus Maximus. If you can get a little outside Rome, wander around Hadrian's Villa and soak in the atmosphere--a huge site, so lots to see! Though I'd be completely torn by the opportunity to see the Borgia Apartments in the Vatican, which show up in my Renaissance series... Have a wonderful trip!
Kate Quinn
So glad you enjoyed TAN! I certainly am writing more; I just finished and turned in my next book, which centers around the Russian all-female night bomber squadron nicknamed the Night Witches who flew against Hitler's eastern front during WWII.
Kate Quinn
In a few cases I've used real people as models for fictional characters--Vix from the Rome series shares quite a lot of traits with my husband, and tart-tongued chef Carmelina from the Borgia duology is exactly how I imagine my salty Sicilian grandmother-in-law would have been in her youth, had she been born during the Renaissance. But for the most part characters grow up inside their own stories on their own, and I try to make sure they have their own weaknesses and strengths. Nobody ever envisions themselves as the villain; we're all the hero in our own minds; and few people see themselves as saints either. Glad you've enjoyed my fictional people on their various journeys!
Kate Quinn
I wish I was! Hope your book club enjoys the book, and feel free to hit me up with any questions from the group. Happy New Year!
Kate Quinn
Hi! In any 150,000 word book it’s inevitable that a few errors get through no matter how many times an author and her editors read it. "Belgian" looks like one of those; I think it was originally "French and Belgian voices heard" and then a word got trimmed out of the sentence and the correct "Dutch" didn't get swapped in. I'll add it to my "whoops" page on my website, and pass it on to my publisher to correct for future editions. "Baby Blues" appears in published American literature as early as 1918, and "nice wheels" was indeterminate timing-wise even after quite a bit of searching--I liked the term, so I decided to use it.
Kate Quinn
No idea! Dance around excitedly, go to Disneyland... ;)
Kate Quinn
So glad you enjoyed TAN! My next book is also 20th century: a triple-narrative involving post WWII war criminals, the war correspondents hunting them down, and the Russian bomber pilots known the Night Witches who flew against Hitler's eastern front. Hope you enjoy it!
Kate Quinn
So glad you enjoyed TAN! No publication date set yet, maybe late next year or early the following? It's a story of post WWII war criminals, war correspondents hunting them down, and the Russian bomber pilots known the Night Witches who flew against Hitler's eastern front.
Kate Quinn
So glad you enjoyed "The Alice Network"! As to why I decided to jump into the 20th century to write, I've never been a one-era author--having always had ideas that spanned from the ancient world to the 20th century, it made sense to take a look at some of those later-set ideas when I saw the boom in 20th century war fiction. I decided to do some digging, some reading, some research to see if any ideas took off on me, and they did!
Kate Quinn
Thanks very much! Delighted to hear you enjoyed "The Alice Network." :)
Kate Quinn
Of course! Though authors never get much say in how film versions of their books turn out, so who knows how an "Alice Network" movie would look in the end? It's a pretty long shot for any book to make it to the big screen, though, so while I enjoy a good daydream about a film deal, it's long odds that it will ever happen. (Fingers are still crossed, though!)
Kate Quinn
I would like to write more books set in ancient Rome someday. I'm not sure I'd go for the Severan dynasty, but Diocletian is a possibility! Or maybe something a bit earlier Empire, like Augustus...who knows? For the time being, though, I'm researching and enjoying 20th century history. So glad you've enjoyed my Rome series!
Kate Quinn
After seeing "Wonder Woman" I SO want to write a book about Amazons! (Even if the reality wasn't quite like the ladies of Themyscira...) Who knows, maybe in future!
Kate Quinn
How cool to have Edith Cavell in your family tree! She's another very stellar lady who needs a book of her own. If you want to keep up with what I'm writing, I'm on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter (though mostly Facebook) and can quite often be found online there procrastinating from my wordcount! I'm so glad you enjoyed THE ALICE NETWORK.
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