Suzanne Harper: Fact in Fiction

It's surprising how much research you sometimes have to do when writing fiction. You'd think that, if you're making stuff up, you could just sit in front of your computer all day, lost in your own world, preferably wearing pajamas.

But no.

My next novel, THE JULIET CLUB, is based on a real organization, so that's where my research started. (You can read about it here.) Then I started creating my fictional world, which involves three American teens (Kate, Lucy and Tom) who travel to Italy to take part in a Shakespeare seminar, along with three Italian teens (Giacomo, Silvia and Benno). As part of the plot, they have to perform an Elizabethan dance and a scene that involves stage sword fighting.

When I started to write those scenes, I realized that I had a major problem since I do not dance or fence. So I asked a couple of friends (Anneclaire, a dancer, and Dan, a fight director) to tutor me in the basics. (Check out Dan's web site here.)

Now I'm creating videos of the lessons for my website. I'm curious to see whether readers like learning about the facts behind the fiction.

What do you guys think? Do you think behind-the-scenes info like that would be interesting, or would you rather just stay in the world of the story?

Suzanne Harper
Author of  The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney