Recently I ‘sat’ down with readers for a day in December and invited their questions. We talked Christmas and books! I’ll be doing these chats once a month on my Facebook author page and would love for you to join me next time in January.
Here are a few fun questions from last time…
Carey: I love to talk about books! How do you come up with different names for the heroines? I would love one of your characters to be named Carey.
Laura: I’ll remember that. You just might just find yourself in those pages 🙂 I always try to find period-appropriate names. Not anything remotely modern but not the tried-and-true 18th-century names like Ann, Martha, Mary, Jane, etc. I draw from ship’s logs and census records, old documents and family genealogies, even my own family. Finding unique, memorable names like Lael and Morrow and Lark is a delight. My hero names are more traditional though you’ll find no Georges or Johns!
Kim: I’d love to know how you’re inspired to write a particular character and their story. What triggers a book idea?
Laura: It always starts with fragments – scraps of dialogue or a name that comes to mind out of the blue, or even an image like I’m watching a movie – often when I’m out on a walk or even in the shower which is maddening since I don’t have pen & paper. Usually I find something fascinating in research that makes me think, what if? In An Uncommon Woman, I relied on my lifelong fascination of Indian captivity narratives for the bones of that story. Sometimes I know the end of the story before I begin.