Writing Method
Research Before Imagination
My fiction begins in the archive.
Before a character speaks, before a setting is described, I look to the historical record. Social history, policing reforms, folklore collections, newspaper archives, institutional reports, and academic commentary form the groundwork. These sources do not sit beside the story as decoration. They shape its boundaries.
If a town vanishes from a map, I want to know how that might happen administratively. If a ritual appears in a story, I want to know how similar beliefs were recorded and interpreted in their own time.
If a police officer acts within a particular decade, I want to understand the structure that governed their authority.
Research is not used to display knowledge. It is used to prevent distortion.
Sources and Evidence
Where possible, I draw from primary or institutional material, government publications, archival records, historical newspapers, academic journals, and established reference works. Secondary commentary is used carefully and cross-checked where necessary.
Research articles published on this site include citations. These are not intended as academic apparatus for its own sake, but as a transparent trail. Readers should be able to see where information originated and how interpretation was formed.
The web changes constantly. Pages move, institutions reorganise, and reports disappear. When a source is no longer publicly available, archived versions may be referenced to preserve context. Historical information is best understood as it appeared at a specific moment in time, not as it is later revised or summarised.
Interpretation and Story
Historical fiction is not a textbook. It requires interpretation.
Records provide structure. Imagination provides motive, interiority, and narrative movement. My approach is to remain faithful to the documented framework while allowing characters to move within it as living people.
Folklore is treated in the same way. Rather than modern reinterpretations alone, I look at how beliefs were recorded by collectors, clergy, anthropologists, or local chroniclers. These records are imperfect, sometimes biased, sometimes incomplete, but they reveal how people understood their world.
The goal is not to reproduce the past mechanically. It is to respect its complexity.
Continuity and Transparency
Historical interpretation evolves. New research emerges. Perspectives shift. When errors are identified or stronger sources become available, updates are made.
This site contains both fiction and contextual research. The research informs the fiction, but it also stands independently for readers who are interested in the historical background alone.
The intention is consistency rather than volume. Articles are written deliberately, revised when necessary, and allowed to develop over time.
A Living Body of Work
This project grows slowly.
Each article, whether research-based or narrative, contributes to a broader exploration of memory, authority, folklore, and institutional history. The aim is not optimisation for its own sake, but clarity and integrity.
Where imagination crosses into the past, it does so with awareness.
I hope you enjoy your visit and sense the care that shapes each story.
— Richard Odell