Just to share a little of my creative process: I do a ton of research for each book. (Especially since I can't afford to travel to my preferred locations). Once I have done the research, I pick and choose truthful and historical facts to use in my stories. I also add a lot of, well, fiction. These are my stories, after all. I move towns around to suit my story. I suppose literal geographers could get offended at my fictional geography, but again, it's fiction. When I include historical events, they are true to the date which I am writing about. I've just finished my 7th manuscript and it is absolutely loaded with industrial revolutions in that period. It's quite exciting!
So, I will give you a piece of Beth here:
Near four o'clock in the afternoon the following day, Milford Cummings
rode his rather short pony down the road toward the Fordham's cottage. He was
not an imposition to the beast since he was fence rail thin and very tall. He
wore a tall hat, even though no one else on this side of the island did. His
nose in the air, he nudged his mount to quicken her pace. When he arrived at
the cottage, Frank appeared to take the reins of Milford's horse. “Thank you,”
he said in a condescending tone. He tugged on his coat and waistcoat and
proceeded to the door.
Out of respect for her parents, Beth had dressed in her light blue
Sunday muslin and arranged her hair neatly. Even though she would appear
outwardly compliant, she had every intention of turning this Romeo away as
well. She knew too much of him to do otherwise. He was a known flirt with
everything female in the parish and it had even been whispered about that he
was more than just flirtatious with women from Walney to Oxford. He gave her
the shivers every Sunday when he would purposefully gaze from her head to toes.
He had no chosen profession, other than the educated son of a clergyman. She
could not, would not, spend the rest of her life with him.
