How does a writer pick a setting for a work of historical fiction and then accurately create that setting, true to the period?
Sometimes the venue is absolutely integral to the plot and there is no choice.   If you’re unlucky, the place from which the plot can’t be prised is somewhere like Wolverhampton or Basingstoke.   If you’re very fortunate, it’s somewhere wonderful, like Venice.
In this talk I will discuss how I chose the palazzo in Venice in which my novel-in-progress is set, and some of the challenges facing the writer of fiction in recreating a particular building at a specific date in history.   The building that is central to my story was constructed in the 14^th century, and was already 200 years old when the action takes place.   Recreating it – and Venice around it – in 1576-7 has been an adventure involving plague-ridden ice cream, nuns, much serendipity and extended periods in Florian’s.
The illustrated talk will give an insight into how a fiction writer tries to make the past come to life, balancing accuracy with imagination and, in particular, recreating in words a house vibrant with life more than 400 years later.