Writing skills « Alison Morton's Roma Nova

You have to know history before you can 'alternate' it

Roma Novan heroines, ancient and modern

To write alternative history with authenticity, it’s helpful to be as well-versed and researched as an author writing a more conventional historical novel.

Let me unpick that… Alternate (or alternative) history is based on the premise that the standard timeline diverged at a certain point and followed […]

Choosing the colours of book covers

It’s a well-worn statement, a cliché even, that it’s the book cover that sells the book.

I’d refine that a little. What a cover does first is grab a browser’s attention, nothing more. You’ve made them pause, even stop to investigate further. If they pick it up or click on its image, that’s a second […]

Guns n’ things in Roma Nova

This could be a tricky subject, but if your stories have spies, special forces, military and special police units with a robust Roman attitude, you are going to get weapons of one sort or another. Anything else would be unrealistic.

However, my books are about people, not a way of seeing […]