Welcome to Revolutionary Paris

I'm writing a short story. It's the origin story behind a book I wrote a few years back. Soon you'll be able to read them both. Until then...

Today, like many days, is research day. I could pretend I don't enjoy this bit - but I almost always do. I guess I was the kid at school whose nose was always buried in a book. Sorry.

Fast forward to present day, and I am always the slowest one round any museum or exhibit - I have to read Every. Single. Word. Thank God my wife is understanding.

What does any of this have to do with writing a book? Stories. The world is full of stories. Some are true, some are made up, but they're all stories. And stories, for some strange, human reason, are what we all live to consume.

I've always loved reading and writing stories. For me, the best stories are ones that slide effortlessly between the known and the unknown. The ones that pick up where accepted fact leaves off. The ones that dangle possibility just inches beyond your reach.

I love Hitchhiker's Guide too, of course (if you haven't, please, please read it. It is soaringly brilliant. Just that feeling of knowing you are watching a genius at work). But Hitchhiker's Guide is exceptional. Generally, I love the stories that ask 'what if?'. The stories which drop you into a world you know, but show you things you didn't. In a word - I write historical fiction.

And to do that, you have to have research days.

Today, I found this:

Actually, what I really found was the 900MB, 36,000x28,000 pixel version of this - so sharp you can literally look into the windows of the houses. But I can't host that file here! So head to Wikipedia and enjoy!

And I spent far too long looking at it. Because all of a sudden, I could see people running along the streets. I could see the barricades, and the tricolour. I could hear the Marseillaise. The revolution suddenly came alive.

They don't happen often, but on days like this, when you find a colourful character, or a real-life unsolved mystery, or a picture which grounds your story, writing is easy!

I'm off to send my anti-hero running for his life down the Rue de Richelieu now...