What's your "other" time period?

I'm not sure I have a main time period. I'm writing the Anat story at the moment (at the turn of the 2nd millenium BC) because I translated the myth earlier this year, loved it and thought it would make a good story.

My only other novel-length historical was Tudor (counter-factual Jane Grey story). I think the sixteenth/seventeenth century appeal to me a lot because of the theological issues being debated at the time.

And I'd love to write a Heyer-esque Regency romance one day.

But I can get interested in most things. Though I don't like too much dirt and squalor so that eliminates quite a lot of history unless you just focus on the aristocracy.

Loved the medieval period and read anything and everything on that period, wrote a novel based on the Black Plague and have gone on to another passion - ancient Babylon. I am also fascinated by the Etruscans and the mystery of their disapperance so once I've exhausted my interest in Babylon and written my second novel, I'm pretty sure I'll dig into the Estrucans and write a third about them. Even have the name of a main character I've been holding onto for years. Don't you just love history!
Linnea

Medieval Europe (when the Moors dominated). I take a lot of liberties with the geography and customs and call it fantasy-- without magic. This is a series, part satire, part Chanson de Geste. d"Mighty Morg of Ansenna rode, thirty members in his band. . ."

An on-again off-again WWI backstory for a contemporary novel is in the works, a challenge to see if I can write literary.

Doogs said:

C'mon, you can't drop a hint like that and not give us the name!

History. The greatest story ever told.

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Her name is Larthia. A silver cup with her name engraved on it was found in her burial chamber. For some reason just reading the name of this long dead woman caught and kept my attention.
Linnea

I'm sticking to the Americas, actually North America. I've got some ideas in the works for a mid to late 19th century German immigrant's story and also have some ideas put together concentrating more on the native Americans. But that's after my early 19th century Ohio. There's a lot of American history still to be told. Puma

Medieval Jewish History, my last attemped turned in to a historicly accurite (sp) folk tale. I'm keeping the idea but I have to resequence the whole thing.

My historical loves:

Ancient Egypt, preferrable Old Kingdom, some Amarna
Pre-christian Ireland
Plantagenet era England, Ireland, France
Victorian London
America between the WWs.

Not that I'll ever claim to be an expert on any of them, mind you.

I am presently entrenched in American history.

My story set in 18th century Colonial America is what will be published next summer.

WIP is a trilogy set in Revolutionary America, so that is what I will be writing for the next few years. Book 1 is due in June.

I have ideas for 17th century colonial America.

That being said, I would love to do a story set in ancient Rome.
I could easily dip into Rennaissance Italy.
Revolutionary France is tantalizing.

I'm afraid I hop more between genres than periods.

Good question! I think there are very few time periods that I don't like. Right now I'm sticking to late 19th/early 20th century America and Scotland, as I've already done a ton of research there.

Some ideas that I have fall in medieval Europe, mid 19th century America, mid 18th century America, Restoration, time between the world wars. I suppose I don't have much of an interest in writing more ancient history, although it sure is fun to read!

It depends upon the story I wish to tell. I have written an unpublished WWII fighter ace novel, another set in 17th century Spain to be publishe din 2008, and have in mind two others -- one in the Dark Ages, and another in the 1890s. My love of History knows no time or place restrictions.

www.donaldmichaelplatt.com

Actually, thanks for the questions, Doogs. It got me to thinking about my love of history and what I realized is that I'm not particularly in love with any era. I get fascinated by an individual or set of people in that time period and place and then expand out to discover what made them the way they are. Sometimes I find other cool people and things about that point in history, sometimes not--but there's always one individual that roots my interest.

Thanks again!

And I just love that feeling of excitement before starting a project, when I realize that I could not only go anywhere, but anytime!

Wars of the Roses
Elizabethan England
fall of the Romanovs

Good thing there's plenty of history for everyone, eh? LOL!

I dont write about it yet..but my other timeperiod is Britain during the Roman occupation (and conquering) so c. 43 BC to about 400AD

I don't know that I could pick one. I think as I've aged I've found that history is much more fascinating than when I was young. I would love to delve into a full fledged study of Ancient Greece and Rome, Ancient Egypt, I'd love to write about the Vikings, and my favorite is probably Elizabethan England though I'm also developing a sincere interest in colonial America and the period of the American revolution.

Just got back from nine days touring Utah, sans computer. Thanks, Doogs, for a fascinating thread.

Although I'm committed in many ways to writing about the early Sumerian era, I'm drawn far afield by my wife's brother, who is a retired anthropologist of some renown as a scholar of the Olmec "mother" civilization in Mexico. So much of what he has told me over the years offers food for great fiction.

I guess I'm drawn to formative epochs more than classical European and American cultures as grist for fiction, possibly because of the mixture of hard fact and supposition. The farther back in time we go, the more gaps one finds and the more detective work is necessary to answer enigmas. My brother-in-law and his wife are sleuths of history, using scientific discoveries and methods to piece together answers for the riddles left by piecemeal revelations. It's fascinating to listen to them talk.

That's not to take away anything from the other periods of history mentioned here. I think the pull of historical fiction is in the way a writer embellishes raw facts with imaginary. You find a Roman name, scant mention of a few facts regarding that person, and then you build an entire world around him, replete with family, romance, tragedy, all the human pathos that probably happened but did not in the way you imagined. That to me is the essence of our craft.

Most of us are scholars of a sort. We have to study the period about which we write, or else lose any and all credibility. For me, and for others I assume, such study is a labor of love almost as rewarding as creating the story itself, and often leads to the next project.

Right now I'm in the Kamakura and Muromachi eras of Japan (11??-1467). Given that all my writing at this point's centred around an ageless character, I can write about any time period or place from the mid-late 13th century onward.

So far...

I've sold stories set in Regency and Victorian England and New Zealand, Bronze Age Europe, the Germanicus tribes around 100BC, oh and Edwardian Japan.

So many things pop up which make an excellent short story. I've got heaps of material from being here in Japan, fascinating family stuff from Regency and Victorian England and New Zealand, and trips to digs or museums fill me with wondrous ideas for stories. Just don't have the time to write them all.

Strangely enough, short stories start from an incident, picture in a museum, holding a little shoe, wanting to argue with some prof who has written an article about something and it seems all wrong! But novel length ideas start with characters.