Painting the Past is a good resource for aspiring writers with general advice on craft in general and a few more specific recommendations on writing historical fiction specifically (which you don't really get to until chapter 7 - What Kind of Information Do I Need?). At the end of each of those first seven (7) chapters, the author provides a good writing exercise called "Quick Write" that seem useful for figuring out exactly what you want to write about; however, most of the book appears to be anecdotal vignettes to illustrate the concepts or motivate the writer until chapter 17 - Moving Past the Blank Page, where you will find several tips on doing just that. I found the next seven (7) chapters to be the best part of the book and marked it up for future reference. Over all it was a simple and accessible reference for a beginning writer that echoed a lot of the advice I have found in other such material with a few tips and tricks to make this slightly unique on is own and worth a look.

I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
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