What turns a writer of Fact into a writer of Fiction

I started writing to produce treatise on the historical and archaeological findings at Kilmartin in Argyll, Scotland. (ancient Dun’s Broch’s, Cyst's, Standing stones and burial mounds). It is such a fascinating place that it did not take long for my imagination to kick in and I started wondering what life would be like for the people that lived in the area five to ten thousand years ago. It was a short step from my dry archaeological pieces to putting thought's and memories into those ancient heads.

Suddenly I had an idea for a fiction, I know that sounds dramatic but one second I was day dreaming and the next I had the bones of a fully formed short tale in my head. Generally the idea was that no matter when you have lived (in time)that life, though very different, will always remain the same. Your basic wants and needs, the wish to be loved and give love in return, the need to eat and have shelter from the elements (lol- especially in Scotland), the wish to reproduce, the need for companionship and company, community, Protection would always be the same.

So I created a few characters, essentially the same but living centuries apart. All wishing and needing the same things. I had all the archaeology and history already in my head and so that became my first novel back in nineteen ninety something. Had I not written all the dull factual information then I would neither have thought myself capable of telling the tale nor had the ability to summarize the dry facts and allow the wonder to roam free.

Anyway for a first novel (first written but the second published now that I think back) it did rather well despite a confusing structure and Idea.

Many fiction writers put in a great effort researching their book (a good thing in my opinion) but then add all the “dry” facts that they have learned along the way, slowing the book and making it dull for the reader. A factual writer is well used to summarizing, condensing but still including the relevant facts to suit the piece that they are writing. I consider this a good basis for fiction writing and it has served me well over the years. I still write factual pieces for the odd journal here and there as well as advertising material for “Visit Scotland” but now I write predominantly fiction. My books do not sell in their millions, often not even in their thousands or hundreds in some cases.

lol- in one case not even in it's ten's but mostly they do well and I am happy with them.