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Saturday, May 7, 2016

Weaving Romance through Hair... and History with @KimKasch #Romance #RB4U


Romance and writing both require a little effort, just like love requires two people. And Batman and Robin and Xena and Gabrielle knew the secret to success: everything is easier when you do it as a tag team - even research.

So, when Kristin started writing a manuscript about Marie Antoinette (or as we came to call her, “M.A.”) we both knew that a little—or maybe a lot—of research was needed. And one of the most fascinating facts about MA was her obsession with hair.

She wanted it just like her cake: TALL and WIDE. MA wanted drama in her style. Simply look at the crazy wide skirts she wore, which were only partially rivaled by the height of her hair, if you want to see just how dramatic Marie Antoinette really was.

But how could Kristin write about something she knew nothing about…?
She had to learn all about MA’s hair styles. And together we came up with a plan…
We wanted to discover how it felt to have hair piled high on top of a head, and see what sort of artistry was needed to weave the locks into an intricate pattern.
What we discovered is writing a love story is a lot like styling hair.

·         Details are important.
·         Planning and preparation are required.
·         Little strands of a story—like hair—need to be woven back and forth, in and out, together and around to create something worth looking at and reading.
·         Hair and history both weave their way through people’s lives, silent and subtle.

So Kristin and I decided to find out, first hand, a little bit more about hair styles. And there’s really only one way to do that. We had to have our hair done.

FIELD TRIP FOR WRITERS – WRITING AND RESEARCH SHOULD BE FUN
This is a fun way to do research. We went to have our hair done…all for the glory of the story. And to save on the expense, we went to a beauty school. There, the students taught us what we didn't know about hair and styles.

This was another occasion of putting our butts in the seat to do the hard (okay it wasn’t so hard for us) work. We sat in the chairs and let the hair stylists show us a few things about styling hair back in MA's day. And these stylists had flat irons, bobby pins and hairspray, things that weren’t around in Marie Antoinette’s era.

And, like they always say, a picture is worth a thousand words so here are a few pictures of what we did for our “WRITING FIELDTRIP”.







SOCIAL MEDIA SITES:
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AND, if you’d like to read more about “fun” writing projects or see author interviews, join Kristin and me on our brand new blog: Writing, Words & Wisdom
Posting our first piece this weekend here: https://wordpresscom28734.wordpress.com/
And if you’d like to read a story with romance and thrills, check out my latest book:
The Cats of Cullaby Creek



LOVE IS ALWAYS RISKY
BUT
IN CULLABY CREEK IT’S DANGEROUS


TAG LINE:
Love is in the Air, something else is in the water


YOU CAN BUY KIM’S BOOKS HERE:



10 comments:

Melissa Keir said...

What a fun research event! I'm so glad you were able to do that. I see myself running and hiding when it comes to my hair!!

Cara Marsi said...

How creative of you! It's the kind of research I like. You both look good in your MA hair.

Anonymous said...

What really struck me was the effort and time that it took to style our hair, and that was with the benefit of curling irons, gel, spray...I can't imagine how difficult it must have been to create such masterpieces in the 1780's.

jean hart stewart said...

What fun!!! And you're right, how did they do it back then?

Kimbra Kasch said...

It's always fun to hang out with friendly writers...even when I'm being a guinea pig ...with my hair ;)

Kimbra Kasch said...

Thanks Cara. It was fun and we learned a lot...now to translate that onto the page...

Kimbra Kasch said...

Now we have to start planning our next writers fieldtrip :)

Kimbra Kasch said...

It seems like it would have been impossible back in Marie's time...I have a whole new appreciation for hair art

Kimbra Kasch said...

It seems like it would have been impossible back in Marie's time...I have a whole new appreciation for hair art

Kimbra Kasch said...

Now we have to start planning our next writers fieldtrip :)

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