Imaginative space

How do I find imaginative space between what I know of the facts?

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What you’re trying to find is the “anarchic, gift-conjuring, un-knowing part” of the writer’s mind, as Rose Tremain puts it, and it’s not easy. Presumably, you’ve decided your policy – your personal ‘rules’ for this project – about what you can change or invent, and what you must stick to. But that leaves a lot of stuff which you don’t dare let your free brain conjure with.

I suggest that you make a firm decision to grant your researched facts no more special status than you would the facts about your home town, say, or where you grew up. Then try all the ways you already know of growing a scene or a story out of those materials. Or try some of these. For all of them, forget there’s any such thing as “allowed” or “not allowed”; you can always tidy things up later, but for now let anarchy rule