Divination: How the Tim Powers method for secret histories keeps my creative juices flowing.

Powers explained: when he sets out to create a secret history, he researches two or more seemingly disconnected people and/or events, creating a timeline of what happened to them, and where it happened.

Wherever there is some overlap — when two people were in the same place, say, or two events took place at the same moment — Powers assumes that it wasn’t a coincidence.