photo by Bernard Tuck on Unsplash This is Part II of the posts on “world-building.” (Part I—fantasy/spec fiction—is here, and Part III—contemporary/realism—is here.) Digression? I just finished reading an historical novel, set in Richmond, Virginia, just pre-civil war. (A book club read; I’m always curious to see and read what others choose.)
You've provided some great ideas on how to work on something set in another period. I was just saying yesterday to a friend that I find historical fiction the most difficult thing to write, and yet it is what I most love to write. Perhaps because it provides me with an excellent excuse to escape into another world? It's a wonderfully complex puzzle to create a vision of a world for others and hope it works for them, but it can get overwhelming if you let it. (I often let it.) When you write something contemporary, even if it's about someone very different from you living a life very different from yours, it's still a world you have a grasp of. You know more than you realize you know.
The main setting for my first novel was a 5000-year old megalithic tomb, the walls of which are covered with Viking runes. I could NOT get myself in there, so I got a roll of brown paper and I drew the stones and the openings in the walls and I wrote (in English) the runes exactly where the Vikings had etched them. Those were the walls of my kitchen for a few months. The students I tutored in my kitchen thought I was losing it. When I really couldn't get 'there' I wrote by candlelight, as my characters would have been seeing only by firelight.
At the moment I am revising two novels set in 10th century Ireland. I began research for them in 2006 and, as I work through them again, I am revising story and prose, but also historical detail because I've learned a lot more about Ireland since then. Turns out the Irish didn't make hay for their much-loved cattle! They didn't need it because grass was available through both seasons (they only counted two.) The challenge became not being able to tell the reader the Irish didn't make hay (they had no concept of hay), while describing why the cattle starved the winter of 917 because of horrific snow and ice storms when the modern reader would be wondering why they didn't just give them hay! Like I said, a complex puzzle. But man, when someone tells you that you took them 'there?' It's worth it.
"And if there is only one of those, it might have to be let go: such phrases need friends and cousins." This is just the advice that I needed. I have way too many themes and ideas that are playing by themselves that break the coherence of the story! And having a firm grip on the spirit / voice of a specific historical time period is so hard. I guess it gets better with the 90% of the research that aren't explicitly used in the story, but still reside in writers' minds to help them immerse themselves more fully into their fictional world ... Today's lesson was so helpful, thank you so much Alison!!
I liked the imagining white buildings before you discovered that they really were white. Like Robertson Davies saying that the monks in one of his novels wrote with purple ink, and a monk told him later, "How did you know?" "I just made it up," said Davies, but somehow ... (of course, he was a Jungian).
For my historical novel I found it useful to read a set of diaries from the time, but yes, it's quite different to know a period in broad strokes and to know what they had with their tea. I thought I knew Victorian England, but ...
I’m researching 1946 -1960 New Westminster, British Columbia Canada in case anyone has suggestions 😃 I’ve got to find newspaper archives and I’ve got some info from the city, but all ideas welcome.
This is great, Alison!
You've provided some great ideas on how to work on something set in another period. I was just saying yesterday to a friend that I find historical fiction the most difficult thing to write, and yet it is what I most love to write. Perhaps because it provides me with an excellent excuse to escape into another world? It's a wonderfully complex puzzle to create a vision of a world for others and hope it works for them, but it can get overwhelming if you let it. (I often let it.) When you write something contemporary, even if it's about someone very different from you living a life very different from yours, it's still a world you have a grasp of. You know more than you realize you know.
The main setting for my first novel was a 5000-year old megalithic tomb, the walls of which are covered with Viking runes. I could NOT get myself in there, so I got a roll of brown paper and I drew the stones and the openings in the walls and I wrote (in English) the runes exactly where the Vikings had etched them. Those were the walls of my kitchen for a few months. The students I tutored in my kitchen thought I was losing it. When I really couldn't get 'there' I wrote by candlelight, as my characters would have been seeing only by firelight.
At the moment I am revising two novels set in 10th century Ireland. I began research for them in 2006 and, as I work through them again, I am revising story and prose, but also historical detail because I've learned a lot more about Ireland since then. Turns out the Irish didn't make hay for their much-loved cattle! They didn't need it because grass was available through both seasons (they only counted two.) The challenge became not being able to tell the reader the Irish didn't make hay (they had no concept of hay), while describing why the cattle starved the winter of 917 because of horrific snow and ice storms when the modern reader would be wondering why they didn't just give them hay! Like I said, a complex puzzle. But man, when someone tells you that you took them 'there?' It's worth it.
"And if there is only one of those, it might have to be let go: such phrases need friends and cousins." This is just the advice that I needed. I have way too many themes and ideas that are playing by themselves that break the coherence of the story! And having a firm grip on the spirit / voice of a specific historical time period is so hard. I guess it gets better with the 90% of the research that aren't explicitly used in the story, but still reside in writers' minds to help them immerse themselves more fully into their fictional world ... Today's lesson was so helpful, thank you so much Alison!!
Thank you to the people who comment on these articles. Your comments are as helpful as the articles. And glad the articles trigger the comments!
I liked the imagining white buildings before you discovered that they really were white. Like Robertson Davies saying that the monks in one of his novels wrote with purple ink, and a monk told him later, "How did you know?" "I just made it up," said Davies, but somehow ... (of course, he was a Jungian).
For my historical novel I found it useful to read a set of diaries from the time, but yes, it's quite different to know a period in broad strokes and to know what they had with their tea. I thought I knew Victorian England, but ...
I’m researching 1946 -1960 New Westminster, British Columbia Canada in case anyone has suggestions 😃 I’ve got to find newspaper archives and I’ve got some info from the city, but all ideas welcome.