The Curious Life of Historical Fiction Writers

We have a plethora of information on Colonial Quills dealing with historical facts, people, places, and even recipes.  As a Colonial Quills reader, are you interested in the curious life of historical fiction writers? How do we come up with our stories, scenes, and characters? What sparks inspiration?

One afternoon, while working on a manuscript at my computer, I happened to glance out the window to see a young couple walking along the sidewalk. The sidewalk is beyond my back garden, behind a row of evergreens.

I watched him sweep her into his arms in one quick movement. She cradled her head against his forearm. Then he whirled around with her down the sidewalk. He was smiling and she was laughing. I thought, 'They must be so in love'. As a writer, these are the things I love to see, things I notice. These are the kinds of things that I write down, and will put in a novel. It isn't often you see this kind of affection out on a public sidewalk. . .that old fashioned courting kind of affection.

It got me thinking, how writers are observant people. We pick up on a conversation while in line at the grocery store, or what a client next to us at the hair salon is saying. We watch the body language of people. We observe the depressed housewife as she reaches for apples in the produce section, and the anxious parent waiting outside the principle's office.

How about the homeless man sitting outside the Rescue Mission? How about the elderly couple taking a walk in the park, holding hands? How about the woman in the church pew praying, or the lonely teenager sitting outside on the front stoup?

I observe places much the same way. There's the old plantation house atop a hill, now surrounded by roads, and an assisted living home . Every time I see Prospect Hall, I wonder about the people that built it. Who were the people that lived in it down the years, and what are their stories? 

Then there are the rows of old brick townhouses in the historic district, the house that always has the blinds closed, the curtains drawn across the windows. The farm with horses in one meadow and black Angus in the other. The abandoned stone house and log cabin way out in the countryside.

Historical fiction writers are captivated by people and places, not just historical facts. The large plantation house above is Prospect Hall in Frederick, Maryland. It was built around 1787 and completed by 1810 on the highest hill outside the city called Red Hill. So much of its history has been lost in time, but we do know George Washington spent time there. 

Prospect Hall is about 1 mile from my home. Whenever I drive past it, I envision horses and carriages moving up the lane. There is a stone wall surrounding the front built by slaves. Parts of it are crumbling. The property became a Catholic school for many years, and is up for sale. Thankfully it is on the historic registry. However, it is sad to see the paint is peeling on the house, and is beginning to look neglected. But what a house of historical richness it is. If only the walls could talk!

Rita Gerlach lives with her husband and two sons in a historical town nestled along the Catoctin Mountains, amid Civil War battlefields and Revolutionary War outposts in central Maryland. Her historical romance 'Surrender the Wind' gained four and five star reviews. In February, Abingdon Press released the first book in Rita's historical drama series, 'Daughters of the Potomac' entitled 'Before the Scarlet Dawn' which won high praise from USA Today Book Reviews. Two more books in the trilogy are forthcoming. 

Her website:

http://ritagerlach.blogspot.com/

Review: The Art and Craft of Writing Historical Fiction by James Alexander Thom

"The past is where we get the raw material we use.... We pick bygone time up by the handfuls and, like clay, see if it feels right and then form it into stories about the past." ~ James Thom, The Art and Craft of Writing Historical Fiction

James Alexander Thom is one of my favorite general market fiction writers, so when I learned last year that he'd written The Art and Craft of Writing Historical Fiction, I ordered a copy and read it at once. More than a nuts and bolts How To Write book, Thom's offering on the craft is in many ways more philosophical than I expected, but delightfully so. It's also peppered with humorous and thoughtful anecdotes that delve into his personal experiences of writing and researching historical fiction. The many examples taken from his novels are bound to interest any reader familiar with Thom and his work.

The book begins with a look at what Thom calls the River of Time. "The story of the world, of America.... flows like a river, and we are all in it--some of us dead, some old, some young, some as yet unborn." Making sure the characters we write come across believably as being in that River of Time farther upstream than the Now in which we write their stories, and offering techniques to help create this verisimilitude, is largely what the rest of the book is about. Unlike the historian, the historical novelist doesn't "[point] backward toward a past time, but [takes] the reader back to that time, back when that time was now, and [looks] forward to the uncertainty of the next hours and days." Thom spends chapters showing and telling how to make those long-ago moments "so vivid, so real, so sensuously complete and immediate that the reader is there, then, looking forward, not just here, now, looking back." Deeper into the book Thom writes, "Your characters are who they are because they enter that stream when and where they do. They are products of their time, and they do what they do because of the circumstances of history in which they find themselves."

Other topics covered are historical truth vs. fiction (the importance of accuracy and just how much fudging of the truth should a writer indulge in). Methods for researching, from book research to the internet to getting out and experiencing history physically. Genealogical research. Taming all that data once you've accumulated it. Starting your story. Writing to the senses. How NOT to write historical fiction. And when and how to orient the reader in another time and place, through setting and details: "As much as you can, you must be like someone who has lived there, because you're going to be not just the storyteller but also the tour guide taking your readers through the past."

The Art and Craft of Writing Historical Fiction is written with an engaging voice that feels more like sitting in a classroom listening to a skilled lecturer telling story after story, and dropping nuggets of vital craft information along the way--or maybe more like a master storyteller sitting across the fire from you, while behind you in the rustling dark owls hoot and coyotes yip. So listen and be entertained, but add another stick of wood to the fire and have your pen and journal ready, because you're about to learn a thing or two.

More about the author: James Alexander Thom was formerly a U.S. Marine, a newspaper and magazine editor, and a member of the faculty at the Indiana University Journalism School. He is the author of Follow the River, Long Knife, From Sea to Shining Sea, Panther in the Sky (for which he won the prestigious Western Writers of America Spur Award for best historical novel), Sign-Talker, and The Red Heart. He lives in the Indiana hill country with his wife, Dark Rain of the Shawnee Nation, United Remnant Band. You can find him on line at: www.jamesalexanderthom.com