Meredith Allard's Blog, page 35

Writing Historical Fiction Part 7

Quick Note: Her Dear & Loving Husband, Book One of the Loving Husband Trilogy, is now free for a limited time from Amazon, Kobo, and other retailers. It’s currently #237 among free books on Amazon, so thank you to everyone who has already downloaded a copy.

7.  Immerse yourself in the period.

Research doesn’t have to be only about going through stacks of books and taking endless notes. Make this time fun for yourself. Visit local historical sites that are reminiscent of the period. Read books and listen to music from that time or place. Watch movies set in the period or documentaries about the era.  I discovered the wonderful film Gettysburg while I was writing my American Civil War story, My Brother’s Battle. Watching the soldiers march and hearing the battle calls helped me to visualize the battle scenes while I was writing. I also bought several CDs of music from the era which I listened to while I was writing. I must have listened to the soundtrack to Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary a hundred times or more during the two years it took to write the book. I even bought a children’s paper doll book with Civil War uniforms and, yes, I had fun folding the clothes over the soldiers. As I was writing the novel I had no trouble describing the uniforms–or the garments under the uniforms. When I was writing my women suffrage novel, Victory Garden, which takes place from 1917-1922, I enjoyed watching silent films and listening to ragtime piano music since those were the entertainments people enjoyed then. The more you, the writer, feel as if you have traveled back to your time, and the more you enjoy your visit there, the more your reader will believe the journey.

Some final thoughts about writing historical fiction…

Whether or not we are historians by trade, writers of historical fiction are historians by choice, and we must take that seriously. This leads us to the question: How much leeway can the writer of historical fiction take with the facts? That’s the one question I’m asked most frequently, and that’s the one answer I don’t have. It’s up to authors to decide how they’re going to intertwine facts of the era with the characters and story they’ve created.

For writers who feel they need to change the facts for whatever reason, I won’t argue that it’s wrong to do; however, the former history teacher in me suggests adding a note about it in an Author’s Notes at the end of the novel. This way your readers (who are often familiar with your historical era) know that you know that you fudged some of the facts. I don’t think we should make massive changes to the history, but a tweak here and there can be forgiven if the story and characters are strong enough. Perhaps the task of the historical storyteller is to make the history interesting enough for readers so they’ll become curious and want to read some nonfiction about the era. That’s what Downton Abbey did for me. After I fell in love with the show, I began reading everything I could find about early 20th century England.

The primary job of the historical storyteller is to educate readers with facts about the past while entertaining them with well-written plots and engaging characters. The more joy we find in the process of writing our history-based stories, the more joy we’ll find as we share our stories.  And that is why we write historical fiction after all.

This concludes Writing Historical Fiction 101, at least until I can think of some other advice I’ve shared with my writing seminar students.

Filed under: Her Dear & Loving Husband, Historical Fiction, Writing Tagged: free books, Her Dear & Loving Husband, historical fiction, researching historical fiction, writing historical fiction

Writing Historical Fiction Part 6

Part 6. Take notes, then more notes, then… 

After I’ve read as much about my subject as my brain can handle, I’ll begin to form ideas about how I can incorporate the history into the story I want to tell. Then I can begin looking for the specific information I need to help me connect the dots. That’s when I begin to take notes.

I still prefer to handwrite my notes into a spiral notebook. In Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg recommends getting notebooks with cartoon characters or crazy designs on the cover because it prevents you from taking yourself too seriously while you’re working. Writing out notes the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper, can seem like a tedious process to some, but, like Goldberg, I believe there’s a hand-to-heart connection in writing things out longhand.  I absorb the information better that way, and then I can do a better job relating the information to others. When I try to take the short cut and print up the articles from the Internet or make photocopies at the library, I don’t read the information as closely as I do when I handwrite my notes. I skim, find only what I think I need, and ignore the rest. When I handwrite my notes I’m forced to slow down, read carefully, and decide what is important enough to write down. Because the process can be slow I have time to think while I’m working. Sometimes being forced to slow down and think can be a good thing, especially when crafting a story.

Some writers prefer to type their notes or write them out on index cards. One writer friend of mine posts his research notecards on a bulletin board by his desk. His board is divided into sections, one section for each chapter in his book, and he pins his notecards into the chapter where he thinks the information will go. Some writers like to highlight the information they need, using a different color for each category of information. That’s fine.

Part of becoming comfortable with the research process is figuring out what works best for you. The notes, in whatever form you write them, do come in handy after the library books have been returned and you need that certain date while you’re working.  And don’t forget to write down the bibliographical information for each source you use. You may want to go back to those sources again.

Filed under: Historical Fiction, Writing Tagged: researching historical fiction, writing, writing historical fiction, writing tips

Writing Historical Fiction Part 5

5.  Make friends with a librarian and, while you’re at it, try a university library.

I’ve already professed my love for the instant gratification of finding a necessary piece of information online in a matter of moments. However, nothing replaces library research. The depth of information from library research cannot always be replicated on the Internet with its short articles and occasionally unclear sources. The weekend historian may be intimidated by the sheer amount of resources in the library, but never fear.

I’ve encountered many conscientious librarians who have gone beyond their job descriptions and assisted me by helping me track down an elusive book or an article about a little-known subject. If you’re not sure where to begin your quest for knowledge about your historical period, ask a librarian. Most are more than happy to help. And I’m not just saying that because Sarah Wentworth of the Loving Husband Trilogy is a librarian. I’ve always had a high opinion of librarians (as most book lovers do), and I’ve thought more than once that if I wasn’t a teacher I’d be a librarian.

The Los Angeles County Public Libraries, the Clark County Libraries, and probably library systems all over, have a wonderful program where, if a local branch doesn’t have a book you want but another branch does, the other branch will ship the book to your neck of the woods so you don’t have to go running all over town. Check with your local library to see if it has a similar program. In the Internet age there’s no more standing over card catalogues and pulling out musty cards that leave you grabbing for your asthma inhaler. Libraries have online catalogues these days so you can check at home to see if your local library, or any nearby library, has that book you need.

If your local library doesn’t have what you need, try visiting a college or university library. University libraries are created for research after all. In the old-timey days they had stacks of newspapers, journals, microfiche, and other hard-to-find materials. Some still have primary sources in their special collections. These days university libraries have online search engines that allow you access to information you might not otherwise be able to find, and yes, you can access them from your home computer if you’re a member of that library. Many college and university libraries are open to the public for a yearly fee—from $30 to $100—and it’s a worthwhile investment for historical novelists.

I know I’m stating the obvious when I mention using the library, but the teacher in me feels like I need to remind people that there are these buildings with wall-to-wall books you can borrow for free (that’s the books you can borrow for free, not the buildings). With so many using the Internet as their only source of research, I’m afraid they’re passing over other important ways to find information. And historical novelists need to use any avenue they can to find the facts that will make their stories come to life.

Filed under: Writing Tagged: historical fiction, researching historical fiction, writing historical fiction

Writing Historical Fiction Part 4

4. Use the Internet

The Internet can be a great tool for research. You can check out the online catalogs of public and university libraries, and you can look up the online collections of the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institute, and other research-friendly places there in the comfort of your home in your jammies with your cat on your knee (maybe that’s just me).

The Internet is great for finding interesting snippets of information. As I’m beginning the research for my next historical novel set in Victorian England, I stumbled onto a site that explains the Victorian language of flowers. Even the way a Victorian woman held her fan could send a message to a nearby gentleman. Because of this new-found knowledge I’m able to flesh out the story in a way I wasn’t anticipating.

The Internet is truly wonderful, though, when you’re in the middle of writing a scene and realize you’re missing some important fact in your notes. Surf the web and in a matter of minutes you can find what you need. For example, when I was writing Her Dear & Loving Husband I had the unique task of writing scenes set on a college campus that at that point I had never been to. For you Loving Husband Trilogy fans, you know I’m referring to Salem State College (now University, thank you very much). I did finally visit the campus while writing Her Loving Husband’s Curse, but while writing Book One in the series I needed to know where one college building was in relation to another and how far someone might have to walk to get from one place to the other. In a matter of minutes I printed up a map of the  campus, and I was able to write my scene in a realistic way. I was thrilled when I visited Salem and found everything where I expected it to be. While that part of the story isn’t particularly historical (it’s a present-day college in the present-day town of Salem), I believe my point still stands since I also used the Internet when I researched the Salem Witch Trials for the same novel.

When using the Internet, however, writers of historical fiction need to be aware that there will be gaps in the research. Internet articles are often on the short side and they may lack the thorough details you’d find in books and journals. And since anyone can put anything on the World Wide Web (hence the fact you’re subjected to reading this now), you need to be sure the information you’re using comes from a reliable source. Wiki is a cute name, but the mistakes in some of the information contained on some wiki sites aren’t so cute. I like to check and double check my information across several different sites. Hey, they can’t all have the same wrong information, can they? I’ve certainly found a lot of accurate information on the web, and there’s no reason to assume all sites are fraudulent. Just be aware of where the information is coming from.

Filed under: Writing Tagged: researching historical fiction, writing, writing historical fiction

NaNoWriMo Update #4–The End of the Challenge

My final chart for NaNoWriMo 2013. I will definitely participate next year.

I know NaNoWriMo officially ended two days ago, but it was a holiday weekend here in the U.S. and I was busy celebrating Thanksgiving. Plus, it’s a tradition in my family to put up our Christmas decorations during Thanksgiving weekend.

You may have noticed my fancy-schmancy NaNoWriMo winners widget to the right over there. I finished four days early at 58,550 words. Pretty darn cool if I do say so myself. I even bought myself a winners t-shirt. When I get it I’ll take a “selfie” (apparently that’s a real word now) so everyone can see.

I’m glad I took the NaNoWriMo challenge for the first time. I had always thought that I needed a lot of time to work through a draft. “My brain doesn’t work that fast,” I’d say, or “Writing needs to happen in its own time.” Writing for NaNoWriMo showed me that I can complete a draft in 30 days and it doesn’t have to take three or four months. Sure, there was a Pavlov’s dog-type reward for adding my word count into the NaNoWriMo widget and watching the numbers go up (I won’t admit whether I salivated or not). I was able to achieve both tasks I set out for myself—first, to hit the 50,000 word mark and second, to write a complete draft from beginning to end. Done and done.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I wasn’t working with an idea off the top of my head as a lot of writers do when they begin NaNoWriMo. I had been kicking the idea for That You Are Here around for about a year, and I had a halfway decent outline to work with. True, the outline was better for the later chapters, but at least I had something to work with in the beginning when the writing is hardest (at least for me). I’m sure I wouldn’t have done nearly as well if I hadn’t started with a clear idea of the story I wanted to tell.

I also contribute my success, at least partially, to my OCD. I have never been officially diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but I’m sure I have it—not to such a debilitating degree as others, but I must have some minor form of it. I will check five times to see that the garage door is closed, you know, oddities like that. During November I was Rain Man wringing his hands in the airport: “I have to hit 50,000 words. I have to hit 50,000 words. That’s 1666 words per day. How many words did I do today? Not enough words? How many words do I have to do tomorrow? I have to hit 50,000 words…” I said in my first NaNoWriMo update that it didn’t matter if I hit the word count or not, and in theory I meant it. But I know me, and when I have something hanging over me like a due date, I will get it done or else Rain Man starts nagging again.

I’m glad I met my goals, and yet I’m glad November is over. The draft of the novel is complete—it has a beginning, a middle, and an end—but it still needs a lot of work. I’m going to do what I usually do when I finish a draft of a novel—set it aside for a couple of weeks so I can go back to it with fresh eyes. I need a brain break after pushing so hard for 30 days. Still, I learned something—I can work quickly and efficiently if I set my mind to it. For someone like me who has a lot of stories to tell, that’s an important lesson.

I think that if November is National Novel Writing Month, then December should be National Novel Editing Month. Just an idea.

I got an e-mail from the NaNoWriMo people talking about the December hangover, and I understand. But I still have a lot to do to make That You Are Here the novel I want it to be. So there’s plenty of work to keep me busy in December and beyond.

Filed under: News, Tidbits, Writing Tagged: NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, novel writing, writing

NaNoWriMo Update #3

My numbers went way up last week and I’m very nearly at the 50,000 word mark already. According to the chart, I’ll be finished by the 27th, but I’m going to keep adding my word count until the 30th. Winners t-shirt here I come!

This update should have gone up last week, but I was so busy writing I never got around to it.

Last week my writing exploded, and now I’m at 47,899 words with five more days to go, so I can see the light flashing at the end of the tunnel. Things just started to click, so I’ll definitely make the 50,000 word count and then some. Right now I’m on Chapter 17 of what looks to be a 22 chapter novel, and while the book will still need a lot of dusting and polishing, it’s fair to say that the structure of the novel will be complete as of November 30th.

Last week while I was writing to push the narrative forward, I also spent a lot of time going back and filling in plot holes. I’m a big fan of foreshadowing (here’s my post about it here), and when I’m writing my narrative I like to leave a few bread crumbs so later events make sense. I don’t want to give away too much too soon because then there’s no reason to keep reading, but I’m not a fan of the ‘deus ex machina’ style of writing where all of a sudden something happens out of nowhere. True, that does happen in real life when things seem random, but that’s why I like fiction better than real life. In fiction, I like to make the events in the story logically connected. I want readers to have a sense something is going to happen, even if they’re not sure what, like that sneaky music in Jaws where you know the shark will pop up, you’re just not sure where. Usually, the way I write, I see later in the story what needs pointing to and then I go back earlier into the story and do the pointing.

I love that quote from Chekhov that says if you show a gun in the first act, you’d better use it by the third. I realized the other day that I had an interaction between characters in Chapter 2 that should be important to the story but then I had forgotten about it and never mentioned it again. Now I realize I need to show the result of the interaction later in the story, otherwise there’s no point to the interaction in the first place. I like to whittle away anything that’s not necessary to telling the story, so a lot of dialogue, descriptions, and events get deleted if they don’t serve any purpose in moving things forward.

Here’s the cover for That You Are Here. I think it’s pretty cool.

I even have a handy-dandy cover for That You Are Here, courtesy of Fran Osborne from SelfPubBookCovers.com. I happened to be browsing different websites with premade book covers and this one caught my eye. I think it fits the story perfectly. It’s abstract, which is how one of the main characters, Andrew, feels about his life—nothing is quite in alignment no matter how hard he tries. I love the bold red color, and the two figures could represent the two main characters. Bridges are an important theme in the story, so that thick black line could represent a bridge. Really, I like that it means what you think it means. It’s the first time I’ve used a premade book cover and I have to say I’m happy with this one.

I have some more writing to do today, and then it’s over the hump and into the 30th (although I will stop to have Thanksgiving dinner on the 28th). It’s all good from here.

Filed under: News, Tidbits, Writing Tagged: NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo Updates, writing

Writing Historical Fiction Part 3

Read all about it. 

Track down as many primary sources as you can—sources written or created during the time period you’re studying: journals, diaries, autobiographies, news film footage, interviews, photographs, speeches, books (both fiction and nonfiction), research data, even art. I still remember the afternoon I spent at my local university library looking up old newspaper clippings from the early 20th century when I was researching Victory Garden. It was fascinating to see what had been written between the years 1917-1922, the days when the women’s suffrage movement, World War I, and then Prohibition were happening. I was also fascinated to see how propaganda was used then, which wasn’t so different from the way it was used during World War II. Here’s a funny thing you learn when you’re researching history: the more things change, the more they stay the same. I even enjoyed reading advertisements from the period because it gave me a sense of the culture then. On the surface everything appears so naïve and innocent in the early 20th century, the Coca-Cola ads, the blemish cream ads, the shaving cream ads, especially when compared to today’s commercials, but looks can be deceiving. Reading primary sources gives you a finger on the pulse of the times. What were people thinking and feeling then? As writers of historical fiction, it’s our job to find out so we can share it with our readers.

You can also read secondary sources such as books by historians, biographers, and social critics about your time. Read other historical novels set during the time too.  Read it all. Even if most of the information doesn’t end up in your novel (and most of it won’t), it’s knowledge that will act as a backbone for the information you do share in your story. What you know will inform your writing, and the more of an expert you become through your research, the more expertly you will carry your readers into your chosen historical era. As writers of historical fiction, it’s our job to paint the scene of days gone by for our readers to visualize and understand. The more of an understanding we have about the era, the more interesting we can make it for our readers.

Filed under: Historical Fiction, Writing Tagged: historical fiction, researching historical fiction, writing, writing historical fiction

NaNoWriMo Update #2

Here’s my NaNoWriMo chart for 11/14. I wrote 1,788 words today, which is pretty cool. I managed to catch up with my word count in the last couple of days, and now I’m right on target.

Tomorrow is November 15, which is the middle of the month, which is also the halfway point for NaNoWriMo. And I’m almost exactly halfway through the challenge at 24,122 words. According to my chart, I’m right on time. Yippee!

I can see why people start giving up Week 2. It’s like going on a diet. The first week you have a lot of momentum because you’ve psyched yourself up for it and you’re raring to go. The second week it’s more like, “You mean I have to keep doing this?” I did write on Monday even though I didn’t feel like it, and a funny thing happened. The story started to click and I’ve made a lot of progress the last three days. Partially, I think I’m making more progress now because the outline I have is stronger in the middle to ending chapters so I have a better frame to work with. Partially, I think it’s because for the first two weeks I needed to spend some of my writing time looking at photographs and taking some Google Earth peeks at Portland, Oregon, the setting of the story. I was there in June, but only for a few days, so I needed some reminders. And I find the opening chapters of a novel to be the hardest to write because that’s where the important world building takes place. That’s not to say that world building doesn’t continue throughout the story, but those first chapters are crucial in introducing the characters and setting the scene so readers understand where they are and who they’re with. So it does take me longer to write those chapters.

I realized this week that I am very much Goldilocks when I’m writing fiction. The first draft is too short. The second draft is too long. The third (and forth and fifth) draft is closer to being just right. So this first draft will probably end up somewhere on the short side. Maybe the final version of the novel will end up being around 50,000 words after all. As of today, at 24,122 words I’m on Chapter 12 of what is currently a projected 22 chapter novel. I’m as curious as anyone about where the story will be on the 30th. But I’m making progress, which is really what NaNoWriMo is all about. Now it’s back to work!

Filed under: News, Tidbits, Writing Tagged: NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo Updates, National Novel Writing Month

Writing Historical Fiction Part 2

2.  Be as specific as you can when researching.

When you’ve chosen your time period, or when your time period has chosen you (as it occasionally happens), narrow your topic to a workable size. This is particularly true if you’re dealing with a vast subject, like the American Civil War, for example. To research the entire war would be too huge of a project, that is unless you’re Shelby Foote and willing to dedicate 20 years of your life to the task. There is simply too much material to shift through. If you can narrow your focus to something like a single event, a single year, or a single battle then the research will be far more workable and not as burdensome. When I was researching my Civil War story, My Brother’s Battle, I kept my focus on one regiment during the last year of the war. That is still a sizable topic because a lot happened during the last year of the war, but the fact that I was concentrating on a single regiment helped me from falling too far off the track. It was easier to search specifically for the information I needed to tell my story since I knew exactly what I was looking for.

Sometimes, however, it’s hard to narrow your topic if you’re not really sure what years or which events your story is going to cover. That happened to me when I was researching Victory Garden, a story set around World War I and the woman suffrage movement. As with the Loving Husband Trilogy, which is about the Salem Witch Trials, I knew very little about that the World War I era. I have this odd habit of coming up with story ideas set during times I know little about, but for me that’s part of the fun of writing historical fiction—learning about the history. For the suffrage story all I had to begin with was a vague idea that I wanted to explore the difficult fight for women’s right to vote. To begin, I did some general research to get some sense of the era. As I learned about the time, I was able to get a clearer sense of how the events would fit into the fictional story I was weaving about a woman involved in the suffrage movement. After I did enough general research I was then able to focus my attention on the specific aspects of woman suffrage that intrigued me. With a lot of reading and even more notetaking, I discovered that I wanted my story to take place between the years 1918, when WWI ended, and 1920, when women finally received the vote. Through more research I learned that Prohibition was important around the same time, too, and that gave me another angle to work with. Soon (as in a few weeks into my research) I was able to see my fictional character Rose Scofield moving around these true-life events between the years 1918 and 1920, participating in the suffrage movement, watching friends come home from the war, going to Prohibition meetings. I wish the HBO series Boardwalk Empire and Downton Abbey had been on then. It could have helped me get into the spirit of the times as I was writing.

Even when you are interested in the era you are researching, the task of digging through piles of information can seem overwhelming, not to mention tedious. But if you are genuinely intrigued in the era and can narrow your topic to a workable size, then you are helping to make your research time purposeful and even enjoyable. Yes, I said enjoyable. Or am I the only one who loves to sit with books and take notes. Anyone? Anyone?

Filed under: Historical Fiction, Writing Tagged: historical fiction, researching historical fiction, writing, writing historical fiction

Writing Historical Fiction Part 1

I’m the editor of a journal for readers and writers of historical fiction, and I’ve taught classes about how to write historical fiction. As a result, I’m often asked to share my best tips for writing in that genre. I recently searched my bag of tricks and found this article that was published a few years ago. I’ve added tidbits here and there to the original version.

1.  Write about an era that fascinates you.  

This is similar to one of my tips for writing a first draft: write what you must write. An historical novel is a project that could require months or even years of research, so you need to write about a period that can hold your interest for that long.  Most writers of historical fiction choose their historical period based on a long-time interest in the period and that is a good way to start.  Writers who are fascinated by Victoria’s England feel compelled to write about ladies in corsets and men in waistcoats and find great joy in describing those details to others.

It’s usually best not to pick a time period for your novel out of a passing fancy. If you’re writing a novel set around the French Revolution but don’t find the details or the people of the French Revolution particularly interesting, then your project is in trouble because you’re going to avoid the research with every Excuse you can name. No one wants to spend their time reading about something that bores them. But if you’re fascinated by the French Revolution and the events of that time, then you’ll look forward to digging through the archives, flipping through the index, and skimming for important details as you search for the next big clue that will help you fit the pieces of your story puzzle together.

On the other hand, it might happen that you develop an interest in the era you have chosen to write about. I came up with an idea for a story set during the Salem Witch Trials, which oddly enough happened to be a time I knew little about. Though I had never had much interest in that era prior to my crazy story idea (my only experience with the 17th century witch hunts was reading The Crucible in college and watching the movie with Daniel Day-Lewis about ten years ago), I did become fascinated by the frightening happenings of the time through my research.

Whether you’ve chosen your era from a life-long interest, or you develop a fascination out of your research, you need to enjoy the time spent in your chosen era. You’re going to be there awhile.

Filed under: Historical Fiction, Writing Tagged: historical fiction, writing, writing historical fiction