The Seduction Of History

Read the previous post in the Behind The Scenes series: Is Sexual Assault A Write-able Theme?.

The closest I found the subject of History interesting was when my seventh grade teacher used to use her peculiar accent to warp words around, with totally unintended consequences. One such word was ‘Aihole’ – a place in the south Indian state of Karnataka. Said teacher’s pronunciation used to render the word suspiciously similar to an expletive used generously by teens and young adults.

That apart, History as a field of study always was as alluring as watching a blade of grass grow. That is, until something finally gave. Until it was time to tell a story.

And that is what we authors do – tell a story. But what is so enviable about telling a story that has already been told? For history is nothing but fact. Events long buried in the crevasses and folds of time. Happenings that have had another author’s mark over them.

But history offers one thing that pure imagination cannot – a non-abstract start point. A tangible singularity from where the author is free to draw a parallel universe and suck the reader into a whorl of imagination drawn from fact. What could be more intoxicating for an author than to know that he is scripting a different reality from what time has scripted?

A story like Aymaran Shadow would not have been eminently possible had it not been for this elusive playfulness that history demonstrates to all priests of creativity. A superior motive, as I have recalled in my previous post, in falling prey to history’s wiles and charms was that it offers the opportunity to connect a finite past to an unimaginable future – in this case a future that the protagonist of my novel dreads to face.

And thus this author was seduced – hopelessly, eternally, unabashedly – by history.

Do you have a similar fascination for plots originating from fact? Or do you believe authors ought to let history be? Do write in.

Coming soon: the next post in the Behind The Scenes series.