Writing Historical Fiction discussion
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Intro- Bringing to life my Quaker Ancestors
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I am writing a nineteenth-century historical romance novel that includes a Quaker as a minor character. I would love to hear more about your family!
Kati,Thank you for your interest-
How is it important to your story that this character is Quaker? I am looking for their search for Peace during a very violent time in history/.
Is there a special way to post to ask for a critique?
Lisa Smith
Lisa,The story is set in 1884 and the protagonist's friend is being raised by a Quaker woman just outside of town. This woman will be spilling out wisdom and Bible verses as she interacts with the girls and the townspeople. Also, she is opposite a younger staunch minister in town that preaches a strict message that includes women knowing their place, etc. If my research is correct, Quakers allowed women to minister.
Kati,Yes Quaker women ministered and they had more of a voice in all matters than women of other faiths. They were strict about being plain but they were ahead of their times in many ways.
Lisa
Hello! I'm new to the group. For the past year, I have been working on a historical fiction novel. It follows the life of my great-great-great-grandfather ELIJAH DAVIDSON, who was born on 23 February 1783 in Rutherford County, North Carolina. He never knew his mother as he was her ninth child, and she died from complications of his birth. At that time the British Soldiers still occupied New York City and Savannah GA.
Elijah’s father Rev. Alexander Davidson III, and John Fouquoy Murphy (Elijah's future father-in-law) fought as patriots at Ramsour's Mill, Kings Mountain, and Cowpens. All three battles were just 20 miles from Elijah's boyhood home.After the Revolution, Elijah’s generation of Americans inherits truly a new world order and with it, the responsibilities of working out the very complex interactions of independence, law, state's rights, and individual civil liberties. Elijah is reared as a citizen of the very first generation of free-born Americans. For the duration of his life, he will experience the vibrant tapestry of the events, callings, decisions, desires, twists, and turns of a democracy, that will become a hotly contested and frightful reality. Elijah believed that this new republicanism depended on the virtue of its citizenry, a virtue that the politicians would increasingly find difficult to grasp.
At 23, Elijah has to grapple with the new distinctions of free and slave labor, with all its divisive social entailments sparked by the passions of a religious awakening. In 1806, Elijah warmly espoused the cause of Emancipation, influenced by his father-in-law Elder Rev. John Murphy, in 1807, they and others, publicly declared non-fellowship with the very church founded by his father in 1796 and severed all relationships with all pro-slavery Kentucky's Baptist churches. With the help of his mentor Rev. Carter Tarrant, they formed a new church association called the Friends of Humanity movement, where all participating church members must emancipate their slaves. A young couple named Thomas and Nancy and their local church decided to join their movement, and in 1809 they had a son, he is named Abraham Lincoln.
In 1815, Elijah volunteered to fight with Kentucky’s long rifle-mounted militia at the Battle of New Orleans. Rev. Tarrant, Elijah's mentor and friend is also there serving as a Militia Chaplin is killed, not by the British but by pro-slavers.
As payment for their service, men like Elijah received 160-acre land warrants in the Illinois Military Tract, a region between the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, where the Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi ceded their lands in northern Illinois by treaty at Prairie du Chien in 1829.
That autumn, Elijah & Margaret (Murphy) Davidson, with brother-in-laws Squire William Whitman and Capt. Peter Butler, settled on the south side of Cedar Creek, the future site of the town of Monmouth, Illinois. Elijah Davidson erected one of the first of four cabins built in Monmouth. He erects a cabin and a blacksmith shop. The entire territory at that time was comprised of Warren, Henderson, and Merger counties, and contained only thirty or forty families. On February 12, 1831, an act to incorporate the inhabitants of Monmouth was publicly posted to call the male citizens of the town of Monmouth" to meet at the school house. It was organized by calling Elijah Davidson to be chair for voting to incorporate the town of Monmouth. Twenty-three votes were cast in favor of the incorporation and none against it.
On March 19, 1848, the fourth child of Nicholas Porter Earp and his second wife, Virginia Ann Cooksey was born in the township of Monmouth, named Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp.
In 1850, at the vigorous age of 67, Elijah departed the township of Monmouth Illinois crossed over the Oregon Trail, and established his second town, also named Monmouth, and a Christian school that would eventually become Western Oregon University. A strict prohibitionist, a provision for the land donated for the township of Monmouth, Oregon cannot sell or serve alcohol. It was an ordinance that remained in effect until 2002 when the town voted to lift the ban on the last "dry-town on the west coast".
So, that's it! All true. I'm envisioning this breaking into two books, 1783 to 1829, and the second book 1829 to 1870, including the Black Hawk War but, primarily focusing on them crossing the Oregon Trail with 39 of Elijah's extended family church members, along with a cast of colorful characters.
Question, is this where I start posting my excerpts for critique?
Thomasjordan wrote: "Hello! I'm new to the group. For the past year, I have been working on a historical fiction novel. It follows the life of my great-great-great-grandfather ELIJAH DAVIDSON, who was born on 23 Februa..."I haven't seen places on Goodreads where people post excerpts for critique. Maybe there are some but I don't recall seeing it. You might check around for other groups to find that. I've found that the best place for early critiques like that are in writing classes and in writers' groups.
If you've already gone that route, that's great. Then you might want to find an experienced content editor for historical fiction who can look it over and give his/her opinion. Then, after taking to heart (and writing) any of their suggestions, try finding a few beta readers (the more, the better) and see what their reactions are.
Eileen wrote: "Thomasjordan wrote: "Hello! I'm new to the group. For the past year, I have been working on a historical fiction novel. It follows the life of my great-great-great-grandfather ELIJAH DAVIDSON, who ..."Thank you for your response, for some reason, I was led to believe that I could. Now I know.
Thomasjordan wrote: "Eileen wrote: "Thomasjordan wrote: "Hello! I'm new to the group. For the past year, I have been working on a historical fiction novel. It follows the life of my great-great-great-grandfather ELIJAH..."I was fortunate to find a great beta reader on Goodreads. i noticed her comments/thoughts on various historical novels were similar to mine, and the novels we enjoyed were similar. So I asked her and she's been wonderful, pointing out stuff that I would never have caught.
there is a Facebook group you might try. they ask you to post a link to you doc like on google docs. Historical Fiction Beta Readers
I am exceedingly comfortable in the world of historical fiction, I suppose because I do believe that "Truth is Stranger Than Fiction".I'd be happy to read and share thoughts on the genre.
Everything I have read thus far has been excellent. I am a history buff, granddaughter of a long line of a Quakers. I am no longer Quaker but worked with Quakers during the Viet Nam Wartime here in the USA.If you read HALF-SHARE MAN, my family had its beginnings in that story. Later the other part of the family was involved in Whaling. Much later, my maternal Grandmother,, a real honest-to-goodness Starbuck, donated her Great-Greatgrandfather’s writing desk from his Whaling ship to a Nantucket Whaling Museum.
Our daughter, though not a Quaker, worked as a Gardener Wharf One on Nantucket one summer. My husband and I were able to weekend in the dorm in which she stayed only because we were her parents there to help her come home at the end of the Summer.
We rented and rode bicycles all over the Island where allowed. It was wonderful to touch history that way. My family moved to the Carolinas when the whale oil trade died and they moved to the Ohio territory just prior to the War between the States. The land they farmed in Clinton County was in the Starbuck family for almost 200+ years until Mother sold it without the rest of the family knowing or involved.
It broke my heart knowing part of the Underground Railroad and the cavern lcaver
Linda, you're like a Daughter of the American Revolution, DAR. Your lineage with the Quakers is great story fodder, and I think a great twist lies in the story of your mother selling the land without telling anyone. Are you off in that direction?
I am a working Social Worker with a undergraduate degree in history , and do genealogy as a hobby. After discovering my Pennsylvania Ancestors were Quakers, I started a huge unfinishable project of bringing them, their conflicts and their loves to life in a historic fiction novel. I was in a writers group, but had no knowledge of writing - just history, and am looking for a folks that are attached to writing fiction in a time and place special to them!
Lisa Smith ( yes this is my real maiden name)