In Today’s Journal
* About Writing Historical Fiction
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
About Writing Historical Fiction
A guest post by Robert Calverley
Note: What follows is an email I received from Bob Calverley, who suggested it might make a good guest post. I agreed because fiction writers in any genre can learn from fiction writers in any other genre.
Many aspects of the fiction writing craft are applicable across genres. I hope you’ll glean some gems from this. In tomorrow’s issue of TNDJ I’ll post my response.
I used to live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan so I joined the Upper Peninsula Publishers & Authors Association (UPPAA). Today I received an email regarding their Spring Conference and a Pre-Conference.
The poetry presentation looks interesting. But the first session with Julie Covert is an example of how the myths you talk about are still so strong.
Victor Volkman, who runs the UPPAA, puts on a lot of great local programs to bring authors and readers together.
The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is like no other place in the nation. The total population is only about 300,000 or so. It’s all towns and small cities most of which have non-chain bookstores that support local authors. Local libraries have numerous local author events.
But as I write this, the current temperature on March 16th in Sault St. Marie where I used to live, is 10 degrees….
I’m finding that WITD when writing historical fiction is a major challenge. My current novel is set in Michigan at the beginning of the War of 1812.
Two of the very first actions of that war took place in Michigan. The English took Fort Mackinac and a few weeks later they convinced Fort Detroit to surrender even though the Americans had considerably more soldiers and cannons than the English.
The key person in all of this was the English general, Isaac Brock, who most Americans have never heard of. I should add that Brock is much revered in Canada, which was an English colony in 1812. There’s small city named after him (Brockville) and lots of statues.
I know this period of history about the beginning of the war well, because it was taught in high school in Canada where I lived until I was 16. I also had a summer job on Mackinac Island and know the fort well.
When our family moved to the U.S., I learned about the war all over again in a U.S. high school. Seemed like two different wars.
[The War of 1812] is still our least known war. Everyone knows it inspired our national anthem. And some people have heard that the English set the White House on fire.
While I know the history, I don’t know more mundane things like what did people, including the Indians, eat and drink in 1812 on the frontier? Fish and game for sure, but what about vegetables? Yeah, they grew corn and I’ve learned that people got sick of having so much corn to eat late in the summer and in the fall.
How did the economy function on a day-to-day basis? As far as I have been able to find out, there were no banks in Michigan in 1812, certainly not in Sault Sainte Marie, which is one of the oldest cities in the nation (founded in 1668 by Jesuits).
I can easily look up how to load and fire a Brown Bess musket or a Baker rifle or a flintlock pistol. But how do you quickly patch a birchbark canoe? There are dozens of little things like that which intrude into my WITD process.
The solution I’ve used is to ignore those details and plunge ahead. Then at some point, on a day when I’m not feeling particularly inspired, I do some research and make some fixes. Of course, that creates a very real temptation to rewrite.
Given that I’m writing historical fiction and not science fiction time travel, I’m constrained by the real history anyway. But I sometimes change conversations and descriptive details. I’ve deleted stuff too.
I spent considerable time researching people and events before I started, but it clearly wasn’t enough.
While they are by no means major characters, both of the generals—William Hull, who commanded Fort Detroit, and Isaac Brock—are in my story. I know the history, but I don’t know much about the personalities of either Hull or Brock.
Hull was widely seen as a coward. [That perception was] mostly a bum rap, but he was court martialed and sentenced to death before President Madison pardoned him. Back then, just about everyone was terrified of Indians except for the ones with whom they were acquainted.
That brings me to another character who has just entered my story: the great Shawnee Indian chief, Tecumseh. He was not only a great warrior but every bit as accomplished a general as Brock or Hull.
He was also a formidable politician who traveled widely in America, meeting with chiefs of other Indian nations and tribes in an effort to unify their response to American settlers who were encroaching on their hunting grounds for farms.
The Indians really had a hard time understanding why white people grew more food than they could possibly eat. The Indians had gardens but they only grew enough vegetables to sustain themselves.
The beginning of the war in Michigan is all part of the setting for a murder mystery. I’ve learned that [because] historical fiction slows me down, it challenges WITD.
I have to stop and look up strange things like how to patch a birchbark canoe. And sometimes I have to “tweak” some details. As long as [the tweaking] doesn’t mess with the plot, I’m okay with it.
The alternative, planning and outlining in advance, would be worse because I’d still have to do all the work that slows me down with WITD.
And it would be a lot less fun.
Sometimes I don’t get to listen to my characters every day. We’re both too busy with the challenges of living life in 1812.
*
Thanks, Bob!
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Take a tour of the dark web with an ethical hacker. There are several videos at this URL. I watched the first one and found it very informative.
What a dark web monitoring service does and does not do.
Note: If you’re interested in exploring, you might Safely search for content on the dark web with the Ahmia search engine. When you get there, read the small print beneath the Search box.