Writing Historical Fiction and Nonfiction by Velda Brotherton
Today I stepped off my deck here in the Ozarks, and onto a boardwalk lining a street in Victoria City, Kansas, circa 1875. Wind caught at the camel's hair overskirt of my London-smoke toilette. Its weight threatened to
topple me into the dusty street. The noise of hammering and sawing, the
aroma of new-cut lumber, fills the hot summer air. My what busyness
there is here in this new American city where we have chosen to settle
with our Victorian ways.
During the year-long trip from Scotland, I dreamed of what the wild
west would be like. My dreams came nowhere near the truth. Men wear
guns on their hips, women are attired in calico dresses without hoops
or drapes. They wear dowdy sun bonnets. But our founder George Grant
promises that the ways of these colonists will not usurp our Victorian
settlement. For the families have brought their silver, their damask
cloths, their fashionable clothing, their bob-tailed ponies. These
will surround us. Forever.
On this day I was taking a break from my current book, but could not leave the scene so easily. Writing the historical calls upon the author to immerse herself within the life about which she writes. To
crawl into the very body of the character, develop a sense of place, internalize the five senses and the emotions of those long ago days. Remaining true to voice, attitude, politics and the morality of the
time are important in historical fiction, vital in historical nonfiction.
The language of the time and place is sprinkled through the dialogue. To expect our modern day reader to accept the actual speech is asking too much, but no modern slang or speechifying belongs there
either. If we aren't sure a word or phrase was used then, we either don't use it or get a dictionary that dates the first use of words and check it frequently. We can't assume we know when we may not. Nothing turns off a sophisticated historical reader quicker than incorrect language.
The real characters who take part in the story can and would have been there. After immersing ourselves in research, we characterize them as they were and make sure we have it right. Custer was a
womanizer and a narcissist, but wife Libby did her best to immortalize him. Jesse James quoted Shakespeare and liked to have his photograph taken. When researching consult three or four sources that do not all use the same basic source. Beware of the Internet and triple check any information you find there unless it's posted at a reliable source.
The Devil's in the details is oh so true. We can spend all our time researching dates, and forget to find out when a certain flower blooms, or if buffalo still roamed the plains when the story takes place. Or if
a plant or animal there today was there in the past.
Writing both fiction and nonfiction history is equally difficult. Both require a huge amount of research about every single happening. If you think the Civil War actually ended when Lee surrendered, then it's
back to the books. The final battle took place out west at Palmetto on the Rio Grand almost a full month after the surrender.
I enjoy research almost as much as writing the book. It's so easy to get caught up that weeks and months can go by before I settle down to the actual writing. So I get to know my setting and characters and complete the research for them. Then I write my first draft, marking places where I need more information. It's a fine feeling to know the story is written before I begin to dig deeper into my research.
You are a creative writer, and you create your plot, conflict, characters and the voice of the story that will carry it through to the =end. And each time you sit down to do this, you must transport yourself
into that story so deep that you are no longer sitting at your computer, but walking the dusty streets; riding the wagons or horses; smelling the smoke of campfires or a rotting stack of buffalo hides;
hearing the conversations of men and women of the western movement; seeing a crystal clear sky with no contrails or smog; tasting wild game, feeling the calluses on your hands. The real trick here is to
completely remove yourself from modern day.
Because both of my books on this tour are western, one fiction, one nonfiction, I've concentrated here on that segment of our history. But what I've written holds true of any historical writing, be the books
romances of any time or place, Americana, literary fiction, straight westerns, family stories, memoirs and biographies. The most important thing to remember is that people want to read good stories about
sympathetic characters. Stick to that and you'll turn out great books.
Here's a tried and true way to set up your book: Draw a circle and divide it equally into four parts. This is the Hero's journey circle. A story, be it short or a novel, will have four paradigms. You may
divide by pages or chapters and each quarter can vary in length a bit either way.
In the first quarter, the character is lost, a wanderer who isn't sure what he wants or how to learn what he wants. In the second he is an orphan and can't get anyone to help him resolve his problems. In the
third he is an emerging hero or warrior. He knows what he wants and is willing to go after it even though he may fail a few times. In the fourth he is a hero and a martyr, a person strong enough to accomplish
what he wants but also a person who puts the needs of others before his own.
This is not mine. I learned it first from the great award winning short-story writer Pat Carr in a workshop. I heard it later from best selling author Jodi Thomas, who swears by the journey circle and uses
it to plot her books, so don't credit me with it. Good friend, western writer Dusty Richards, winner of double spurs from Western Writers of America, writes his many books using the hero's journey circle.
Obviously it's a reliable and oft-used method.
Author Velda Brotherton is a frequent contributor to Wicked Wordsmith. She is currently on virtual tour, promoting her historical novels, Fly with the Mourning Dove and Images in Scarlet, penned by her pseudonym, Samantha Lee.
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