by Stephanie Morrill
Stephanie writes young adult contemporary novels and is the creator of GoTeenWriters.com. Her novels include The Reinvention of Skylar Hoyt series (Revell) and the Ellie Sweet books (Playlist). You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and check out samples of her work on her author website including the free novella, Throwing Stones.
Last week I talked about gathering the information you need to create the historical world for your story. When researching, not only do you learn an overwhelming amount of dates and information (especially if you’re writing a historical that coincides with a war or political situation) but now you have to figure out what belongs in your story.
The mantra to keep in mind as you undergo this task is “Story is king.” This is not a historical textbook, is is a story. Your reader wants to be entertained. Yes, historical readers love the genre because they also learn something and catch a glimpse of time long ago but there’s a reason they picked up historical fiction and not a biography on George Washington. Right?
Telling a good story is your first priority.
With that in mind, the first thing I did when I started working on my historical book was set aside all my research notes. I had spent time learning the details of prohibition, I had read articles on 1920s fashion, read articles on F. Scott Fitzgerald, and I had read a book called Daily Life In The United States 1920-1940. I had a basic understanding of what my character’s world looked like.
The first few chapters were achingly slow. Wait, what kind of hats did men wear? When was the flu epidemic? How did the train system work back then? When did Capone take over Cicero?
The research was strangling my writing process, and if I ever wanted to write “The End” I had to free myself to write the story. I remembered an interview I had read with Phillipa Gregory when she was talking about her process for writing The Other Boleyn Girl. She detailed all the different ways that she does her research and makes timelines. Then she said, “Then I put my notebooks to one side and only consult them for factual detail, and try to write from memory and a sense of time and place. Otherwise, the detail of the research blocks the flow of the story. In the second draft I check everything all over again.”
That seemed like it would fit my writing style, so I stopped pausing to figure out train fares or the price of jewelry and instead focused on telling the story.
But some things were worth pausing to figure out, like when I needed to know if it was probable for my family to have a live-in housekeeper. This was a detail that impacted the story and would have been a pain to rewrite.
In the best historicals, the details are woven in so seamlessly, the reader doesn’t register that you’re spoon feeding them a bite of research. Here are three ways to help immerse your reader in the setting:
Consider this simple sentence from Melanie Dickerson’s The Fairest Beauty:
Gabe strode down the corridor to his bedchamber.
Rather than Gabe walking down the hall to his room, Melanie chose period words to describe even his simple actions, making this a sentence that invites us deeper into the medieval setting.
Here’s a longer excerpt from Roseanna M. White’s Circle of Spies:
She tucked her hand into the crook with an exhalation blustery enough to rival the wind off the Chesapeake. “I am a woman of three and twenty. I am perfectly capable of maintaining my own living, and Mother Hughes needs me.”
This combines not just great word choice (“maintaining my own living” versus a more modern “managing my finances”) but also a good in-character description of the Chesapeake. It also shows an action common back then, a lady taking the arm of a gentleman when out walking.
“I suppose medicine is rather distasteful,” he continued. “Boils and growths. Infections and bodily fluids…” He stopped, turning to her, face stricken. “Forgive me!”
Lilly said mildly, “Do not be uneasy on my account.”
“Such talk does not disturb you … you do not swoon nor faint nor sicken?”
Lilly shook her head.
In this exchange, Julie Klassen shows us how different Lilly is from other girls of her time. And she does it by comparing the doctor’s previous experience with ladies with his current experience with Lilly’s mild reactions. She doesn’t have to come right out and tell the reader, “Lilly was very unusual for a girl in her time.”
When working on my 1920s book, I discovered that being a teenager in the 1920s was very unique in that this generation was being raised with starkly different morals and opportunities than their parents had been. There are a few times where my character might think someone is behaving a bit too Victorian, but I had her quote an expert when she was trying to impress her oldest brother:
“We haven’t spoken much about his family.” I raise my glass but don’t yet take a drink. “But I suppose our generation is so vastly different than our parents—more so than any generation before—that some clash is inevitable.”
Tim arches his eyebrows.
I laugh and confess, “I read that in an Emily Post column. It was advice on wayward teenagers, or something.”
Do not forget your reader, who can’t help their modern mindset.
Certain practices that were considered normal, or at least acceptable, in another time and place may not jive with a broad modern audience. For example, words that we now consider racial slurs were once used very casually by many people. And it was very common to not tell a servant or slave “thank you” or to consider their thoughts/feelings/time/effort. But very few modern readers would be able to overlook such thoughtless and egotistical behavior in a character they’re supposed to be rooting for.
This carries over to romance too. In Britain, it used to be extremely common for cousins to marry each other. But even if you’re writing a regency romance, I don’t recommend your hero and heroine be cousins, despite the historical accuracy. For a modern reader, it’s a bit creepy.