As a native Rhode Islander, I was excited to see this article on the Providence Athenaeum. It’s a beautiful library:
The article is a fantastic look at the Athenaeum’s history and current place in the New England academic and cultural scene. If you’re in the area, make sure to stop by.
(image: Providence Athenaeum)
Gail Gauthier and Tanita Davis have fantastic posts about historical fiction and how it’s gotten a bad wrap in the last several years. In short, the label suggests a focus on “educational” aspects of reading, not the story. Gauthier tests this theory:
“So I decide I should take a look at a few middle grade historical novels. I tried maybe three before giving up. I couldn’t finish any of them. The historical fact aspects of the book were in my face and annoying. My professional reading from that period reinforced my impression–the most important factor in historical fiction for kids was historical accuracy.”
Problems like this can kill a story before a reader even gets invested. And it’s not necessarily that authors are sitting at their computers, writing with the idea that historical fiction must teach children all about history. It’s difficult to figure out what details to include to ground the characters in the appropriate setting but not overwhelm the reader with historical info. Davis says:
“As an author, I can say that one of the hardest things about writing historical fiction is the tightrope walk the author has to do — between historical accuracy and humanity. It’s important not to infodump dates and names, but it’s also crucial not to veer the characters – and the details of their daily lives – into obvious anachronisms by using more modern tools, language, and attitudes about social tolerance which make the historical accuracy a lie. “
Like Gauthier and Davis, I like historical fiction. Heck, I used to love the American Girl books, which probably veered more into infodump than not. But a story that’s set in another time period shouldn’t necessarily get shuffled off into the land of educational reading. Gauthier lists some good examples of novels set in the past but firmly grounded in story and character, including one of my favorites, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation by M.T. Anderson. I’d also add Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi, and Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman. Did I learn historical facts from these books? Sure. But when I remember these books, I remember the stories, the characters, the excitement and drama–just like any other novel.
I hope historical fiction has a resurgence in one way or another. I think we’re probably missing out on some fantastic historical novels just because they’re considering unpopular.
Over at Six Boxes of Books, Roger Sutton talks about the Scott O’Dell Award and what makes good historical fiction. From the interview:
What is something that you see over and over again in the books you read, a common mistake that authors make [in writing historical fiction]?
RS: The thing that always bothers me the most, both judging this award and reviewing books, is undigested historical information thrown into a story. There was this great article in School Library Journal by Joan Blos called “Bunches of Hessians” where she talks about the various mistakes that are made in historical fiction. She said to take something from a historical novel–for example, a mother making dinner–and translate it into contemporary fiction. And then she wrote this hilarious passage about “Mother stood in front of the white box and carefully adjusted the black dial.” It has to be natural to the person telling the story. They shouldn’t be noticing things that only an outsider would be paying attention to. That always pulls me right out of the story.
This seems so obvious when Roger says it, but I think it’s a very common problem when trying to write historical fiction–or any kind of world that’s not our own. I know I’ve run into this issue of how much to describe and when. You want to develop the setting, but you don’t want to throw details in just to sound “authentic,” which actually makes you sound less authentic.
Make sure to check out the rest of the interview, too.
Yesterday I posted about how most writers need employment that’s not based on their poetry/plays/novels. For those of us not doing the freelance thing, having a desk job doesn’t mean the death of creativity. Check out this article about how T.S. Eliot, author of The Waste Land, worked in a bank. Not surprising trivia for most English majors, but Eliot actually enjoyed his job.
I know. The guy who wrote, “A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, / I had not thought death had undone so many,” was totally cool working at a bank.
Still, it’s a relief to know that such a wonderful poet didn’t need to spend his days working at a famous literary journal or writing scandalous news articles to inspire his poetry. It provided a sense of security for him so he didn’t have to stress about money instead of writing:
“Not only was Eliot at the bank, but as the letter above demonstrates, he was happy to be there. A certain pride creeps in to his accounting of his accounting: the salary, the hours, the filing cabinet which is “my province.” To read Eliot’s letters is to get a full picture of the routine demands of this job, which he clung to despite rigorous efforts from his friends and supporters to free him from the shackles of international finance.
Eliot resists the characterization of a writer as willing to forgo the niceties of daily life in order to make art. What he wants are not luxuries—the early letters testify over and over to the Eliots’ impoverishment despite Tom’s bank wages, with thank-you letters to his American relatives for sending checks that fill in the financial gaps so he can have new underwear and pajamas, not brandy and cigars. Rather, Eliot craves security. He writes again and again of trying to free himself from worry, for his own but even more for the nervous and unhealthy Vivien’s sake. Has any writer (Stevens excepted) ever had so much anxious correspondence about life insurance? Eliot is prostrate over what will happen to Vivien if anything should happen to him.”
A lot of writers have to cobble together work–writing articles, teaching intro to writing, etc.–but I think there’s something to be said for the unrelated, secure job. Even though getting paid to write full time would be amazing, it’s also nice not to worry about health benefits at this point. It means you have to balance two careers, but as long as your regular day job isn’t taking away from your ability to write, it might be a good thing to hold onto.
At least until we can all move into JK Rowling’s castle of awesomeness.
(image via The New York Times)
If you’re like me, you’re a little obsessed with TV show Downton Abbey, about a British family and their servants during WWI. (Season 2 currently airing on PBS!) It’s such an interesting time period, and the manor house life is so fascinating. PBS is also airing a real-life look at manor houses and the people in them. Check out this preview.
What an interesting environment! Inspiration for a YA novel, anyone?
Update: You can watch the whole thing online here.
Here’s a cool essay by Paul. A Trout about why humans create monsters. One reason is a cultural warning for people to stay away from real creatures (lions, tigers, bears, oh my) that thought people might be a tasty snack:
“[T]he basic function of the monster was to give fear a face, to graphically capture the dread that is bred into us by millions of years as a prey species that was stalked and sometimes eaten by huge and terrifying carnivores.“
So dragons aren’t just cool in stories; they could have served an evolutionary purpose. Another reason is that people may have seen fossils of ancient creatures and developed stories of monsters based on those giant bones. I saw the Mythic Creatures exhibit at the Museum of Science a few years ago, which featured this idea.
Anyone who has had a nightmare also knows that monsters could come from dreams, where the familiar is mashed together to create something terrifying:
“Among the salient experiences our ancient ancestors remembered and stored in their unconscious must have been life-threatening encounters with predators. Which means that during altered states, images of predators would have undergone further shaping, twisting, recombination, or hybridization. The upshot is that proto-humans were able to conjure up hybrid images of animals well before cognitive fluidity and mythmaking emerged during the Middle Paleolithic.”
Wherever the idea of monsters came from, I think it’s awesome that almost all cultures and social groups have some kind of scary creature in their stories. And it’s fun for writers now to be able to play with these cultural touchstones and myths. (Even if it does mean a restless night’s sleep.)
Check out Trout’s book for more on the history and creation of monsters.