Dear all,
In this blog I plan to finish this series about writing historical novels by dealing with three remaining problems: dialogue, background and source material.
Dialogue
First of all, you must make your dialogue sound natural and authentic for the the period you are writing about. Therefore you will not be able to use such modern expressions as 'O.K.', 'cool' and 'yeah, right' when dealing with Tudor England, Abraham Lincoln or Davy Crockett. If you are not sure, have a look at some historical novels written by Philippa Gregory, Josephine Tey and Sharon Penman et al and they should be able to help you solve this problem.
And while we're talking about dialogue, if you use a local dialect, e.g. Cockney (working-class London) or Geordie, (Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Sunderland, N.E. England) or any other Scottish, Irish or American one, do not exaggerate. You don't have to remove every 'h' from your Cockney 'ave,' 'as' or 'ouse.' In the same way there is no need to remove every 'g' from 'goin', walkin' and talkin'. Similarly, overdoing such Geordie, or other local expressions such as, 'Ah wes palatick' (I enjoyed myself), and 'Wordaz on the buroo' (My father is unemployed) make it very hard reading for any reader who is not familiar with these dialects. This does not mean that all of your characters must speak standard British, American or Canadian English. All you need to do is include a few key slang or dialectical words to give the necessary flavour and whet your reader's appetite.
Background
At the same time as you are trying to use suitable dialogue, you must also make sure that the same is true for your background.
This means you must know when certain technological features first appeared. Your heroes can't jump onto a train before the 1820s, and neither can they fly abroad until after the First World War when civil aviation first began. Similarly, they can't use computers to solve a problem before the 1970s or call someone on the phone before 1877.
To make your background sound more authentic, it is useful to consult Google or to use books relating to the relevant time period you are writing about. Two books I have consulted in my writing are The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer, and Shakespeare's London On Five Groats a Day by Richard Tames. I have also found children's illustrated history books very useful. Furthermore there have been occasions when I have checked out souvenir books that I've bought at castles, cathedrals, battlefields and palaces.
Source material
Checking source material can be one of your biggest problems. This is especially true if you are writing about a period that is new to you or one that you are not an expert on. This happened to me when I was checking up some dates while writing my novel about England's medieval King John. As the following will show, even (allegedly) simple facts such as dates and places of birth can present problems.
Virtually all the books and internet sources I consulted said that this king was born in Oxford in 1167. Not so, says Stephen Church in King John: England, Magna Carta and the Making of a Tyrant (2015). He says that John was born in the Tower of London at the end of 1166 or early 1167. On page 1 he says most emphatically: "The date of John's death is traditionally set as 24 December 1167 at Oxford...but this is wrong on almost every count." From here he goes on to quote his sources which explain why he disagrees with almost everyone else.
Another example concerning this much maligned king concerns the Treaty of Montmirail. This was an important document which referred to how John's father, Henry II, planned to divide up his English and French lands once he had shuffled off this mortal coil. Most of the books (including Stephen Church) and many internet sites state that this treaty was signed in 1169. However, Ralph V. Turner in King John writes that it was only after Henry had put down a rebellion among his squabbling sons that he signed such a treaty in 1174.
Are these points important? Does it matter if John or anyone else was born in London or Oxford or that a treaty was signed in 1169 or five years later? The answer is a definite 'yes' if you want your readers to have faith in your writing. And after all is said and done, that is what you want. To write good stories and have your readers coming back for more, no?
I will be very happy to read your responses to this blog and the other ones on my website: www.dly-books.weebly.com or
wsdavidyoung@gmail.com
Thank you.
Wednesday 30 September 2015
Thursday 24 September 2015
More on writing historical novels
Dear all,
First of all, please accept my apologies for writing a couple of typos in my last blog. As a writer of historical novels (and as one who writes that accuracy is important) this is a cardinal sin!
In my last blog I referred to several problems that writers of historical novels encounter, such as your POV, point of view, writing in the first or third person (I've never tried the second person) and being accurate, especially when referring to dates, actions and names of people and places.
Now I wish to continue and write about a few more problems which have to be considered when writing historical novels.
One of these is the question of suspense. How can you write (and hopefully sell) a novel when the reader knows what the end will be? For example, in my novel, Gunpowder, Treason & Plot about Guy Fawkes, the 17th century would be blower-up of the Houses of Parliament, was as everyone knows, caught before he could set light to the thirty-six barrels of gunpowder he'd hidden underneath the Houses of Parliament. So what's the point of writing/reading about this failed plot? Surely, the answer is that it is more fun to travel than to arrive. It is learning to find out why (in this particular story) that he failed rather than just know that he did so.
The same can be said for my novel, Six Million Accusers: Catching Adolf Eichmann. It is known that in 1960 this top Nazi who was responsible for the murder of six millions Jews and millions of non-Jews was found hiding out in Buenos Aires. It is also known that the Israeli secret service "Mossad" was responsible for this and also for bringing this terrible monster back to Israel where he was tried and hanged. So why write a novel about it? Because the novel adds many of the details how the "Mossad" caught him and how he was smuggled back to Israel and because above all, it makes a very good, exciting and true story.
Similarly, what happened to Henry VIII's fourth and fifth wives, Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard are also very well-documented in history books. What I hope I have done in Anne of Cleves: Henry's Luckiest Wife and Catherine Howard: Henry's Fifth Failure is to tell these stories of Henry's marital problems in an interesting way even though we know what happened to these two ladies in the end.
Another problem that comes with writing such novels is that the author (especially those like me who are retired teachers and lecturers) do not become too heavy and pedantic with the historical facts and background. The novels you write are written to be read and enjoyed and should not read like school textbooks. Recently I was reminded of this when I started reading a novel about the Scottish King James II. The well-known Scottish author insisted on including so many facts about the various lords, ladies and other people involved that reading it seemed like reading a book for a course on Medieval Scottish history. I gave up after the first sixty pages. All that was missing was a list of specimen exam questions at the end. If I want a textbook, I'll buy a textbook, if I want a novel, I'll buy a novel.
Background credibility is also a problem. You want your readers to believe in what they read and that you as the author, know what you are talking about. This means you should immerse yourself in your topic and learn as much as you can about the people and period involved. This also includes learning about buildings, transport, food, armour, dress, language and tens of other aspects of the past. It is imperative for example to read more than one account about a person or a place when carrying out your basic research. Was King Richard III the evil man who, according to Shakespeare and others, murdered the poor Princes in the Tower or not? Did the Tower of London look the same six hundred years ago, and did it fulfill the same functions that it does today?
Travelling to places that you write about is also important, though not always imperative. However, there is a problem with this. In several of my novels I have referred to various battlegrounds in England and Europe which I have visited. These have included the Civil War battlefield of Naseby, Northants. (1645) or Towton, Yorks. (1461) and Agincourt, France (1415).
On arriving at these sites I have been sorely disappointed. I wasn't expecting to find bodies rotting there or pieces of rusting armour or anything like that, but seeing these places looking so peaceful and pastoral made it very difficult to imagine that hundreds of years ago, thousands of men had met there, clashing arms, and cutting and spearing their fellow men to death. And all of this was accompanied by blood-curdling yells, cries of pain and shouts of victory. This contrast was made even clearer when I visited Bannockburn, (1314) where Edward II was thrashed by Robert the Bruce. Apart from seeing a stylised statue of the Scottish king sitting astride a massive horse, much of the battlefield has been taken over by a housing estate!
However, enough of the blood and guts of history and next time I'll talk about using various sources to find out what really happened.
For more: www.dly-books.weebly.com
First of all, please accept my apologies for writing a couple of typos in my last blog. As a writer of historical novels (and as one who writes that accuracy is important) this is a cardinal sin!
In my last blog I referred to several problems that writers of historical novels encounter, such as your POV, point of view, writing in the first or third person (I've never tried the second person) and being accurate, especially when referring to dates, actions and names of people and places.
Now I wish to continue and write about a few more problems which have to be considered when writing historical novels.
One of these is the question of suspense. How can you write (and hopefully sell) a novel when the reader knows what the end will be? For example, in my novel, Gunpowder, Treason & Plot about Guy Fawkes, the 17th century would be blower-up of the Houses of Parliament, was as everyone knows, caught before he could set light to the thirty-six barrels of gunpowder he'd hidden underneath the Houses of Parliament. So what's the point of writing/reading about this failed plot? Surely, the answer is that it is more fun to travel than to arrive. It is learning to find out why (in this particular story) that he failed rather than just know that he did so.
The same can be said for my novel, Six Million Accusers: Catching Adolf Eichmann. It is known that in 1960 this top Nazi who was responsible for the murder of six millions Jews and millions of non-Jews was found hiding out in Buenos Aires. It is also known that the Israeli secret service "Mossad" was responsible for this and also for bringing this terrible monster back to Israel where he was tried and hanged. So why write a novel about it? Because the novel adds many of the details how the "Mossad" caught him and how he was smuggled back to Israel and because above all, it makes a very good, exciting and true story.
Similarly, what happened to Henry VIII's fourth and fifth wives, Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard are also very well-documented in history books. What I hope I have done in Anne of Cleves: Henry's Luckiest Wife and Catherine Howard: Henry's Fifth Failure is to tell these stories of Henry's marital problems in an interesting way even though we know what happened to these two ladies in the end.
Another problem that comes with writing such novels is that the author (especially those like me who are retired teachers and lecturers) do not become too heavy and pedantic with the historical facts and background. The novels you write are written to be read and enjoyed and should not read like school textbooks. Recently I was reminded of this when I started reading a novel about the Scottish King James II. The well-known Scottish author insisted on including so many facts about the various lords, ladies and other people involved that reading it seemed like reading a book for a course on Medieval Scottish history. I gave up after the first sixty pages. All that was missing was a list of specimen exam questions at the end. If I want a textbook, I'll buy a textbook, if I want a novel, I'll buy a novel.
Background credibility is also a problem. You want your readers to believe in what they read and that you as the author, know what you are talking about. This means you should immerse yourself in your topic and learn as much as you can about the people and period involved. This also includes learning about buildings, transport, food, armour, dress, language and tens of other aspects of the past. It is imperative for example to read more than one account about a person or a place when carrying out your basic research. Was King Richard III the evil man who, according to Shakespeare and others, murdered the poor Princes in the Tower or not? Did the Tower of London look the same six hundred years ago, and did it fulfill the same functions that it does today?
Travelling to places that you write about is also important, though not always imperative. However, there is a problem with this. In several of my novels I have referred to various battlegrounds in England and Europe which I have visited. These have included the Civil War battlefield of Naseby, Northants. (1645) or Towton, Yorks. (1461) and Agincourt, France (1415).
On arriving at these sites I have been sorely disappointed. I wasn't expecting to find bodies rotting there or pieces of rusting armour or anything like that, but seeing these places looking so peaceful and pastoral made it very difficult to imagine that hundreds of years ago, thousands of men had met there, clashing arms, and cutting and spearing their fellow men to death. And all of this was accompanied by blood-curdling yells, cries of pain and shouts of victory. This contrast was made even clearer when I visited Bannockburn, (1314) where Edward II was thrashed by Robert the Bruce. Apart from seeing a stylised statue of the Scottish king sitting astride a massive horse, much of the battlefield has been taken over by a housing estate!
However, enough of the blood and guts of history and next time I'll talk about using various sources to find out what really happened.
For more: www.dly-books.weebly.com
Wednesday 16 September 2015
A Few Notes on Writing Historical Novels.
"It must be easy for you to write your historical novels, " a friend said to me recently. "You know how your plot is going to end; who your main characters are, and if you get your facts right - no problems," he said, flicking his fingers with a dismissive gesture.
"Not so," I replied. "There's loads of problems to deal with."
"Yeah? Like what?"
Like what I'm going to tell you here.
One of the basic problems is: which angle are you going to write your story from? Which POV, point of view are you going to use? Are you going to write about Queen Elizabeth I's Tudor court from a courtier, say Sir Walter Raleigh's point of view or are you going to have one of the kitchen scullery-maids tell the story? And what about it coming from the horse's mouth - from Queen Elizabeth hereslf?
And then, once you've decided how to answer that question, how are you going to treat your narrator: as a hero/ine? a villain? a straight-forward raconteur or as someone who is telling this particular tale because they have an axe to grind?
For example, are you going to describe Colonel Blood, the 17th century adventurer who almost succeeded in stealing the Crown jewels from the Tower of London in 1671 as a thief or as a swashbuckling daredevil?
And if we're dealing with the POV question, how are you going to write your story? In the first or third person? Both are perfectly kosher. I have just finished reading a Philippa Gregory Tudor-flavoured novel and it is all in the third person.
In contrast, Two Bullets in Sarajevo, my novel about the assassination of the Austrian Archduke and his wife just before the First World War was written entirely in the first person.
Sometimes you can use both first and third persons.
In my first Tudor novel about Henry VIII's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves: Henry's Luckiest Wife, I started in the third person and then half-way through, I switched to the first person, with Anne telling her own story. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't. If you ook at amazon.com, you will see that among the 146 reviews(!) and still counting, some people like this and others didn't. It's all a matter of taste.
And if we're talking about taste, there is a trend today for historical writers to describe the past using the present simple. Both Philippa Gregory and Hilary Mantel have done this. I don't like it. Maybe I'm a bit square and old fashioned. For me the past is the past and the present is the present. An exception to this use of the present tense for relating to past incidents, for me at least, are the short stories by Damon Runyon. I think his descriptions of Spanish John and Harry the Horse et al and how they talk are brilliant. But then again, they are not historical novels. When he was writing them in the 1940's that was the present.
Then once you have solved this question, you must make sure that any historical fact is as correct as possible. If you write that the Declaration of Independence was signed in New York on July 3rd 1776 or that William the Conqueror invaded England in 1065 you are guaranteed in killing your readers' credibility in the rest of your novel. Similarly, you can't write that your medieval captain fired his musket during the battle of Agincourt in 1415. Two hundred years were to pass before muskets were used on the battlefield. In other words, every specific detail must be correct, including: dates, names and technology.
However, in your effort to achieve credibility, you must be careful how you use your historical facts and information. Too few may result in a weak story, but too many will lead you to sound as if you are writing a history textbook in disguise. I recently gave up reading an historical novel about a Scottish king (one of the Jameses) because apart from one or two lines of conversation, the rest was pure and unadulterated history. If I'd wanted to read about the history James I, II or II for light relief, then I would have bought such an historical book and not a novel.
Anyway, enough about this for now and I'll add a bit more in my next blog.
Looking forward to receiving some feedback about this either via my website: www.dly-books.weebly.com or wsdavidyoung@gmail.com
Keep enjoying your reading and writing of history,
David Lawrence-Young
"It must be easy for you to write your historical novels, " a friend said to me recently. "You know how your plot is going to end; who your main characters are, and if you get your facts right - no problems," he said, flicking his fingers with a dismissive gesture.
"Not so," I replied. "There's loads of problems to deal with."
"Yeah? Like what?"
Like what I'm going to tell you here.
One of the basic problems is: which angle are you going to write your story from? Which POV, point of view are you going to use? Are you going to write about Queen Elizabeth I's Tudor court from a courtier, say Sir Walter Raleigh's point of view or are you going to have one of the kitchen scullery-maids tell the story? And what about it coming from the horse's mouth - from Queen Elizabeth hereslf?
And then, once you've decided how to answer that question, how are you going to treat your narrator: as a hero/ine? a villain? a straight-forward raconteur or as someone who is telling this particular tale because they have an axe to grind?
For example, are you going to describe Colonel Blood, the 17th century adventurer who almost succeeded in stealing the Crown jewels from the Tower of London in 1671 as a thief or as a swashbuckling daredevil?
And if we're dealing with the POV question, how are you going to write your story? In the first or third person? Both are perfectly kosher. I have just finished reading a Philippa Gregory Tudor-flavoured novel and it is all in the third person.
In contrast, Two Bullets in Sarajevo, my novel about the assassination of the Austrian Archduke and his wife just before the First World War was written entirely in the first person.
Sometimes you can use both first and third persons.
In my first Tudor novel about Henry VIII's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves: Henry's Luckiest Wife, I started in the third person and then half-way through, I switched to the first person, with Anne telling her own story. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't. If you ook at amazon.com, you will see that among the 146 reviews(!) and still counting, some people like this and others didn't. It's all a matter of taste.
And if we're talking about taste, there is a trend today for historical writers to describe the past using the present simple. Both Philippa Gregory and Hilary Mantel have done this. I don't like it. Maybe I'm a bit square and old fashioned. For me the past is the past and the present is the present. An exception to this use of the present tense for relating to past incidents, for me at least, are the short stories by Damon Runyon. I think his descriptions of Spanish John and Harry the Horse et al and how they talk are brilliant. But then again, they are not historical novels. When he was writing them in the 1940's that was the present.
Then once you have solved this question, you must make sure that any historical fact is as correct as possible. If you write that the Declaration of Independence was signed in New York on July 3rd 1776 or that William the Conqueror invaded England in 1065 you are guaranteed in killing your readers' credibility in the rest of your novel. Similarly, you can't write that your medieval captain fired his musket during the battle of Agincourt in 1415. Two hundred years were to pass before muskets were used on the battlefield. In other words, every specific detail must be correct, including: dates, names and technology.
However, in your effort to achieve credibility, you must be careful how you use your historical facts and information. Too few may result in a weak story, but too many will lead you to sound as if you are writing a history textbook in disguise. I recently gave up reading an historical novel about a Scottish king (one of the Jameses) because apart from one or two lines of conversation, the rest was pure and unadulterated history. If I'd wanted to read about the history James I, II or II for light relief, then I would have bought such an historical book and not a novel.
Anyway, enough about this for now and I'll add a bit more in my next blog.
Looking forward to receiving some feedback about this either via my website: www.dly-books.weebly.com or wsdavidyoung@gmail.com
Keep enjoying your reading and writing of history,
David Lawrence-Young
Thursday 10 September 2015
David's Brand New Blog! Never been used before!
To all who read these pages, now and in the future, this is my brand new blog made in Jerusalem. Apart from the movement of letters etc, it will have no moving parts, will not need its oil or water changing or need to have to undergo changes of batteries etc. All it will require is reading and responses by its hopefully happy readers.
At this early stage, I assume that I will concentrate on the joy of writing books - especially, but not only historical novels, getting them published and all that that entails. However, to quote one of my favourite sayings, "Life is full of surprises," we'll see where it goes. This means that I will record what I am doing in order to further my literary career and if I can be of any assistance to anyone who reads these pages, that too will be good.
At the moment I am trying to place two of my books with English publishers. The first is Two Bullets in Sarajevo, an historical novel that takes place in Sarajevo, 1914 when the band of fanatical Serbian Black Hand terrorists assassinate the Austrian Archduke, Franz Ferdinand and his beautiful wife, Sophie and so, according to many historians, light up the bloody conflict that later became the First World War.
The second novel I'm trying to place is Who Really Wrote Shakespeare? (You see, you knew the bard would figure in here somewhere somehow!) This book is about how four academics set out on a self-imposed quest to find out who really wrote Shakespeare's works. After all, our William came from a small agricultural market town, was the son of a glover, did not have the use of Google, so how could he have written so well about ancient Greece and Rome as well as about kings and aristocrats?
Our four heroes analyse all sorts of other possible writers, such as, Christopher Marlowe, the Lords of Rutland, Derby and Oxford as well as some of Queen Elizabeth's literary ladies. Our academic sleuths do come up with a solution, but to know that, you'll have to buy the book itself. (Still available in the first edition on amazon as Will the Real William Shakespeare Please Step Forward?
OK, that's enough for page one. I will be very happy to hear from anyone out there, especially those who write historical novels and or about my best friend, Mr. Shakespeare.
Best wishes,
David Lawrence-Young
(website: www.dly-books.weebly.com)
At this early stage, I assume that I will concentrate on the joy of writing books - especially, but not only historical novels, getting them published and all that that entails. However, to quote one of my favourite sayings, "Life is full of surprises," we'll see where it goes. This means that I will record what I am doing in order to further my literary career and if I can be of any assistance to anyone who reads these pages, that too will be good.
At the moment I am trying to place two of my books with English publishers. The first is Two Bullets in Sarajevo, an historical novel that takes place in Sarajevo, 1914 when the band of fanatical Serbian Black Hand terrorists assassinate the Austrian Archduke, Franz Ferdinand and his beautiful wife, Sophie and so, according to many historians, light up the bloody conflict that later became the First World War.
The second novel I'm trying to place is Who Really Wrote Shakespeare? (You see, you knew the bard would figure in here somewhere somehow!) This book is about how four academics set out on a self-imposed quest to find out who really wrote Shakespeare's works. After all, our William came from a small agricultural market town, was the son of a glover, did not have the use of Google, so how could he have written so well about ancient Greece and Rome as well as about kings and aristocrats?
Our four heroes analyse all sorts of other possible writers, such as, Christopher Marlowe, the Lords of Rutland, Derby and Oxford as well as some of Queen Elizabeth's literary ladies. Our academic sleuths do come up with a solution, but to know that, you'll have to buy the book itself. (Still available in the first edition on amazon as Will the Real William Shakespeare Please Step Forward?
OK, that's enough for page one. I will be very happy to hear from anyone out there, especially those who write historical novels and or about my best friend, Mr. Shakespeare.
Best wishes,
David Lawrence-Young
(website: www.dly-books.weebly.com)
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