Tag Archives: historical novel

How hard can it be?

20 Tuesday Oct 2015

Posted by in Scribbling

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JSI’ve read this novel about Shakespeare’s lost years and true identity… Yes, another one. This time Shakespeare is Shakespeare, but his mother is an Italian illegitimate noblewoman, daughter and grand-daughter to real remarkable figures of the Italian Renaissance, so this is where young Will was between 1585 and 1592: in Italy, taking the grand tour, and gallivanting from court to university and back again. The novel is split between two timelines: John Shakespeare’s love story and consequent fatherhood of the prodigious child, and two present day Italian historians stumbling across… you guess it: forgotten papers proving the Bard’s Italian and blue-blooded lineage.

It is not a very good book, I’m afraid – but this is not the point today. The fact is that, towards the end, the two historians tell each other that, despite all the documents they found, the world is not ready to have the Truth about Shakespeare revealed… So they decide to do what so many anti-stratfordians have done since Wilbur G. Zeigler’s days: write a historical novel. Continue reading →

And a second draft

08 Thursday Oct 2015

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55327_girl-writing_lg-1There I was, sitting on my first draft, and on three months’ worth of notes – sticky or otherwise – and more than a little stuck with a sense of neither being ready nor knowing too well what to do next…

Well, actually, next I began by gathering all my notes and going through them with some consistency – because it seemed like a good idea – and this proved… interesting.

On the one hand, I put together a few reasoned lists of changes to be made – and this was good. On the other hand, perhaps it was a mistake to go back to the notes from very early days, when I was trying to sort out narrative modes… I found myself grappling with the same dilemmas again, and questioning just about every choice I’d made. It wasn’t exactly cheerful work… Continue reading →

More Old Word Music

01 Tuesday Sep 2015

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Beowulf.firstpageWe’ve already talked about language and word choices when you are a historical novelist. Now I found another very interesting article on the subject: a post that Annie Whitfield wrote for English Authors of Historical Fiction, about her use of Old English in her novel To Be a Queen.

Ms. Whitfield seems to have taken a very rigorous approach – and of course there is always the matter of balancing authenticity with the necessity to write something that is not only readable, but also appealing and relatable…  Continue reading →

Anna Castle’s Kit Marlowe

27 Thursday Aug 2015

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DbDAnd so, as I said I would, I read the second volume of Anna Castle’s Francis wonderful Francis Bacon series.* In Death by Disputation the action moves from London to Cambridge, with Tom Clarady installed at Corpus Christi college – ostensibly to get his degree. But of course, there is more to it: Tom is there as Bacon and Lord Burleigh’s intelligencer, to uncover a Puritan conspiracy against Queen, State, and Church. Who is smuggling incendiary Puritan tracts from the Low Countries, rallying religious malcontents and generally raising mischief? And then Tom’s tutor** – the man who informed Lord Burleigh in the first place – is found murdered, and Tom’s commission suddenly becomes a good deal riskier…
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I made it! I did it!

02 Tuesday Jun 2015

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The-endAnd so… Sunday night around four in the morning… Yes, well: technically it was Monday morning, but still: I finished my first draft – and glory be.

Well, I may have cheated a little, and the last-but-one chapter is a tad disconnected, and the last one is more a loose collection of scenes and questions, begging – amongst other things – to be split in two… And the ending doesn’t have a very definite shape yet.

But hey: it’s a first draft. That’s what first drafts are for, isn’t it? And I finished it.

Hooray.

Now, if all goes well, I mean to let it rest for a whole month. I’m told a month is the TheEnd2time required to grow a fresh pair of eyes, very handy for revision. And it’s true: I don’t have the sense God gave to small green apples, and I’m dreadful at keeping good intentions… On the other hand, I have a good deal of work waiting for me, and books to read, and I’ll have to make it up to all the people I shamefully neglected these past five months – so perhaps my June will be so full that I will have no time to even think of the novel…

So: until July, novel.

But I confess, I’ll miss the heady rush of this last week. Between Saturday and Sunday I wrote some 7500 words – a whole lot for me. It may have been all a little haphazard, but how very exhilarating. Scenes followed scenes, and new ideas, and possibilities, and detours kept cropping up… It may seem far ideal, when one is trying to conclude as fast as possible, but it was quite heady. Theend1b

Also, it gives me a good headway towards revision, a whole new way to tighten up the middle, and a few threads I want to pursue back – if that makes sense… Oh.

See? There I am, musing on revision already!

Ah well – but this is for July. Right now, let me bask in the afterglow: I’ve finished the first draft.

Iridescence, after all

14 Thursday May 2015

Posted by in History

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RogerBWMany years ago, in the palace of the Ajuntament in Barcelona, I came across a set of fresco mural painting, showing how Catalan knight in shining armour Roger de la Flor, after generously saving the Byzantine Empire from some Turkish horde or other, was betrayed and murdered for his pains by the same Emperor he had saved… Bad Byzantines! Bad!

All very interesting – and yet… Continue reading →

Of History and Stories

26 Saturday Jul 2014

Posted by in History, Stories

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histnov2Kate Taylor of The Globe and Mail did this lovely double interview with historical novelists Philippa Gregory and Wayne Johnston, about… well, about how hard it is to make people understand the nature, purpose and rules of historical fiction.

Why, why, why, oh why is it that we have to spend so much time rebutting angry accusations of sloppiness, laziness, too much imagination, too little imagination – or pointing out that it is, you know, a novel? And this is not about historical accuracy, mind, but about the fictional characters and bits we all weave into the historical context…

But do read the interview – tellingly titled Truth and Lies: I’m not sure it really answers the question Why, but it certainly gives fodder for thought.