by Molly Owen | Jul 13, 2013 | Blog, Terry Blain
I remember a comment a friend of mine made after reading a very inaccurate historical novel. She said there ought to be a rule that you can’t write a historical novel unless you’ve been camping at least once. I think she might have a point.
One of the goals of the historical writer is to bring the past alive for those in the present. You can do all the research in the world into the history, politics, customs, costumes, etc. And an imagination is a great thing, but the more ‘hands on’ experience you’ve had the better I think your story will be. Experience, even a little, can help you add the details that will make your scene come alive.
So, my advice is, if you’re lucky enough to have the chance to do so, live a little in the past. The experience will do wonders for your imagination and help with the details that will make your historicals come alive.
For example, your western heroine is cooking over an open campfire. Think about how and what you would write in this scene. What would she do, feel?
(pause for thinking – come on, really think about it for a moment)
OK, now that you’ve thought about it, did you have her feel the heat on her face? The breeze will blow smoke in her eyes no matter where she stands and she’ll have to watch out for her skirt tails as she squats. And that night, her hair will smell of smoke when the hero hugs her.
Trust me, I’ve cooked many a meal over an open fire. We did a lot of camping with the Scouts with our boys as my husband was the Scout Master. I know what it’s like to heat water and then take a bath in a bucket. (Makes you appreciate the shower, let me tell you). And you know all those cowboys sitting around the campfire drinking coffee out of tin cups – you know how hot those cups can get when you pour hot coffee into them (ouch!).
In one of my western ms. I have the hero teach the heroine (from back East) how to ride a horse. Just to make sure I got a good feel for those scenes, and how long it might take to learn to ride as much as I needed her to ride for later in the story, I took riding lessons.
I can now brush, bridle and saddle a horse, and of course tell it to go where I want him to go, not just around and around the corral. Lots of fun, and I figure if an old lady like me can learn to be fairly proficient, the my hero, who is not only great with horses, but a great teacher, can teach the heroine to ride well enough and soon enough to fit my ms.
I’m always amazed at the way some historical heroines run up and down steps in long skirts. I don’t know about you, but when I’ve worn long skirts/dresses, I have to pick up the hem to go up and down stairs. And you haven’t lived until you try wearing a hoop skirt a la Scarlett O’Hara. There is a real skill to maneuvering and sitting while wearing a hoop skirt. I only did this once when I was very young, but I remember wearing the hoop skirt and sitting down without thinking first. And so I sat on the back of the hoops – a mistake, as the front of the skirt came up and hit me in the face. Fortunately this was not in public.
And I can imagine that those American colonial women, or any 18th Century lady with panniers had to turn sideways to get through a door way (think of Grace Kelly’s costume in the masked ball scene of To Catch A Thief). Unfortunately, I’ve never danced at a Regency ball, but would if I was writing Regency.
I know as a Campfire Girl in my youth, and going through Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts with our sons, I’ve cooked over an open fire, made soap, made adobe bricks, dipped candles, made cornshuck dolls, churned butter, chopped wood, etc.
I’ve been lucky enough to come from a large mid-western family with a great oral tradition, so as a child I heard stories of my ancestors. In Kentucky Green, when the heroine churns butter, I have her say the rhyme that my grandmother said when she was a little girl and had the job of churning the family butter.
Experience can make facts you find in research books come alive for you. I’ve known that spiral stairways in medieval castles spiral up counter-clockwise. This is so the person going up (an attacker) has his right/sword arm against the wall, and the person going down (the defender) will have his sword arm unencumbered by the spiral. 
My husband and I had the wonderful experience of touring several English castles one summer, and I had just finished explaining this right hand/left hand business to him as we started up a staircase in Bodiam Castle. Now just knowing why the stairs are as they are is totally different from us going up one of those staircases — and meeting another tourist coming down swinging an imaginary sword as he’s explaining to his wife why the stairs are that way!
I notice a lot of medieval heroines are experts with herbs/healing. But how often do we actually see/feel/smell them digging in the dirt tending to the herbs? I admit I do very little gardening, but the earthy, moist smell of the garden, the texture of the soil, the dirt on your hands and knees, the smell of a garden after a rain or the smell of a garden on a hot, dry afternoon — all this should be in the text if you have a scene where the heroine’s in the garden.
I’ve also been fortunate enough to travel through most of the US, either going to visit grandparents as a child, or following my military husband from duty station to duty station. My story for Colorado Silver, Colorado Gold came from the setting, as I was always struck by the clean, high mountain beauty of Durango each time we went through there. And my visit to the Molly Brown house in Denver gave me not only the feel of houses of the period, but useful information for this story.
We may be able to walk up castle staircases or plant some flowers. And if you have the chance to do any of the everyday tasks we expect our historic heroines to do, then I strongly urge you to do so.
Living in the past can be a lot of fun (especially when after a few days you can come home and have a nice hot shower), and it can only help you bring your historical novel alive for the reader.
A short list of some of the places I’ve been that will take you back in time.
http://www.logcabinvillage.org/ Log Cabin Village in Ft. Worth, TX
http://www.nps.gov/york/planyourvisit/hours.htm Yorktown Battlefield, VA
http://www.historyisfun.org/Jamestown-Settlement.htm Jamestown Settlement, VA
http://www.julianca.com/historic_sites/index.htm Julian, CA a gold rush town
http://www.oldtownsandiegoguide.com/history.html Old Town San Diego, CA
http://www.okhistory.org/mwp/index.htm Museum of the Western Prairies, Altus, OK
http://www.williamsburg.com/ Colonial Williamsburg, VA
http://www.mountvernon.org/ Mount Vernon, VA
http://www.nps.gov/mima/ Minuteman National Park, Lexington & Concord, MA
http://www.chicagohs.org/ Chicago Historical Society, IL
http://www.nps.gov/casa Castillo de San Marcos, St. Augustine, FL
http://www.mollybrown.org/ Molly Brown House, Denver, CO
by Molly Owen | Jun 13, 2013 | Blog, Terry Blain
Elizabeth Tudor – age 16
From MSNBC – “The King’s Deception,” a new book by Steve Berry, has brought together evidence of what may be one of the most jaw-slackening deceptions in the history of the English monarchy. Berry alleges that Elizabeth I of England died from the plague at age 10 and her attendants, fearing a gruesome execution from King Henry VIII, disguised a 9-year-old village boy to buy themselves time to escape the country. The subterfuge worked so well because Henry barely knew Elizabeth, and with all who knew her (him) too frightened to allege anything and risk execution for treason, the boy grew up, took the throne as the Virgin Queen and played the part till death.
My first thought was ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I have an MA in History with a concentration in Tudor and Stuart England. I immediately started thinking of reasons this could not be. I eventually looked up the author and the book only to discover its 1) fiction 2) a contemporary novel about where the hero uncovers this deception as part of an international plot.
There are many reasons the above ‘deception’ wouldn’t work. A) If two people know a secret, then it won’t be a secret. B) The boy imposter would have to be a eunuch because of things like a beard and Adam’s apple. C) Thomas Seymour wasn’t a fool or gay, neigher was Robert Dudley. D) Elizabeth spoke several languages and read several more, including Greek and Latin – where would a village boy learn that? E) Elizabeth lived life surrounded by dressers, maids, servants, some of who helped her bathe. F) And several times before she became queen, she was under close confinement or house arrest, hard to keep up that deception. G) Her ministers knew when she was too old to bear children, (most likely as her servants knew when she ceased to menstruate) as they quit pressing her to marry and started pressing her to name an heir…
I could go on and on and on, but I guess I’ll take this ‘deception’ in the same vein that watching a James Bond movie is an accurate depiction of the British Secret Service. Not.
What did you think when you read the MSNBC paragraph (besides the fact that it’s misleading)?
What reasons would you add to my thougths?
by Molly Owen | May 13, 2013 | Blog, Terry Blain
As a member of Hearts Through History, I usually write historicals set in America. However, last spring my critique group (which is now more of a plotting/brainstorming group) got the chance to write a series of five novellas, one by each member of the group. Most of our group writes contemporary, so we decided the novellas would be contemporary.
Our group went on a weekend retreat and did the plotting/brainstorming for all five novellas. We started out with the premise of five high school friends who went away to college, and were all together New Year’s eve their freshman year in college. That night they made a list of the qualities they wanted in a man. Now ten years have passed and things have not gone exactly as they planned. Now they are together again at New Year’s, where the make a new list and make a pact to each fine a man by next New Year’s, forming The New Year’s Eve Club.
So what’s this got to do with Seduced by History? I’m wondering if any of you write both historical and contemporary and any problems you might find in switching back and forth.
For me, I found it’s about all the sex when comes to differences in writing historical and contemporary. Of course there is sexual tension between the hero and heroine in historicals, but usually as I’m writing historicals, I have to keep the hero and heroine from consummating their attraction. In my historicals I really have to work to make a scenario where there’s an authentic/realistic reason they might sleep together before marriage. (One of the reasons a marriage of convenience works so well in historicals.) I discovered I really had to change my mindset for the contemporary – after all, they are consenting adults.
While I’d anticipated this change in mind set (from a writer point of view), one problem that caught me by surprise was communication. I’m so used to writing historicals, that in writing the novella when the hero wanted to arrange a meeting with the heroine, I had the hero leave the heroine a note. I wasn’t until I was about three quarters through the draft that it occurred to me that they would have cell phones and had constant and instantaneous communications! And yes, I have a cell phone, but my husband and grew up without them so we really don’t use them all that much, so it took me awhile to think of the phones. (And yes, I layered in several phone conversations in the novella).
Since I’ve been writing about cowboys and the American west, I made by hero stuntman on a western movie set, to keep the cowboy theme. My heroine is a teacher looking for a little adventure when she takes a summer job teaching child actors on a western film set. At the end, I’m glad to say I must have made the transition as our New Year’s Eve Club novellas are doing well. https://www.facebook.com/TheNewYearsEveClub
Now, to switch my mind back about a hundred and fifty years and get back to my historicals. If you’ve made the transition back and forth, let me know how it went.
by Molly Owen | Feb 13, 2013 | Blog, Terry Blain
People often ask how I decided to write Kentucky Green, as it set in an unusual time period, the frontier in 1794. I grew up reading historical novels, which I now realize contained a definite ‘romance’ element even though they weren’t labeled as such. When I took a ‘how to write’ class the advice was to write what you like to read. And being a history teacher (US History and Western Civilization at the community college), I looked back to see what novels that I loved.
One of my favorite novels was The Kentuckians by Janice Holt Giles (1905-1979). This novel takes place in Kentucky during the American Revolution. I loved the characters, David Cooper and Bethia the woman he loves, but can’t have. All this against the background of the Americans, outnumbered and ill-equipped as they fight against the British and their Indian allies. Being a history major, I really enjoyed the historical information Giles added to the story. (more…)
by Molly Owen | Jan 13, 2013 | Blog, Terry Blain
Often times while writing I like to have music on in the background. I found the music needs to be instrumental. If there are words, I find that I’m actually listening to the music, and not using it a background.
Music, like the sense of smell brings memories or feelings associated with the music. So it’s a big help to use music that fits what you happen to be writing. Since I write historical romance, I tend to use music that reflects this.
I discovered this when I wrote my first novel, Kentucky Green, set in the Kentucky frontier in 1794. While writing this story, I listened to the movie sound track to The Last of the Mohicans. Not only did the music fit the story, but if I was writing a love scene, there was a romantic track. Tracks for the action/adventure part of my story.
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