Have you signed up to be a DIY MFA Radio Insider yet? This is an exciting new monthly newsletter especially for our podcast listeners. Every month, you’ll get an email from our podcast producer with recaps of the most recent episodes, a curated Listening List of episodes on a particular theme, and other fun goodies we only share via email. Best of all, it’s free to join! The theme for November is Science, and you can become an insider by signing up with your email at diymfa.com/insiders.

In this episode Suzanne Parry and Lori discuss:

• Writing a story that people will read about a particularly gruesome event.
• Structuring the chapter format and perspective to support the story you’re telling.
• Exploring the bonds that art creates between people.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

About Suzanne Parry

A former European security specialist, Suzanne writes historical fiction about the Soviet Union. She studied Russian in Moscow and earned a Master’s from Princeton University before joining the US Department of Defense. While at the Pentagon, she helped negotiate the first security agreement of the Gorbachev era. She raised a large family, taught university, and coached high school cross-country and track for fifteen years before embarking on a writing career. A veteran of several dozen marathons on six continents, Suzanne now runs slowly and not very far. 

You can find her on her website or follow her on Facebook, and Instagram.

Lost Souls of Leningrad

June 1941. Hitler’s armies race toward vulnerable Leningrad. In a matter of weeks they encircle the city, cut off the food supply and begin a vicious bombardment. Widowed violinist Sofya and her teenage granddaughter Yelena are cornered in the crumbling city.

On Leningrad’s outskirts, Admiral Vasili Antonov defends his homeland and fights for a future with Sofya. Meanwhile, Yelena’s soldier fiancé transports food across the Ice Road—part of the desperate effort to save Leningrad. As the two women struggle for survival, Sofya’s reckoning with a family secret threatens to finish what Hitler started.

Based on actual events, Lost Souls of Leningrad is an intimate and richly layered World War II story. Equal parts war epic, family saga, and love story, it is a tale of two remarkable women—grandmother and granddaughter—separated by years and experience but of one heart in their devotion to each other and the men they love. Neither the oppression of Stalin nor the brutality of Hitler can destroy their determination in this testament to resilience.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link where, if you choose to purchase via the link, DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 435

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, or Google and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 435: Family, Soviet History, and the Power of Art in Historical Fiction – Interview with Suzanne Parry appeared first on DIY MFA.

Have you signed up to be a DIY MFA Radio Insider yet? This is an exciting new monthly newsletter, especially for our podcast listeners. Every month, you’ll get an email from our podcast producer with recaps of the most recent episodes, a curated Listening List of episodes on a particular theme, and other fun goodies we only share via email. Best of all, it’s free to join! The theme for October is Horror/Suspense, and you can become an insider by signing up with your email at diymfa.com/insiders.

In this episode Susan J. Austin and I discuss:

• Organizing your historical research for ease of use in your writing.
• Writing for the specific reading level of your audience. 
• Re-engaging with a manuscript that you have set aside for a while.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

About Susan J. Austin 

As an educator, Susan J. Austin knows the minds of young readers. Her first novel, The Bamboo Garden, is set in Berkeley, California, 1923, and describes an unlikely friendship between two girls that is tested by a fierce fire that threatens to destroy their town. Currently, she is writing about twelve-year-old Goldie, a whiz kid in the kitchen who hopes that her culinary magic can help her family’s delicatessen out of a pickle in 1928 Hollywood. Her characters are always brave, strong-willed risk-takers. Writing historical fiction offers her a way to educate and excite her readers about the past. She and her husband live in Northern California, surrounded by family, their splendid but fussy rose bushes, and a lifetime collection of books. Learn more at www.susanjaustin.com.

Drawing Outside the Lines

Drawing Outside the Lines is an imagined childhood of pioneering architect Julia Morgan, who left behind an extraordinary legacy of creativity, beauty, and engineering marvels.

In 1883, eleven-year-old Julia visits the amazing new Brooklyn Bridge, an experience that ignites within her a small but persistent flame. Someday, she too will build something wonderful. Her journey is not easy. Growing up in horse-and-buggy Oakland, she enjoys daring fence walks, climbing the tallest trees, and constantly testing her mother’s patience with her lack of interest in domestic duties and social events. 

At a time when “brainy” girls are the object of ridicule, Julia excels in school and consistently outsmarts her ornery brothers. A greater battle awaits her in college. The male students taunt her, and the professors belittle her. Through it all, Julia holds on to her dream of becoming an architect. She faces each challenge head-on, firmly standing up to those who are convinced that a woman’s place is in the home. Fortunately, the world is about to meet the indomitable Miss Morgan.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 431

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, or Google and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 431: Writing the Imagined Childhood of a Historical Figure for Middle Grade Readers – Interview with Susan J. Austin appeared first on DIY MFA.

In fact, I started out writing a novel about Elisabeth (as I called her, although in some sources they refer to her as Louise—the French double-first-naming thing is tricky). I thought at first it would be another in my growing oeuvre of young adult historical novels. Although her youth in a convent school and her father’s death when she was twelve were poignant—as well as her training and friendship with pastellist Rosalie Filleul—I soon discovered that the most interesting parts of her life occurred when she was an adult. She was under thirty when she became Marie Antoinette’s official portraitist, and had an inside view of court life.

However, Elisabeth fled Paris in 1789, when it was clear her ties to the court made it unsafe for her to remain. She spent the Revolution traveling around Europe from court to court, painting portraits and being celebrated. Her husband divorced her in absentia during the Terror to preserve his own life (he’d stayed behind, she took their daughter with her), and she didn’t return to Paris until 1800. 

Early attempts

After I figured out that Elisabeth’s story should be an adult novel, I started writing it in the first person. I think I got about fifty pages in and realized that I was just sort of rewriting her autobiography. I didn’t want to do that. I figured I’d have to switch to third person at the very least.

In the meantime, I thought I’d find out what Elisabeth had to say about her chief rival, Adélaïde. After all, they’d both exhibited publicly for the first time at the Académie de Saint-Luc salon in 1774, and were elected to the Académie Royale at the same time, in 1783. Surely they knew each other.

The advantage to reading something as an eBook is that you can search the text. I searched all three volumes of Elisabeth’s autobiography for every version I could conjure of Adélaïde’s name, and—nada. I found a couple of places where she made a veiled reference to her rival, but she never mentioned her by name.

Hmmm.

And the manuscript thickens

This started me thinking: What did the two women artists, the most famous women artists of their time in Paris, know of or feel about each other? How might they have interacted? For that, I had to dig into research about Adélaïde.

I was soon frustrated by the relative paucity of existing material. Thank heavens for Laura Auricchio’s book, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard: Artist in the Age of Revolution (The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2009). That source, along with a much earlier short biography by Roger Portalis (1902) furnished most of the information I was able to glean about her life and career.

Armed with this, as well as some fascinating research about Rosalie Filleul—who drew portraits of her neighbor in Passy, Benjamin Franklin, and was guillotined during the Terror—I wrote a massive (for me) novel with three points of view.

Writers always look for beta readers when they have a draft polished enough for people to read, and I’m so grateful to my friends who slogged through that manuscript. I also workshopped it, and submitted it for a meeting with an editor through the Muse and the Marketplace conference.

Response was virtually unanimous: It was just too much. And the character that resonated most with everyone wasn’t Elisabeth or Rosalie, but Adélaïde. She was the one who had to struggle in her career. The true underdog. She was also the one who became involved in the politics of the Revolution, worked (unsuccessfully) to reform the Académie, painted a portrait of Robespierre, and fled Paris (but not France) during the worst years of the Terror.

Kill all your darlings

So, I started again. I had some material I could salvage from the earlier draft, but really, it was a complete rewrite, which I began in 2020. After several drafts, many revisions, and chopping off the first fifty pages, The Portraitist: a Novel of Adélaïde Labille-Guiard came into existence. And this focused, more manageable novel is a vast improvement over its predecessor.

I was able to make a logical progression of Adélaïde’s career, of the choices she made or might have made—lack of documented history can be a boon to a fiction writer. Reader, I invented stuff. I hewed closely to the known facts, but that still left a lot of room for filling in motivations and emotions.

I fell so in love with Adélaïde. But that left me still wondering about Elisabeth. She had made such different choices. And even with the abundance of information available, an autobiography is notoriously unreliable. She wanted to control the narrative about her life. Why? I wasn’t finished with her.

Elisabeth will rise again

I have already written enough to make an entire second novel about Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun. But I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m creating a series of novellas, called Behind the Painted Fan, which I have yet to figure out how to publish so readers can enjoy them as a gloss on The Portraitist. As I deepen my acquaintance with Elisabeth, I’m finding so much more in her to celebrate that gets beyond the rather egomaniacal self-portrait in words. As always in such cases of professional rivalry, the two women probably had completely mistaken views of each other.

The novellas are my attempt to give modern readers a chance to get to know not just Adélaïde as I envision her, but Elisabeth, too. Whichever one of them was more successful, they both faced similar challenges and found ways to survive and prevail. And that’s nothing short of inspiring.

Susanne Dunlap is the author of twelve works of historical fiction for adults and teens, as well as an Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach. Her love of historical fiction arose partly from her studies in music history at Yale University (PhD, 1999), partly from her lifelong interest in women in the arts as a pianist and non-profit performing arts executive. Her novel The Paris Affair won first place in its category in the CIBA Dante Rossetti awards for Young Adult Fiction. The Musician’s Daughter was a Junior Library Guild Selection and a Bank Street Children’s Book of the Year, and was nominated for the Utah Book Award and the Missouri Gateway Reader’s Prize. In the Shadow of the Lamp was an Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Book Award nominee. Susanne earned her BA and an MA (musicology) from Smith College, and lives in Biddeford, ME, with her little dog Betty.
You can find her on her website or follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

The post Why the Underdog? Or, How I Came to Write a Novel about Adélaïde Labille-Guiard appeared first on DIY MFA.

Have you signed up to be a DIY MFA Radio Insider yet? This is an exciting new monthly newsletter, especially for our podcast listeners. Every month, you’ll get an email from our podcast producer with recaps of the most recent episodes, a curated Listening List of episodes on a particular theme, and other fun goodies we only share via email. Best of all, it’s free to join! The theme for April is Picture Books, and you can become an insider by signing up with your email at diymfa.com/insiders.

In this episode Leslie Johansen Nack and I discuss:

• Why she leaned into fiction for this project as opposed to writing a biography.
• Her research process and how she chose which scenes to fictionalize.
• How she balanced writing about the public and private personas of her characters.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

About Leslie Johansen Nack

Leslie Johansen Nack’s debut, Fourteen, A Daughter’s Memoir of Adventure, Sailing, and Survival received five indie awards, including the 2016 Finalist in Memoir at the Next Generation Indie Book Award. She lives in San Diego and enjoys sailing, hiking, and reading. 

Before she started writing, she raised two children, ran a mechanical engineering business with her husband, took care of her aging mother, and dreamed of retirement when she could write full-time. She did everything late in life, including getting her degree in English Literature from UCLA at age thirty-one.

You can find her on her website or follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The Blue Butterfly, A Novel of Marion Davies

New York 1915, Marion Davies is a shy eighteen-year-old beauty dancing on the Broadway stage when she meets William Randolph Hearst and finds herself captivated by his riches, passion, and desire to make her a movie star. Following a whirlwind courtship, she learns through trial and error to live as Hearst’s mistress when a divorce from his wife proves impossible. A baby girl is born in secret in 1919 and they agree to never acknowledge her publicly as their own. In a burgeoning Hollywood scene, she works hard making movies while living a lavish partying life that includes a secret love affair with Charlie Chaplin. In late 1937, at the height of the depression, Hearst wrestles with his debtors and failing health, when Marion loans him $1M when nobody else will. Together, they must confront the movie that threatens to invalidate all of Marion’s successes in the movie industry: Citizen Kane.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, or Google and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 407: Public vs. Private Personas: Crafting a Novel Based on Historical Figures – Interview with Leslie Johansen Nack appeared first on DIY MFA.

Have you signed up to be a DIY MFA Radio Insider yet? This is an exciting new monthly newsletter especially for our podcast listeners. Every month, you’ll get an email from our podcast producer with recaps of the most recent episodes, a curated Listening List of episodes on a particular theme, and other fun goodies we only share via email. Best of all, it’s free to join! 

The theme for April is Picture Books, and you can become an insider by signing up with your email at diymfa.com/insiders.

In this episode Jody Hadlock and Lori discuss:

• The research process and how to blend primary and secondary sources.
• Why finding the right point of view is so important to the writing process.
• What role context plays in writing about the past and how to integrate it into your plot.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

About Jody Hadlock

After studying journalism at Texas A&M University, Jody Hadlock was a television news reporter and anchor in Bryan-College Station, Texas; Charleston, South Carolina; and San Antonio, Texas. She now lives near Fort Worth with her husband. For several years Jody served on the board of directors of North Texas Special Needs Assistance Partners (SNAP), a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities live the fullest lives possible in their communities. The Lives of Diamond Bessie is her first novel.

You can find her on her website or follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Goodreads.

The Lives of Diamond Bessie

Inspired by a true story….

Pregnant out of wedlock, sixteen-year-old Annie Moore is sent to live at a convent for fallen women. When the nuns take her baby, Annie escapes, determined to find a way to be reunited with her daughter. But few rights or opportunities are available to a woman in the 1860s, and after failing to find a respectable job, she resorts to prostitution in order to survive. 

As a highly sought-after demi-mondaine, Annie—now Bessie—garners many expensive gifts from her admirers and eventually meets and marries the son of a wealthy jeweler, a traveling salesman with a gambling problem. With her marriage, she believes her dream of returning to proper society has finally come true. She’s proven wrong when she suffers the ultimate betrayal at the hands of the man she thought would be her salvation. But Bessie doesn’t let her story end there. 

Set against the backdrop of the burgeoning women’s rights movement, The Lives of Diamond Bessie is a haunting tale of betrayal and redemption that explores whether seeking revenge is worth the price you might pay.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 404

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, or Google and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 404: How to Turn Historical Figures into Characters for Your Novel – Interview with Jody Hadlock appeared first on DIY MFA.

Finola Austin, also known as the Secret Victorianist on her award-winning blog, is an England-born, Northern Ireland-raised, Brooklyn-based historical novelist and lover of the 19th century. Her first novel, Bronte’s Mistress, was published in 2020. When she’s not writing novels or her blog, she works in digital advertising.

In this episode Finola and I discuss:

• How household and gender roles have and have not changed since the 19th century.
• The difference between being “accomplished” and being “clever” and why it’s problematic.
• Why she created a timeline to help fill in gaps in knowledge as she drafted her novel.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

About Finola Austin

Finola Austin, also known as the Secret Victorianist on her award-winning blog, is an England-born, Northern Ireland-raised, Brooklyn-based historical novelist and lover of the 19th century. Her first novel, Bronte’s Mistress, was published by Atria Books in 2020. By day, she works in digital advertising.

You can find Finola on her website or follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Goodreads.

For more from Finola Austin, check out her article on LitHub or her introduction in The Tenant in Wildfell Hall. 

Click here to read the article Finola refers to on AI analysis of Jane Austen’s work.

Bronte’s Mistress

This dazzling debut novel for fans of Mrs. Poe and Longbourn explores the scandalous historical love affair between Branwell Brontë and Lydia Robinson, giving voice to the woman who allegedly corrupted her son’s innocent tutor and brought down the entire Brontë family.

Yorkshire, 1843: Lydia Robinson—mistress of Thorp Green Hall—has lost her precious young daughter and her mother within the same year. She returns to her bleak home, grief-stricken and unmoored. With her teenage daughters rebelling, her testy mother-in-law scrutinizing her every move, and her marriage grown cold, Lydia is restless and yearning for something more.

All of that changes with the arrival of her son’s tutor, Branwell Brontë, brother of her daughters’ governess, Miss Anne Brontë and those other writerly sisters, Charlotte and Emily. Branwell has his own demons to contend with—including living up to the ideals of his intelligent family—but his presence is a breath of fresh air for Lydia. Handsome, passionate, and uninhibited by social conventions, he’s also twenty-five to her forty-three. A love of poetry, music, and theatre bring mistress and tutor together, and Branwell’s colorful tales of his sisters’ elaborate play-acting and made-up worlds form the backdrop for seduction.

But Lydia’s new taste of passion comes with consequences. As Branwell’s inner turmoil rises to the surface, his behavior grows erratic and dangerous, and whispers of their passionate relationship spout from her servants’ lips, reaching all three protective Brontë sisters. Soon, it falls on Lydia to save not just her reputation, but her way of life, before those clever girls reveal all her secrets in their novels. Unfortunately, she might be too late.

Meticulously researched and deliciously told, Brontë’s Mistress is a captivating reimagining of the scandalous affair that has divided Brontë enthusiasts for generations and an illuminating portrait of a courageous, sharp-witted woman who fights to emerge with her dignity intact.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 374

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, or Google and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 374: Historical Fiction, the Bronte Family, and the Original Mrs. Robinson – Interview with Finola Austin appeared first on DIY MFA.

1.      “I have seen, in the most significant of circumstances, that some little thing always decides great events.” Emperor Napoleon to his minister Tallyrand.

Before you dive into the research ocean, identify the “little thing” and “great event” that make your story unique. That discovery can save you time and prevent your drowning in information.

How do you find those pearls before you research?

First, jot down one sentence about why you’re writing this particular story. Add a second sentence about why that time and place interest you, and a third about your main character’s quest. Can you identify from those sentences the “little thing” and the “great event” on which the story turns? Remember your great event doesn’t have to be Napoleonic in scale. It can happen to a village, a family, or a heart.

Mull those sentences over. They define the scope of your story. Concentrate your research within its boundaries.

For example, when I learned young Napoleon Bonaparte tried to write a romantic novel, I vowed to write a book in which the aging emperor finished that manuscript. Napoleon’s rise and fall was the “great event.” How the old man viewed his youthful idealism was the “little thing” that drove the story.

Knowing that, research for my novel Finding Napoleon focused on who he was as a person at the beginning and at the end of his life. I could ignore battles, geopolitics, and most of the 60,000 books about him.

2.      “Riches do not consist in the possession of treasures, but in the use made of them.” Napoleon Bonaparte, attributed.

Research is a servant to Story, not the other way around. At its best, it produces fascinating characters in an authentic, sensory world, ripe with internal and external conflict. At its worse, it turns a story into a lecture.

Ernest Hemingway (to quote a second oversized ego) said he wrote “on the principle of the iceberg.” Seven-eighths of his meaning was underwater. As a researcher, you see the entire iceberg. As a writer, you convey the essence through the least number of details.

Use your research riches to build the physical, cultural, and emotional setting where your story lives. Use them to shape your story within the confines or interstices of history. Use them to illuminate your character’s motivations. The moment you think you might be showing off new-found knowledge, you probably are.

Pro-tip: To test the iceberg principle on your manuscript, read through your pages, highlighting instances in which you explain historical or technical facts to the reader. Which explanations can be turned into active scenes that advance the story? Which should be eliminated? Revise until everything that remains serves the story.

3.      “What a thing is imagination! Imagination rules the world.” Napoleon Bonaparte in exile, commenting on soldiers who were moved to greatness by his presence.

Like the soldiers who found inspiration at the mere sight of Napoleon, let research supercharge your imagination. Let it provide the sensory experience, the voice, and the emotion that spur your imagination.

Pro-tip: Get the big picture first. If you’re not an expert, history books for middle-grade students, the For Dummy series, Chronicle Publications, David Macaulay’s How Things Work, and other simple publications can provide a quick framework. Once you know the basics—the people, geography, religion, technology, major events—you’re ready for a deeper dive into details.

If you can, travel for inspiration. On location, search out lodgings, food, walks, churches, bad weather, boat trips, anything close to what your characters experienced. Visit small, local museums where a curator might provide surprising insight. Take photos to comb for details and enhance your web presence. Above all, pause to see, feel, smell, hear, and taste the environment.

Travel locally. You may not be able to travel to Russia, but you can cook borscht in your own kitchen. Drive to the nearest hilltop without light pollution to see the starry sky as our ancestors saw it. Sit in the woods and feel wilderness around you. Savor those authentic feelings, then adjust the details to reflect your characters’ experience.

When you can’t travel in person, the Internet will take you anywhere. As a starting place, the website The History Quill offers its excellent guide 50+ Top Online Research Resources for Historical Fiction Writers in exchange for your email address.

Search out primary sources from your novel’s era, especially memoirs, diaries, newspapers, and the books your characters read. Primary sources provide more than facts—they are role models for your characters’ voices and opinions.

Of course, books. To save money, download free out-of-copyright books from Google Books or search websites like Abebooks.com for inexpensive used books. When you visit a library, ask the librarian for help. (For example, at my request, my library in Virginia borrowed microfilm of 1890s newspapers from a public library in North Dakota.)

4.      “Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go.”  Napoleon, attributed.

Set a time limit for the research-only phase. How much research is enough depends on the complexity of your subject. Is your protagonist living in an isolated Viking village? Research her daily life, physical environment, religion, and the social structure of her village. If she’s driving social change in Revolutionary France, you’ll need all that and more.

When your deadline’s up, STOP THE RESEARCH. Write a messy first draft or, at least, an outline.

Then continue your research as you rewrite and revise, filling in the blanks of your knowledge, finding fodder for new plot twists, and correcting errors.

Once you’re in the writing phase, concentrate your best energy on the writing. When your brainpower begins to lag, research for new inspiration.

Pro-tip: During your early drafts, skip over information you don’t know, putting a searchable placeholder such as [XXX] for the unknown detail, as in “at night they crossed [XXX] River.”

5.      “The greatest general is the one who makes the fewest mistakes.”  Napoleon, from the Correspondance.

Historical Fiction is a minefield of authors’ mistakes. Smile when you’re criticized, learn from it, and move on.

To limit the damage, recruit multiple Beta readers with varied experience. You’ll be surprised what you don’t know. (A clever critique partner told me that deer don’t lap; they sip—a detail I never would have fact-checked.)

Beware Experts: Professional historians may object when you change established facts. If you ask one to be a Beta reader, be upfront about how you’ve bent history. Remind them you’re looking for details (mahogany trees don’t grow in that location) or anachronisms (that gun wasn’t invented until twenty years later). Always be gracious and humble—after all, they are technically right.

Your last and best defense is your Author’s Note. There you explain the inspiration for your book and where you twisted or invented facts. Above all, remind the reader that your book—while well-researched—is an imaginative interpretation.

Finally, take joy in what you’ve created and all you’ve learned.

Bonus Tip: Write a second book in the same place and time so that all that research does double duty!

Margaret Rodenberg’s debut novel, Finding Napoleon, includes an adaptation of Napoleon Bonaparte’s real attempt to write a romantic novel and a rare look at his last love, the audacious Albine de Montholon. For research, she traveled to St. Helena Island in the remote South Atlantic, where Napoleon died and much of the novel takes place. Connect with her on social media or on her website FindingNapoleon.com.

The post #5onFri: Five Tips on Historical Fiction Research From Napoleon Bonaparte appeared first on DIY MFA.

Write about a time period that you love or has some significance for you because you will be doing a lot (a lot) of research.  

I chose the three historic time periods for A Witch in Time based on my personal interest in Belle Époque France, my obsession with Hollywood in the 1930s and my personal experience growing up in the 1970s.  By now, I’ve probably read almost every history book from those time periods, but those hours immersed in research were labors of love for me.  For A Witch in Time, I have an entire bookshelf for the three periods and find that I tend to think in those time frames for all future novels so I might get multiple novels from my initial research.  By contrast, as a reader, I love historical fiction based on time periods that aren’t of interest to me.  For example, one of my favorite historical fantasy writers, Nicola Cornick, often writes time slip novels during the Elizabethan period.  It’s not one of the time periods that I actively work in, so this distance actually allows my brain a bit of time to indulge, rest and “enjoy” her books and admire her craft. 

Write small, big and universal.

This is one of the best writing hacks for a historical writer. Strategically pick a few areas to research so you don’t get overwhelmed.  For example, start with the big, over-arching historical details of the period. What were some of the major political and social themes going on?   How would those have impacted your characters?  This exercise can be different if you’re writing a book on the fictional version of Richard III versus a commoner living during that time. You don’t need to bite off every piece of history from the time period.  Remember, you’re not writing a non-fiction history book. 

After the big major themes, you can write small.  What is the typical day in the life of your character?  How did people dress or wear their hair?.  Think about the food of the time.  Were people hungry?  Were certain things rationed?  Drink?  Music?  Art?  Those are all important aspects of daily life.  What was the price of theater ticket?  A glass of wine?  Find one or two things (tangible and small) and write everything about them. 

In my novel, The Ladies of the Secret Circus, one of the best writing hacks I discovered was simply finding a cookbook called, The Found Meals of the Lost Generation: Recipes and Anecdotes from the 1920s Paris by Suzanne Rodriguez-Hunter. The author was specific about what foods were trendy during the time and the ingredients that were available.  In my research I also found a nice detail about all the poor artists stealing both food and silverware from the Café de la Rotonde in Montparnasse. 

These tiny details actually make the time period authentic and tangible.  In this phase of my writing, I actively search Pinterest boards for research use them as notebooks for each of my novels.  If you’re looking for an example of how tiny, daily details can really define a time period, I recommend Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women (1952) which makes even the most mundane elements of post WWII British life fascinating. 

Some extra writing hacks: pick a universal topic or detail and write it.  As a modern-day guest at the Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, I took special note of the smells and sounds of the hallways. Since it was an old hotel, I could imagine that many of the senses involved were the same then as they are now, so I used these details in the scenes where Nora lives there in A Witch in Time.  In another example, eating French Onion soup probably hasn’t changed much since the turn of the century in Paris, so I used soup in The Ladies of the Secret Circus where Cecile and Emile have their first date.  When placed in an historical fiction piece, a universal detail can take on the antique aura of the time period.  Make sure the detail fits first.  If the item wasn’t invented yet, then obviously you won’t want to use it.  It’s a bit of a cheat, but there are just some things that haven’t changed much and readers will actually be drawn to familiar details they know. Your writing is a balance between identifying timeless, universal truths and serving as a tour guide to another time period.

More bonus writing hacks:  an overlooked aspect of an historical fiction is the setting.  Try to find an old photo or a painting of the place you’re writing about and write every detail you see in it. Think about how the place felt, smelled, sounded.  Trust me, you will use this “sketch” somewhere in your description of your setting.

What you read while you’re writing is really important. 

When writing, your reading list should be prescriptive to your goals. I’m such a fan of writer Philipp Meyer and recall him telling The New York Times, that he has an exhaustive reading list developed to address his current writing goals, saying that, as writers, “you have to treat your mind the way an athlete treats her body.”  Set writing goals for the book your working on and try to balance your reading list for craft elements you’re trying to work on to improve your craft. My next book features many late 1960s gothic romance features, so my reading list includes, the old Victoria Holt romance novels from that time period.  For A Witch in Time, I read Emile Zola’s L’Assommoir.  These books help get the language right.  Figure out what “style” you want your book to be and begin a reading regime to match.  This also extends to music of the time period and films (if they exist) of the time period.  “Trapeze” was very important to my research for The Ladies of the Secret Circus and films from the 1930s (William Powell and Carole Lombard in particular) were so helpful in “hearing” the language of the time for A Witch in Time.

You need a story that is timeless. 

This is probably the most important thing so I saved it for last. Yes, you’re writing an historical fiction novel, but you must throw all that out and flesh out a good story—a story of solid plot and character that transcends the historical timeline you are going to build around it.  Your characters have to feel “real” regardless of the time in which they live. Don’t have a full plot?  Think like a screenwriter and write down 8-10 key scenes you need in your book and let those “frame” the narrative so you don’t wander. 

At the end of the day, it’s the story that drives the book, not the history. 

Constance Sayers is the author of A Witch in Time. A finalist for Alternating Current‘s 2016 Luminaire Award for Best Prose, her short stories have appeared in Souvenir and Amazing Graces: Yet Another Collection of Fiction by Washington Area Women as well as The Sky is a Free Country. Her short fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

She received an MA in English from George Mason University. She lives outside of Washington D.C. Like her character in The Ladies of the Secret Circus, for many years, she was the host of a radio show from midnight to six.

The post Four Historical Fiction Writing Hacks appeared first on DIY MFA.

The Essentials

One of my early posts for DIY MFA discussed six key elements of historical fiction and how authors tune those elements in creating their stories. There are plenty of online resources that touch on the definition of the genre and its important elements (or “rules”).

Experts may differ on some of the details. For example, one generally accepted definition says that the events depicted must have occurred at least fifty years ago while another expert argues that the story must be set before 1950. Characters can be real or imagined or both. But everyone agrees that the setting, the characters, the events, and the culture must be period-appropriate for the era of the narrative. And the novelist must immediately transport the reader into that world of the past through strong world-building and appropriate dialogue.

The Adjacencies

So let’s take a look at some of the adjacent spaces and what makes them different.

Historical Fantasy

Historical Fantasy tends to follow many of the “rules” of pure historical fiction. But it veers away with the introduction of speculative elements. Dragons, wizards, immortals, magic swords, special powers. Elements that one might expect to encounter in a more traditional fantasy novel.

And, as always, there are some gray areas. Take the many novels and screenplays written about the Arthurian legends. I would postulate that something like The Mists of Avalon is historical fantasy whereas Jack Whyte’s Camulod Chronicles series is historical fiction, since all the characters, including Merlin, Nimuë, and Morgan la Fey, are flesh-and-blood beings, without any special powers, who might actually have lived in post-Roman Britain. What do you think?

Alternative History

Alternative history takes the notion of speculative elements in an entirely different direction. These stories have the same starting point as historical fiction and follow all the “rules.” But their premise is based on asking what if the events we know had unfolded in an entirely different way. What might have happened, for instance, if Wellington had lost at Waterloo? Or if Nicholas II had been more progressive and had not been distracted by his only son’s hemophilia? Or if Lincoln had not been assassinated, leaving a dyed-in-the-wool racist in charge of Reconstruction?

Historical Mystery

Historical mystery is an example of where genres truly intersect. The rules of both genres apply. The historical details must be well-crafted in order for the mystery to work. One excellent example is Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael Chronicles.

Historical Romance

Historical romance is really a sub-genre of Romance and is defined by the Romance Writers of America simply as a romance set prior to the 1950s. There are, of course, whole categories within the sub-genre based on the time period of the story. Since the romance is central, these novels may take somewhat more creative liberties in their portrayal of the historical setting.

What about other types of stories set in the past?

Many genres have stories that are set in what would be considered a “historical” period. A detective story set in the Great Depression. A thriller set against the backdrop of the 1960s space race. Mystery or suspense set in the Roaring Twenties. Women’s Fiction set in the mid-20th century.

In these cases, the historical setting is not the primary focus of the story. But it’s always a treat for me when the authors of such novels take pains to ensure historical accuracy (including avoiding anachronisms) and give their readers a real flavor of the time in which their story takes place.

The “passage of time” factor

What may have been a contemporary setting for Conan Doyle is, from the 21st-century reader’s perspective, a historical world. And perhaps there’s a lesson we can all take from that. Perhaps it’s a very useful exercise for historical writers – whether of pure historical fiction or one of the adjacencies – to observe how real those once-contemporary settings feel and to strive to achieve that same degree of realism in our own historical worlds.

Pamela Taylor’s inspiration for her first book turned out to be that final straw that pushed her to leave the corporate world behind for the world of words and imagination. Now an author and an editor, she loves helping others polish their stories almost as much as she enjoys writing her own. She’s a member of the DFW Writers Workshop and the Editorial Freelancers Association and is in her fourth year on the judges panel for the Ink & Insights Contest. You can learn more about her books at secondsonchronicles.com, and about her editing services at editing4you.com. 

The post When Is It Historical Fiction and When Is It Something Else? appeared first on DIY MFA.

Today I have the absolute pleasure of speaking with co-authors Anita Sarkeesian and Ebony Adams on the show!

Anita is an award-winning media critic and the creator and executive director of Feminist Frequency, an educational nonprofit that explores the representations of women in pop culture narratives. She is best known as the creator and host of the highly influential video series Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, and she dreams of owning a life-size replica of Buffy’s scythe.

Ebony Adams is an author, activist, and former college educator whose work foregrounds the lives and work of black women in the diaspora. She writes widely on film criticism, social justice, and pop culture, and lives with a steadily-increasing collection of Doctor Who memorabilia.

On top of all this these ladies are now co-authors of the YA nonfiction book History vs. Women: The Defiant Lives that They Don’t Want You to Know, which is a fascinating (and aesthetically beautiful) book highlighting the lives of women who made an impact on the world.

I couldn’t help but fall in love with this book! First off, with its gorgeous illustrations, my inner graphic design geek went off the charts. Then there is the subject matter, which is something I feel super-passionate about, and the fact that it’s YA makes this book even better. When we share the stories of strong, impactful women throughout history with the young women of today, we’re not just empowering the young generation. We’re empowering everybody to help make our culture and our society better.

So listen in as Anita, Ebony, and I chat about this truly awesome book, and the importance of challenging our own perspectives through what we read and what we write.

In this episode Anita, Ebony and I discuss:

• The research technique of “insistent archaeology”.
• How to translate scholarly texts into exciting stories.
• The dangers of passive reading.
• Advantages of the YA genre to get unknown stories out there.
• Why stories about women should be shared with young children of all genders.

Plus, both of these lovely ladies’ #1 tip for writers.

About Anita Sarkeesian

Anita Sarkeesian is an award-winning media critic and the creator and executive director of Feminist Frequency, an educational nonprofit that explores the representations of women in pop culture narratives. Best known as the creator and host of Feminist Frequency’s highly influential video series Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, Anita lectures at universities, conferences and game development studios around the world.

Anita dreams of owning a life-size replica of Buffy’s scythe, and she is the co-author along with Ebony Adams of History vs Women which is available now.

To connect with Anita check out her website at www.anitasarkeesian.com or hit her up on Twitter at @anitasarkeesian.

About Ebony Adams

Ebony Adams, Ph.D. is an author, activist, and former college educator whose work foregrounds the lives and work of black women in the diaspora. She lives in Los Angeles with a steadily-increasing collection of Doctor Who memorabilia.

She writes widely on film criticism, social justice, and pop culture, and along with Anita Sarkeesian is the co-author of History vs Women.

To connect with Ebony hit her up on Twitter at @ebonyaster.

To learn more about Anita and Ebony’s organization Feminist Frequency, head over to feministfrequency.com.

And don’t forget to check out Anita and Ebony, along with their co-host Carolyn Petit, on their podcast Feminist Frequency Radio.

History vs Women: The Defiant Lives that They Don’t Want You to Know

Rebels, rulers, scientists, artists, warriors and villains, women are, and have always been, all these things and more.

Looking through the ages and across the globe, Anita Sarkeesian, founder of Feminist Frequency, along with Ebony Adams, has a PhD in English, have reclaimed the stories of twenty-five remarkable women who dared to defy history and change the world around them. From Mongolian wrestlers to Chinese pirates, Native American ballerinas to Egyptian scientists, Japanese novelists to British Prime Ministers, History vs Women will reframe the history that you thought you knew.

Featuring beautiful full-color illustrations of each woman and a bold graphic design, this standout nonfiction title is the perfect read for teens (or adults!) who want the true stories of phenomenal women from around the world and insight into how their lives and accomplishments impacted both their societies and our own.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 242

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Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 242: Challenging the Status Quo — Interview with Anita Sarkeesian and Ebony Adams appeared first on DIY MFA.