by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell
One of the challenges of writing contemporary thrillers is that technology and forensics are always changing. Something you write about this year can be dated the next. I remember a thriller that came out some years ago, from a big name, utilizing the amazing technology of a cell phone that could take pictures!
How quaint. That book now reads like one of those 1940s movies where reporters rush to pay phones to get a scoop to the office.
With historical fiction, though, that’s not an issue. Everything is fixed. You can take your time with the research because you don’t have to beat the clock.
Which is why I enjoyed writing about a young female lawyer in old Los Angeles. Six books in the Kit Shannon series, originally for the leading publisher of Christian historical fiction, Bethany House.
When that series was almost done, Carol Johnson, who was in charge of fiction at Bethany House, asked me if I’d consider writing a long, historical stand-alone for them. I was up for it, for I had long wanted to try writing one of those John Jakes-type historical novels. I also wanted to cover an era I felt was under-represented, World War I and the early 1920s in Hollywood.
Which is how Glimpses of Paradise was born.
The novel follows the fortunes of two high school kids from Nebraska. Doyle Lawrence is the scion of one of town’s wealthiest families. Zee Miller is a preacher’s kid from the poorer section. But she has a spirit and zest for living that draws Doyle to her, much to the consternation of his father.
From there the narrative tracks Doyle to the battlefields of World War I, and Zee to the glitter factory of Hollywood. And a stunning series of events that brings these two together again, both with innocence lost.
Glimpses of Paradise is the longest novel I’ve ever written, at 130,000 words. I absolutely lost myself in the research. Countless hours spent at L.A.’s central library, delving into first-hand accounts of World War I (a section of the book I’m particularly proud of, since my great uncle, a Marine, was killed at Belleau Wood in 1918) and soaking myself in the newspapers of the time. I have three big binders full of my research notes, copies of newspaper stories, maps, photos. (If you want to know what corned beef cost in 1921, I’m your man.)
The result was a novel that was a finalist for the Christy Award in Historical Fiction, and one of my personal favorites. There’s even a cameo appearance by Kit Shannon, still practicing law in Los Angeles. You can pick it up from these retailers:
If you would like a PRINT copy, I have a limited number of the original Bethany House edition. If you’d like one for $10 (free shipping in the U.S.), send an email to compendiumpress [at] yahoo [dot] com and we’ll tell you what to do.
So (doffing my cap to our resident historical fiction maven, Clare Langley-Hawthorne), I offer these three observations about writing historical fiction:
- It’s still about characters
The fundamentals of storytelling don’t change just because you write about a certain place and time. You still need to bond reader with characters, and put those characters into a life-altering struggle that requires strength of will to overcome.
- Make the setting itself a character
Don’t just render a historical setting accurately. Use that setting and the particulars of the time as a source of challenge and conflict for the characters. In Glimpses, for example, I try to capture what it was like for people struggling in the post-war depression in a city known for its glamour. I put the characters in challenging places to live, and in diners where they try to score some cheap food, etc.
- Weave research in seamlessly
Historical fiction writers love research. You can get lost in it. Every new discovery suggests a myriad of plot points. The great task is deciding what to leave out. And then taking what’s left and weaving it into the narrative so it doesn’t stick out like a neon sign announcing what a great researcher you are. The trick here is to start with a scene that has a clear POV character with a clear objective. Then brainstorm obstacles and helps to the character from the store of historical details. Use them in the conflict, don’t just list them for the reader.
Anything you historical fiction writers would like to add?
And if you’re a reader, what’s your take on historical fiction? There is always an ebb and flow in the market for historicals, but I contend that a well-written historical novel will always find readers to please.
Good points to remember. Here’s another: Make sure the vocabulary, language phrases, and idioms were in use during that period, in that geographical region.
I agree with you, Truant, but often I read or hear (in a movie or TV series) words that are out of place. Idioms that never would have been used. Drives me nuts, but unless it’s glaring I guess most readers don’t care. Still, the desire to be accurate haunts me!
What WAS the price of corned beef in 1921?
Great blog, as usual. Ken Follett is my favorite historical writer. His Night Over Water is one of my favorites, with Pillars of the Earth ranking as probably my all time favorite book. He puts you in the era, in the location, and you get lost in it, worrying about his fabulous characters.
I downloaded Glimpses yesterday, and finished the first chapter. I can’t wait to get back into it today.
Thanks for giving Glimpses a read, Dave.
Just so you know, a pound of corned beef would set you back 18¢ in 1921 Los Angeles.
And yes, Follett is amazing. A master of weaving the story and historical details together.
Great post~ especially the second point (and I wrestle with the third to no end).
And very timely, too, as, in going through my late dad’s office, we found two historical WIP’s~ one being boxes and boxes of historical research on late 18th and early 19th century northwest Florida, native American s, and pirates.
The second is just an outline treatment of the life of an aviator beginning in the early barnstorming days after WWI running to the modern jet age (Pop was a flier from the 50’s on~ the only thing – other than published- that he wanted to be).
Both of these speak to me, and I’m sorting through the pile of the former and making a research list for the latter ~ I think I know how Michael Shaara’s son Jeff must’ve felt picking where his dad left off with _The Killer Angels_.
Thanks for letting me blather here~ y’all (bloggers and comment postero), provide great insight and direction here on TKZ, and in your respective books and other blogs~
g
G, we encourage blather on TKZ! And what a treasure trove of research you have. I love that kind of stuff. My grandmother kept a scrapbook during World War II because her son, my dad, was in the South Pacific. There’s nothing quite like seeing the actual newsprint. It’s priceless.
Thanks for an interesting post, Jim. I look forward to reading Glimpses of Paradise. I just emailed Compendium Press and hope to buy a hard copy.
I’ve enjoyed historical research in northern Ohio, tracking down four generations of my ancestors.
By the way, I’m currently reading 27 FICTION WRITING BLUNDERS. Great book!
I’m the Bell family archivist, and have three boxes of old photos and documents and letters.I guess it just hits some people to be that person. I’m fascinated with the past. I’m the one who always watched the time travel movies. The Time Machine, of course, but also The Three Stooges Meet Hercules!
Thanks, as always, for your support, Steve.
A great post, as always. I’m trying to be careful with my time-travel WIP. There seems to be a great lack of common experience when my 21st century travelers try to communicate with the locals in the midwest of 1838. Thanks for these insights.
I like that scenario, Lance. Good luck.
You can get lost in getting the language right, and while, as you say, most readers probably won’t notice that your character said okay in 1750 but the word actually wasn’t used until the 1830s, but a few will, and to them the story will be ruined. Similarly, there’s a very popular series of mysteries set during World War II that I had to stop reading after the second one, because the anachronisms and just plain stupid errors made me question everything about the story. If she didn’t know that “In the Mood” was by Glenn Miller, not Duke Ellington, and hadn’t bothered to look it up, how could I trust anything she wrote? She did do her research – after the second book (the last I read) I knew more about Windsor Castle and the village of Windsor than any sane man would want to know. But I also knew the author didn’t know beans about WWII combat aircraft or submarines, both of which were much more germane to the story. Great characters need to be set in a believable world.
Yes, if you don’t ground the story, it isn’t believable and constant errors is a distraction from the story.
Yeah, those pop culture mistakes really irk me too, John.
Can’t wait to read glimpses. I love books that are set in historical periods I don’t know much about.
Yes on all these points. Yes, to the yes power. Especially on it still being about the characters and that research is strong spic to be used sparingly. It’s all about getting the tang of authenticity. The minute details of daily life weren’t any more interesting in 1915 as they are in 2015, but need to be sprinkled in to ground the scene. As one of my fav blogging agents said –I don’t know if that’s how they actually talked, but you need to convince me that they did.
When I was running the little newspaper, every month I published a chapter of an ongoing historical romance set in another under-served era, the Bleeding Kansas years of the Civil War. Strip off the bits about massacres, Bushwhackers, Jayhawkers, Quantrill, the Underground Railroad, and use of table covers and pie safes, the story boils down to Romeo and Juliet. She’s from Kansas, he’s from Missouri and they’ve run off. When their two parents (both widowed because no divorce,) put their political differences aside to chase the kids across war-torn Kansas, racing Quantrill to Lawrence, sparks fly. In other words, a love story is still a love story.
Oh, but get the dates right or the letters will fly.
I had to close down the paper, but am finishing it as a short work, about 25K.
Congrats on Glimpses of Paradise! Terri
Thanks, Terri. I had a 1903 phone detail in one of my Kit Shannon books that got me a letter from the curator at a telephone museum! A very small detail no one would notice, except that guy. So when the books came out again I was able to make it right.
Congratulations on “Glimpses of Paradise.” As a reader, my pet peeve is woman who have impossibly modern ideas or go into places where women were not permitted at the time without using some sort of subterfuge. I remember my grandfather telling me he heard Scott Joplin play in St. Louis saloons when he was a young man at the turn of the last century, and thought he was “a pretty good piano player.” Grandma never heard him because no “lady” could go into a bar, especially not one with a black piano player.
Great point, Elaine. And knowing those smaller details lets the narrative feel much more authentic.
By far my preferred genre to read is historical fiction. Unfortunately I rarely read historical fiction because no one seems to be able to publish historical fiction that isn’t mostly just another romance in another time. ARGH!!!!!
Not being able to find good historical fiction is what drove me to the thriller market–because that’s where I can go to read big story, action; and romance in a small box where it belongs.
However the Kit Shannon series IS a historical series that I did read and enjoy.
I have a string of historical novels in various stages of completion and getting trapped in the research is my biggest problem (and joy). I could research forever, but, as I can attest, it doesn’t get the books done. Writing historical not only requires a balance not only of using the research naturally in the book, but also having confidence in your work. For myself, I find myself much more anxious about getting historical details right than I do about writing a contemporary and goofing some fact there. I guess because the historicals mean so much more to me.
I don’t remember hearing about Glimpses of Paradise when it first came out so I’m looking forward to giving it a try.
Well here’s some good news for you, BK. Glimpses does not follow usual romance tropes. Hope you enjoy it!
Okay, okay…you got me.
Even though your book opens dialogue, I bought it anyway. :))
Seriously, I went and read the Amazon sample and I really liked the way you pull me immediately into the two characters. And I am a sucker with good family historical sagas, so I loaded it onto my Kindle for my long vacation in September. Nice cover, by the way…who’s the vamp?
As for John Jakes…I loved his Kent Family Chronicles! I think they partly inspired me to want to write about the dynamics of families. It’s a theme that runs in my thrillers but I got my start in publishing way back in the early 80s writing long family historical sagas. I have a soft spot in my heart for Belle Epoque France, so I wrote one book that wandered from 1890s Manhattan to Paris and back, ending up at the end of WWII. (I’m tired just thinking about it now). But I also love San Francisco and wrote a 160K-word saga that started at the great earthquake and ended up in the late 60s. It was soooo much fun to write! Last year, I repackaged it, trimmed 50K words and reissued it on Kindle. Its ranking is currently hovering around 1 million but I don’t care. I still like that old book. If anyone is interested….
http://www.amazon.com/Adams-Daughter-Kristy-Daniels-ebook/dp/B00CR3DXPW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1437927204&sr=1-1&keywords=adam%27s+daughter&pebp=1437927201320&perid=1X4X2WGZE2F6FBP1XT18
I wish I had the energy to write another historical!
I
LOL, Kris. Thanks for reading past the first line of dialogue!
I really admired what John Jakes did and read the paperbacks back in the day. A year ago I found a pristine set of the hardbacks going for ten bucks, and now they’re on my shelf.
Just picked up Adam’s Daughter…
I hope you won’t mind a bit of feedback on packaging, but as a historical reader who struggles with how to resolve the issue of helping historical writers with the right books find me, I’m throwing in my 2 cents.
When I clicked on your Amazon link for this title and saw the thumbnail, absolutely nothing about it jumped out at me as being historical, therefore, if I was just surfing Amazon rather than already aware of the nature of the book from this post, I’d pass it and keep going. I’m probably in the minority on how I view things, but I figure every bit of feedback helps.
Thanks for the feedback, BK, and I hope you won’t mind that I disagree. I love this cover. I was looking for something that said 1920s, glamour, and a representation of my lead character. It’s actually somewhat based on the cover for the old print version, which I also loved.
But we don’t always have to agree on TKZ!
Sorry-I thought I was replying under PJ’s post. My fault for not being more specific that I was referring to Adam’s Daughter.
BK,
Thanks for the feedback. I don’t disagree with you about the image. But geez, you should see the one the first publisher stuck on it. I think when I was repackaging it, I was going for the female readership, and the book does have a heavy romance slant.
My bad, BK. I didn’t look carefully enough!
Hi Jim,
You know how much I love a good historical. Love the cover! It’s better than the one on the original book put out by Bethany House. Even though this tid bit is true of any novel I think sometimes authors don’t take full advantage of utilizing the sense of smell and how quickly it can suck you in to a specific time or place.
For instance, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” You all know where that came from, right?
And even though I’ve never been to New Orleans or anywhere near Louisiana, I found this book, Jitterbug Perfume, when writing a blog post, that transported me there with this paragraph. I’ve never read the book but wow does he use smell to convey many things.
“Louisiana in September was like an obscene phone call from nature. The air–moist, sultry, secretive, and far from fresh–felt as if it were being exhaled into one’s face. Sometimes it even sounded like heavy breathing. Honeysuckle, swamp flowers, magnolia, and the mystery smell of the river scented the atmosphere, amplifying the intrusion of organic sleaze. It was aphrodisiac and repressive, soft and violent at the same time. In New Orleans, in the French Quarter, miles from the barking lungs of alligators, the air maintained this quality of breath, although here it acquired a tinge of metallic halitosis, due to fumes expelled by tourist buses, trucks delivering Dixie beer, and, on Decatur Street, a mass-transit motor coach named Desire.”
― Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume
When I go back and edit my own novels I always try to punch up the sense of smell I might have missed the first time around. I’m not hearing much about historicals selling well these days but they are my favorites when it comes to fiction.
I love it that you found Tom Robbins, Jillian. He’s wild. And his use of words stretches the imagination. I read him just to increase my language possibilities.
First of all, I loved Glimpses in Paradise. I had a hard time pitching my own 1920’s stories in the CBA, being told that it just wasn’t a “Christian” enough time period. Silly.
As a writer of historicals, I try to keep two things in mind: I want to create characters who could exist in any era, but a story that is tied to the time.
Hi, Allison. That was short sighted of the publisher. The 1920s were roaring for sure, but it was also a time when people like R. A. Torrey were still preaching that “old time religion.” Not to mention Billy Sunday…and on the wilder side, Sister Aimee. There has always been a robust religious side to L.A., from eastern mysticism to Scientology, with Catholics, Protestants, Pentecostals, and Evangelicals always in the mix.
I’ve enjoyed the Edward Rutherford historical novels about Sarum (Salisbury) and London. They’re real doorstoppers – as in, thick enough to hold the door open – but are fun to read as you see the fortunes of different generations of the same family over thousands of years. http://www.edwardrutherfurd.com/sarum
Thanks for the tip, Gareth.
I agree, historical fiction writers love research and can get lost in it. I have to forcibly pull myself out of it most of the time and get back to writing! Great post, James. Thanks.
I love historical fiction. Ken Follett and Bernard Cornwell being my favourites. I shall have to check out Glimpses, as it seems very interesting indeed. Hrmm….no audiobook though….hrmmmm….
I have a major historical fiction project in my plans for the future (synoptisized and partially outlined even) but am not yet willing to dig too far in it as I want to ensure my writing style and maturity are at the top of game. This project will be my life’s work and must cook long and deep in the bowels of my soul before spewing forth fully formed on this earth. (wow…can’t decide if that image is truly poetic or truly disgusting.)
In the meantime, having recently listened to the original Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, I have a niggling thing in my brain. As far as I can tell, no one has ever rewritten Ivanhoe as a modern Historical Thriller, clones of the ‘story type’ yes, but actually retelling the story in 21st century Thriller language no.
…must focus on current WIP….must not deviate from set course…
…must stay on…..
….Gaaa! Rebecca of York, get out of my mind!