A finely crafted work of historical fiction transports the reader to another time. It isn’t just the physical details of daily life and the world around the characters which elevates the work from just being set in the past to practically being in the past. Those are definitely crucial. Dialogue is one of those secret ingredients that needs just the right touch. Not enough authenticity and the work feels too modern and general; too much, and most readers find it a hard slog to follow. Nancy Blanton is a historical fiction author who has just the right touch for crafting…
Tag: history
Giving voice to women of the past
A recent interview by Dame Hilary Mantel, of Wolf Hall fame, has generated a number of discussions in the historical fiction community on how women have been portrayed in the past. Dame Mantel went on to say women writers who write about women in the past “can’t resist retrospectively empowering them.” The discussion got me thinking about Æthelflæd, daughter of King Albert of Wessex, who led an army of Mercians into Wales. I first learned about Æthelflæd by reading the novel To Be a Queen, written by Annie Whitehead. I loved her portrayal of Æthelflæd and found her to possess…
What will we leave behind for historians?
A couple of Monday’s ago, a post caught my attention on Twitter’s #MondayBlogs. The author, Samantha Tonge, found a bag of old love letters and spent an afternoon re-reading them and reconnecting with the emotions written on the pages. She wondered about today’s generation, reliant on their texts and email, which will never have the experience of re-reading old letters. Looking at my generation, we’re probably the last of the letter writers, and I’m shocked when I contemplate this. My sons’ generation have never known the anticipation of checking the mailbox for a reply to a personal correspondence, the anticipation made sweeter…
History is storytelling
After a recent blog post, the Loyal Comptons, a fellow writer, Dale Long, mentioned that he used to find high school history boring, but now he’s rediscovering how interesting it truly is. He chalked it up to the boring nature of Canadian history. His comments got me thinking. I admit, Canadian history doesn’t speak to me like English history, even though I fiercely love my country. We’ve had 400 fledgling years to their few thousand or so. And lets face it, Canadians are not known as peace-keepers for nothing. But it goes deeper than that. Andrew Stanton said during his…