1469, England: For almost ten years, attractive and charismatic Edward IV has ruled with the Earl of Warwick’s support, but now rebellion threatens England’s fragile peace. With the Midlands in uproar, King Edward wants peace in the shires and the last thing he needs is potential trouble in the form of an unwed heiress.
At the outset of a new year with all its sparkling possibilities, like Janus, I’m looking forward to the past. It is a universal truth that history plays a part in all our lives. However we view it, we are the result of the past. Whether it is our intention or not, whatever we do today, will affect someone tomorrow. Interconnectivity is unavoidable. It is a sobering thought.
I sometimes think I must be barking mad to write historical novels. Why put myself through such an arduous process of research that requires levels of fact-checking usually expected of a doctorate? Or spend countless days, months, years composing works of fiction? I know because it has taken me over a decade to write Wheel of Fortune - the first book in my medieval The Tarnished Crown series.
Truth is that I love the whole process. History has been an abiding passion for as long as I can recall. Combining a vivid imagination with historical research to write the sort of books I like to read was a no-brainer when I began my first novel in 2009.
Tales of the unexpected
Research holds the key to unlocking a whole world of possibilities. There are so many rabbit holes begging to be investigated, although a quick nip down one might end up taking many hours of precious writing time. Yet you never can tell what nugget of information might be unearthed which could change an interesting storyline into a fascinating one, or suggest a new one altogether.
I always harvest far more information than ever makes it onto the page. I then have to winnow it to leave just enough. Resisting the temptation to stuff the text can be tough, but getting it right is part and parcel of the balancing act authors have to adhere to if they are ever to get their story told. Too much information weighs the story down - clods of detail sticking to the shoes of the reader wading through facts. Too little, and there’s not enough to earth the narrative in reality, and risks the reader floating off to get another cup of tea rather than turn the next page of your book.
Weaving
If I look back, I realise that I’ve been researching this series since I first encountered the Wars of the Roses as a child. I was totally captivated by the people populating the pages of the books I read. It was they that made history come alive for me, their stories full of tragedy, hope, loyalty and treachery. From the yeoman to the king, each had a part to play - a tapestry of myriad lives that together made up the history we believe we know today. But do we?
All the research in the world can only reveal a fragment of what there is to know, and what we know of history is filtered through a lens coloured by our own experiences, as much as those of the people recording it. Skewed as it is and full of gaps, it’s my job to render a mass of information into something understandable and to make the people of the past relatable to the readers of today.
It’s webs of connectivity that I find fascinating, something that I come back to time and again in my novels. Each life is a story worthy of the tale. No one person stands apart from another and it’s the relationships that developed for myriad reasons that are the result of, and can be the catalyst for, change.
Change
It’s inevitable. Whether driven by forces beyond our control or as a result of it, we are both perpetrators and victims of change. It’s there in the big events we’ve all heard of - battles, disease, the death of kings - and in the developing relationships of characters.
It is such moments that are most often recorded in primary sources - a birth, coronation, a contract - shifts in what went before that were, quite literally, noteworthy. We see it in buildings that have evolved over time and in the towns they occupy - rings of development from the ancient core out towards the modern suburbs, or following the lines of roads like legs of a spider.
Keeping it real
I have an abhorrence of distorting what we do know, and I won’t change the date of a battle or abuse a historical figure’s reputation to suit my story. But facts and truth are dangerous bedfellows to be used and viewed with caution. The two are not the same.
That being said, I believe that historical novelists have a duty of care to ensure that the past is represented as accurately as possible to readers who might rely on it as truth. Thus are little lies turned into accepted facts that distort history. We all know, for example, that the primary use of spices in the Middle Ages was to disguise less-than-fresh meat, wasn’t it. Was it? Don’t get me started.
It isn’t just a question of knowing who did what, where, and when. There are many instances when it simply isn’t possible to pin down that sort of detail, especially when so much was left unrecorded or has been lost. Whether fictional or historical, my characters won’t make it onto the page without the background research to render them viable, to make them real.
To do this I must give them a stage upon which they can act out their story. So, in addition to raiding archives and reading texts, I tread the soil our ancestors walked and eat the fare that graced their tables. I embed myself in their world as best I can the better to understand their experience of it.
One way or another, all fiction is true and all truth, fiction.
C. F. Dunn
# # #
About the Author
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for commenting