AMERICAN HISTORICAL NOVELS discussion

LOTS of GIVEAWAYS COMING this week, so stay tuned, Reader Friends! Meanwhile, here's a place to ask whatever questions you might have for authors of historical fiction. Thelma Adams and Jodi Daynard, Author are two fabulous writer pals who've offered to get us rolling with some insights on their books and writing life. Jodi has a stepdaughter getting married THIS WEEKEND and she's been quite involved, so you KNOW she loves this writing life if she's willing to enter a discussion this very week.
Anybody wondering what the hardest part of writing an historical novel would be--or the most fun part you'd never suspect? Ask anything you'd like--or if you're an author, jump in and offer your insights (and tell us about your books along the way!)

The Last Woman Standing

Jodi Daynard
The Midwife's Revolt

The Island of Sweet Pies and Soldiers by Sarah Ackerman is wonderful! And she’s writing another historical fiction novel coming out in 2019!

Ah, what a great title! Reminds me of the The Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. What's the setting?

Hawaii in 1944 is the setting. The author’s descriptions are so beautiful you will want to be there (I first read it in a cold February!)

My absolute favorite thing about writing historical novels is how, completely apart from my conscious control, my characters respond to stimulation from the "real life" facts I uncover. They are so responsive, it's like they're alive! My new novel (out in 2019) is about two young women riding the first transcontinental railroad from Boston to San Francisco, in 1870. While doing research, when I read about a boy selling prairie dogs at a railroad station, Louisa instantly wants to buy them. Or when I read about some passenger trying to carve a steak from an ox that got run over by their train, my horrible Mr. Crockett thought that was a brilliant idea! It's incredibly fun to see how my characters develop based not only the natures I create but the nurturing my research provides them.

I love this perspective, Jodi. And you are so right. I always know my characters haven't developed enough when I'm making them do what I want them to do without any sort of sharp turns or serendipitous discoveries--because that means I'm just manipulating puppets instead of creating characters

Going off the subjects - just thought about it - why do I not see more male authors?

Hi Dyana, do you mean on this discussion thread or in general? Guessing you mean in general. Last I read, 80% of fiction readers are women, so that would suggest that women tend to be drawn to write what they enjoy reading. I often think of Nathaniel Hawthorne's complaining about "those damn scribbling women"--he was irked that a number of women, writing novels he deemed inferior to his (and some of them, admittedly, were--but not all) had managed to sell more copies than he had.

Yes in general. I don’t like Mr. Hawthorne’s comment!

Dyana wrote: "Going off the subjects - just thought about it - why do I not see more male authors?" Good question. I seem to be the only male in this group. In writing about the Oregon Trail, I immersed myself in the diaries of women, because it seemed like all the men wrote about was water, grass and fuel. The women were more inclined to write about their feelings and to give account of things like graves that they passed. I also wanted to shift the viewpoint around in my novel to different genders and ages in the family.

It is a good question. Terry suggests some of the possible reasons but I am uncertain that is the full answer. Are men less interested in Historical Fiction???

The other thing I wonder about is whether women are more interested in reading the writings of women. That might explain why "those damn scribbling women" were able to sell more books than Hawthorn.

Not necessarily. Since I got back into reading more since retiring, I realized that I have not had interaction from male Authors on the book club sites that I have been on.

Interesting perspective, Terry. Sounds like your own writing is and will be the more deep and well rounded for your broader perspective that includes feelings and emotional reactions to the settings and events

I definitely felt that I got a lot out of reading women's dairies on the Oregon Trail. Years ago, I used to read a lot of novels, and I've gotten back into it more in the last few years. But looking back at some of my favorite authors (Irwin Shaw, M. M. Kaye, John Steinbeck, Colleen McKollaugh), they've been pretty balanced between men and women.

By the way, there's a test that you can take that some of you might be familiar with (can't remember the name of it) where you submit a couple of pages of narrative and it gives a percentage probability as to whether you are male or female based on the words that you use. They continue to refine it and I don't think it is all that reliable at this point. But they say that there is a greater difference between men and women in America than in Europe, in how they write. I thought that was interesting. I tried it out with some of the chapters that I wrote from a woman's viewpoint (using words like "lovely" or "darling", which you don't often hear men use) to see if I had succeeded in sounding like a woman. I was somewhat disappointed that the chapters that I wrote from a woman's viewpoint were not rated as being that much more feminine than the ones that I wrote from a man's viewpoint, even though they sounded more feminine to me when I read them over. Anyway, it's kind of a fun test to take.

Interesting on that test, Terry. I've not heard of it 'til now. Intriguing. I have typically tried to be pretty intentional to read as many male authors as female, but lately have needed/ wanted to read a number of female author friends' book to review, so it's thrown off my balance. I do find it helpful, though, to intentionally read male authors since I like having a readership that includes both men and women, so I'd like to be sure I'm writing in a way that doesn't automatically exclude anyone, and that includes elements that might appeal more to men in certain areas and more to women in others. It pushes me, though, in a healthy way to move things along toward action when I might otherwise spend too long on how a character felt. A balance, right?

I think it's good for your writing skill to read things from different perspectives. Being a man, I might be expected to be more turned on by action, but actually, I tend to like to read things with good character development and lots of good dialogue. I also like the deep psychology that you get with some of the Russian novelists. I think I'm actually better at writing descriptions than dialogue, but I definitely like reading good dialogue.

Good for you, Terry