Writing Ideas - Writing Historical Fiction, part 11 more Examples

29 July 2013, Writing Ideas - Writing Historical Fiction, part 11 more Examples

Announcement: My novels Sister of Light and Sister of Darkness are about to be published. I write this blog about 2 months prior to its publication. I just heard that the proofs will be here soon--likely before the end of the week. My publisher also wants to put the entire set of novels based on Aegypt on contract--that's 5 more novels for 8 total. They also want to put my other novels on contract. The release schedule should be one novel every 2 months. I'll keep you updated.

Introduction: I wrote the novel Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon. This was my 21st novel and through this blog, I gave you the entire novel in installments that included commentary on the writing. In the commentary, in addition to other general information on writing, I explained, how the novel was constructed, the metaphors and symbols in it, the writing techniques and tricks I used, and the way I built the scenes. You can look back through this blog and read the entire novel beginning with http://www.pilotlion.blogspot.com/2010/10/new-novel-part-3-girl-and-demon.html.

I'm using this novel as an example of how I produce, market, and eventually (we hope) get a novel published. I'll keep you informed along the way.

Today's Blog: To see the steps in the publication process, visit my writing website http://www.ldalford.com/ and select "production schedule," you will be sent to http://www.sisteroflight.com/.

The four basic rules I employ when writing:

1. Don't confuse your readers.
2. Entertain your readers.
3. Ground your readers in the writing.
4. Don't show (or tell) everything.
5. Immerse yourself in the world of your writing.

Applicable to all writing, I offer my five basic rules again, and I will show you some examples of how to immerse your readers in your writing.

5. Immerse yourself in the world of your writing - colliery: immerse your readers in the world of your writing.
If you noticed, I added a colliery. The point here and the point of the question I answered yesterday was: how do you immerse your readers in a completely different world than their own?  I have a foot up because one of my day jobs is to teach people, and in those classes, I try to get them to experience the cultures we are talking about. Writing however is very different than technical writing or teaching. You can't immerse your readers by suddenly giving them a treatise on a culture or history. So I'll provide some examples from my writing.

The first example is description from the novel Aegypt, http://www.aegyptnovel.com/:
"Paul signaled his men to remount. His horse, l’Orage, was skittish and danced back a step as Paul hauled his aching frame into the saddle. Her muscles rippled like silk under her black coat, and Paul touched her gently to soothe her. l’Orage had been his steed for nearly three years, almost half the time he had been in Tunisia.

He had bought her from a Berber’s market on the coast. She was the most beautiful horse he had ever seen. Feral and full of fire, she was uncontrollable in the hands of her merchant owners and stood blindfolded and hobbled in the market horse pen. A demon in the guise of a horse, she was black as charcoal without a trace of lighter markings. Paul knew she was stolen the minute his eyes lit upon her.

He paid in cash—francs, and few of those, because of her temperament. When he entered the pen to claim her, Berbers, Arabs, and Tunisians lined the enclosure to watch the black fiend trample the foolish Lieutenant. Paul walked quietly up to her, and when the laughing merchant stripped off the blindfold and hobbles, Paul spoke a single word. l’Orage calmed immediately and let him stroke her face.

Contemptuously, he led her on a light field-lead out of the marketsquare. The marketplace had turned into a frenzy of babbling men, women, and children. The native peoples sidled out of Paul’s way as if he were himself a demon from the pit. At the edge of the market, to the amazement of the spectators, Paul leapt upon l’Orage bareback and rode off at a gallop. He laughed all the way back to the garrison.

l’Orage was a horse trained for war. She was an Arabian, bred and drilled to the battlefield. She was trained to kill and to the tactics of combat. She was a European’s horse. Paul could tell by her carriage and by the saddle scars on her flanks. Only one type of European warrior had found his way into the wilds of Tunisia: l’Orage had to be a Frenchman’s horse. Paul guessed that, but his confirmation came when he first stood before her, wondering himself if she would strike him before he could speak. His single word was French, and with that single word, he knew she answered to only one tongue—French. Not to the Tunisian or Berber or Arabic her previous masters unsuccessfully tried, only to French. In combat after combat, she proved herself to be, by far, one of the finest horses in the Legion stables."

Right from the beginning of the novel, you have a very short description of how Lt. Bolang bought his horse l'Orage. The description itself tells you a lot about the times, place, and people. It gives you a small window into the character of Lt. Bolang and tells you about the languages and the problem of language in Tunisia. It lets you know the feeling of the people for the Foreign Legion and the fact that horses are still used in warfare at this time and in this place. This is a method of using description to immerse the reader into the times and place and to let them taste the culture and society. By the way, l'Orage means tempest or thunderstorm in French and the description takes place right after a thunderstorm in the desert and a tempest-like attack on Tunisian bandits.

Now an example of using conversation to immerse your reader in the times and place. This is from Centurion, http://www.centurionnovel.com/.

“Where are you from, youngster?” Portius asked Abenadar.
“I came from Natzeret in the Galil.”
“From Natzeret?” said Euodus. “Is the Primus now accepting trash from the provinces?” Euodus was as fancy a man as Abenadar had ever seen. His short hair was carefully shaped to form oiled ringlets in the style of a Persian warrior. His face was angular but well made. He wore a colorful tunic with pins and decorations all over it.
“No, I’m a Roman citizen,” answered Abenadar.
Euodus smiled. “Another bastard child of Rome. You are well placed in this century. We are all bastards of one type or another.”
Portius laughed out loud, but Lupus protested, “I, for one, have a family in Italia.”
“Yes, but does your family claim you?” riposted Euodus.
“They will welcome me back when I am released from service.”
“If your throat is not cut first by these rebels, you may see Italia again.”
Lupus rubbed his throat and made a face. “I wish you wouldn’t put it like that, Euobus.”
“Don’t get carried away, Lupus,” said Portius. “The people fear us.”
“Yes, they fear our blood will splatter their clothing when they slit our throats.”
“Shut up, Euobus,” said Portius. “Come, Abenadar. Don’t listen to his rambling. It is meaningless. As long as we stay together, we are in little danger, and we’re always safe while in camp.”
Without waiting for Abenadar, Portius walked out the door. Abenadar quickly followed behind him. As Portius exited the barracks, Abenadar hurried to catch up. “The camp is huge. How many legions does it hold?”
Portius chuckled. “It doesn’t hold even one.”
Abenadar was shocked.
Portius noted Abenadar’s look and laughed again. “That’s right. This camp holds only two cohorts: the I Cohort, Primus and the X Cohort, Decimus—the first and the last in the III Gallica. Admittedly, the Primus Cohort is the largest and best, but the Decimus isn’t a training cohort. It isn’t made up of inexperienced recruits.” Portius glanced at Abenadar. “You excepted. You will get along well if you can translate in the marketplace, especially if you can speak with the barmaids and whores. I predict you will be a very popular man in the Decimus Cohort.”
“How many men are in our cohort?” asked Abenadar.
“During your training, you will learn how the legion is organized, but I guess I can start your education early. The Decimus Cohort is formed of six centuries. They are called the Pilus Prior, the Pilus Posterior, the Princeps Prior, the Princeps Posterior, the Hastatus Prior, and the Hastatus Posterior. We are part of the Hastatus Posterior, the Lion Century. Each century contains about 80 men. The men are organized into 10 columns of eight each. All the other cohorts from the second to the tenth are put together the same way, but the Primus Cohort is different.”

Here you can see in conversation, I give you many details about the place, times, people, and the Roman Legion. In conversation, Portius goes on to give Abenadar a host of information about the Legions that the reader likely doesn't know and that Abenadar doesn't know. The character and the reader both learn from the experience and the tones and conversation tells you a lot about the fears of the Roman soldiers and their concerns.

Tomorrow, I'll conclude this series on writing Historical Fiction and move to science fiction.

For more information, you can visit my author site www.ldalford.com/, and my individual novel websites: http://www.aegyptnovel.com/, http://www.centurionnovel.com, www.thesecondmission.com/, http://www.theendofhonor.com/, thefoxshonor, aseasonofhonor.

Writing Ideas - Writing Historical Fiction, part 9 Into the Future

27 July 2013, Writing Ideas - Writing Historical Fiction, part 9 Into the Future

Announcement: My novels Sister of Light and Sister of Darkness are about to be published. I write this blog about 2 months prior to its publication. I just heard that the proofs will be here soon--likely before the end of the week. My publisher also wants to put the entire set of novels based on Aegypt on contract--that's 5 more novels for 8 total. They also want to put my other novels on contract. The release schedule should be one novel every 2 months. I'll keep you updated.

Introduction: I wrote the novel Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon. This was my 21st novel and through this blog, I gave you the entire novel in installments that included commentary on the writing. In the commentary, in addition to other general information on writing, I explained, how the novel was constructed, the metaphors and symbols in it, the writing techniques and tricks I used, and the way I built the scenes. You can look back through this blog and read the entire novel beginning with http://www.pilotlion.blogspot.com/2010/10/new-novel-part-3-girl-and-demon.html.

I'm using this novel as an example of how I produce, market, and eventually (we hope) get a novel published. I'll keep you informed along the way.

Today's Blog: To see the steps in the publication process, visit my writing website http://www.ldalford.com/ and select "production schedule," you will be sent to http://www.sisteroflight.com/.

The four basic rules I employ when writing:

1. Don't confuse your readers.
2. Entertain your readers.
3. Ground your readers in the writing.
4. Don't show (or tell) everything.

I just came home from my new work--it's a lot of work. Mostly all the brain kind and writing. Right now, the thunderclouds outside are delivering rain and hail in equal measure against my basement window. I'd like a drink. I need some wine, but the future beacons. It brays out its clarion call from a different direction--so why is the future a topic in writing historical fiction? Because all writing whether it is historical fiction, science fiction, or modern fiction requires the same approach. I didn't trick you, I showed you what it takes to write historical fiction. I hope those who might take a slipshod approach to writing historical fiction might be reformed, but more than that, I hope all authors would at least think about the concept of immersion when they write. Perhaps this is normal for most authors--I've never met an author who was normal, so I don't know. I just know that a lot of historical fiction is crippled because the author never grasped the voice of the times. Equally, a lot of fiction is crippled because the author never grasped the voice of the story. You might ask, how could that happen? It happens because the writer was not immersed in the background of the writing and never fully understood his storyline, plot, or theme. How can you write a historical fiction novel? You must be immersed in the times. How can you write a modern novel? You must be immersed in the times. How can you write a science fiction novel? You must be immersed in the times. This is the most difficult concept an author must grasp--you must live the life and in the world of your characters. You must understand the forces that move them. You must have the tools in hand to make their motivations and their lives real to your readers. This is a new rule for you in my personal rules of writing:
1. Don't confuse your readers.
2. Entertain your readers.
3. Ground your readers in the writing.
4. Don't show (or tell) everything.
new rule 5. Immerse yourself in the world of your writing.
How trite, but true. If you imagine you are writing a simple story, you will produce a simple story. If you know you are creating a world, you will create a world. Your characters act within that world and the depth of your immersion in the development of it, is the size and reality of the world you create. I will wrap up this subject next time. I intend to write about writing science fiction next. 

For more information, you can visit my author site www.ldalford.com/, and my individual novel websites: http://www.aegyptnovel.com/, http://www.centurionnovel.com, www.thesecondmission.com/, http://www.theendofhonor.com/, thefoxshonor, aseasonofhonor.

Writing Ideas - Writing Historical Fiction, part 8 Into the Present

26 July 2013, Writing Ideas - Writing Historical Fiction, part 8 Into the Present

Announcement: My novels Sister of Light and Sister of Darkness are about to be published. I write this blog about 2 months prior to its publication. I just heard that the proofs will be here soon--likely before the end of the week. My publisher also wants to put the entire set of novels based on Aegypt on contract--that's 5 more novels for 8 total. They also want to put my other novels on contract. The release schedule should be one novel every 2 months. I'll keep you updated.

Introduction: I wrote the novel Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon. This was my 21st novel and through this blog, I gave you the entire novel in installments that included commentary on the writing. In the commentary, in addition to other general information on writing, I explained, how the novel was constructed, the metaphors and symbols in it, the writing techniques and tricks I used, and the way I built the scenes. You can look back through this blog and read the entire novel beginning with http://www.pilotlion.blogspot.com/2010/10/new-novel-part-3-girl-and-demon.html.

I'm using this novel as an example of how I produce, market, and eventually (we hope) get a novel published. I'll keep you informed along the way.

Today's Blog: To see the steps in the publication process, visit my writing website http://www.ldalford.com/ and select "production schedule," you will be sent to http://www.sisteroflight.com/.

The four basic rules I employ when writing:

1. Don't confuse your readers.
2. Entertain your readers.
3. Ground your readers in the writing.
4. Don't show (or tell) everything.

Well, not quite into the present, but let's move our analysis into the modern period. As a reader of this blog commented, immersion for more modern eras is both easier and more difficult. It is more difficult because of the amount of data available. It is easier because of the amount of data available. In modern eras, the author must become a data miner and sifter where in the more ancient historical periods, the author is just a data miner. The good ore from the past is so rare, an author should be familiar with almost all the writing from a period. The ore is so available from the modern eras, the author must discard everything but the best nuggets. The question is how do you do that? I'll use my book Aegypt http://www.aegyptnovel.com/ as an example. To study the French Foreign Legion and Tunisia in 1926, I found as many French Foreign Legion first person accounts as I could and first person accounts about Tunisia during the period. There are a few--so the nuggets were available in the ore. I listened to music from that period and studied French fashion and Tunisian dress and customs. I found traveler's reports from the times and travel books. I read old papers and tried to glean as much information about the place and subjects from them. I had to delve into WWI because the main character of Aegypt, Paul Bolang, participated in that war. I tried to get broadcasts and decipher the political and culturally important issues of the times. As I tell my classes, history is like an iceberg, you see the small bit above the water, but 90 percent of it is out of sight. In a great historical fiction novel, you only see the tip of the author's research, the rest is buried deep within the novel. If you visit the website for Aegypt http://www.aegyptnovel.com/, you can review the slides for the classes I have taught on the history in the novel. Through these, you can begin to see the depth of information assumed in the final novel. Many of the facts and figures I show in the slides is nowhere in the book, because Aegypt is not a history text, it is historical fiction. To describe all the tailings of research in the novel would just bore the reader--the point is that all the history described in the class slides is apparent in the novel whether it is directly addressed or not. The characters, events, and places revolve around the historicity of the novel, and this gives it its historical authenticity. So, like in your general writing, don't show everything, likewise, in your historical fiction, there is no need for you regurgitate all you learned onto the page. You only need show your readers what is important to drive the storyline, plot, and theme. Everything else should come out as a result of your self immersion and therefore your voice of the times and culture. 

For more information, you can visit my author site www.ldalford.com/, and my individual novel websites: http://www.aegyptnovel.com/, http://www.centurionnovel.com, www.thesecondmission.com/, http://www.theendofhonor.com/, thefoxshonor, aseasonofhonor.

Writing Ideas - Writing Historical Fiction, part 3 Historical Information

21 July 2013, Writing Ideas - Writing Historical Fiction, part 3 Historical Information

Announcement: My novels Sister of Light and Sister of Darkness are about to be published. I write this blog about 2 months prior to its publication. I just heard that the proofs will be here soon--likely before the end of the week. My publisher also wants to put the entire set of novels based on Aegypt on contract--that's 5 more novels for 8 total. They also want to put my other novels on contract. The release schedule should be one novel every 2 months. I'll keep you updated.

Introduction: I wrote the novel Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon. This was my 21st novel and through this blog, I gave you the entire novel in installments that included commentary on the writing. In the commentary, in addition to other general information on writing, I explained, how the novel was constructed, the metaphors and symbols in it, the writing techniques and tricks I used, and the way I built the scenes. You can look back through this blog and read the entire novel beginning with http://www.pilotlion.blogspot.com/2010/10/new-novel-part-3-girl-and-demon.html.

I'm using this novel as an example of how I produce, market, and eventually (we hope) get a novel published. I'll keep you informed along the way.

Today's Blog: To see the steps in the publication process, visit my writing website http://www.ldalford.com/ and select "production schedule," you will be sent to http://www.sisteroflight.com/.

The four basic rules I employ when writing:

1. Don't confuse your readers.
2. Entertain your readers.
3. Ground your readers in the writing.
4. Don't show (or tell) everything.

What goes through the mind of a person who does not sit to eat or who doesn't have furniture? Historical literature generally won't tell you because two things get left out of historical writing--especially ancient writing. The first is the mundane. You would be hard pressed to determine the rules of baseball from a movie or book about baseball. The reason is that the basics of baseball are assumed to be understood within our culture. The mundane doesn't get written down. You could point to a book of baseball rules, and there would be your source for some of that information, but not all. For example, you couldn't gather from a book of baseball rules, the seventh inning stretch or the playing of the national anthem or "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." In the modern era, much of this data is available from various sources, but in the paucity and the economics of the ancient world, these details are rare. The second part that gets left out of historical writing is what everyone knows but may be unique. A great event like a battle or an earth quake or the movement of an army. These are great events and unique, but they might not be written down because everyone in the time knows about them. Those events that get written are the ones that were important to the writers and to their audience. Those that were saved in history are the documents that were important to those who came later. So you have to do what you can with the information you have. The big point about writing about times of antiquity is that you have to immerse yourself in the worldview of the people and understand where they were coming from. This is much harder than it sounds. The first problem is cultural prejudice and the second is moral prejudice. Both have to give way to immersion.

For example, almost every culture in the world prior to about 1830 was fully slave based. This is not a debatable fact. It just is. The ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Anglo-Saxons, Norman-French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, do I have to list every nation in antiquity? I could. They are all slavery based even up as far as 1830. In fact, the word "slave" comes from the word for Slav, because the Greeks and Romans claimed Slavs made the best slaves. During the time from antiquity to the 19th century, slavery had gone from the province of the middle class to solely that of the wealthy and then very wealthy. By the 1860s, in the US, the rate of slave ownership was 8% in the south. In ancient Greece the ownership of slaves was about 100%. The point I'm making here is to understand a slave based culture, you have to first of all recognize that it is slave based, and second, you cannot see it through modern cultural blinders. When you write about the culture, the existence and expectations of slavery must be part of the writing. Because it is so normative to the people in the culture, it must seem normative in your historical writing. Almost no one questioned the existence and ethics of slavery in any culture until the 18th century. Your writing must acknowledge and report on the existence of slavery just as you might write about eating or sleeping or any other subject within the culture.

After all, that's the whole idea, to understand the culture like a person from that culture so you can bring out the nuances of the society and times. If you don't understand, what their lives are like, you can't begin to understand their history or write about them. Tomorrow, I'll look more deeply at this subject and give more details.

For more information, you can visit my author site www.ldalford.com/, and my individual novel websites: http://www.aegyptnovel.com/, http://www.centurionnovel.com, www.thesecondmission.com/, http://www.theendofhonor.com/, thefoxshonor, aseasonofhonor.

Writing Ideas - Writing Historical Fiction, part 2 more Immersion

20 July 2013, Writing Ideas - Writing Historical Fiction, part 2 more Immersion

Announcement: My novels Sister of Light and Sister of Darkness are about to be published. I write this blog about 2 months prior to its publication. I just heard that the proofs will be here soon--likely before the end of the week. My publisher also wants to put the entire set of novels based on Aegypt on contract--that's 5 more novels for 8 total. They also want to put my other novels on contract. The release schedule should be one novel every 2 months. I'll keep you updated.

Introduction: I wrote the novel Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon. This was my 21st novel and through this blog, I gave you the entire novel in installments that included commentary on the writing. In the commentary, in addition to other general information on writing, I explained, how the novel was constructed, the metaphors and symbols in it, the writing techniques and tricks I used, and the way I built the scenes. You can look back through this blog and read the entire novel beginning with http://www.pilotlion.blogspot.com/2010/10/new-novel-part-3-girl-and-demon.html.

I'm using this novel as an example of how I produce, market, and eventually (we hope) get a novel published. I'll keep you informed along the way.

Today's Blog: To see the steps in the publication process, visit my writing website http://www.ldalford.com/ and select "production schedule," you will be sent to http://www.sisteroflight.com/.

The four basic rules I employ when writing:

1. Don't confuse your readers.
2. Entertain your readers.
3. Ground your readers in the writing.
4. Don't show (or tell) everything.

The basics of immersion. Immersion, in this context, is placing yourself in the position to understand the culture and times of the people you intend to write about. I wrote yesterday that the first step is to research and read all the primary and secondary source documents about the time period that you can. This is when you begin to build your data on the historical period you are studying. I start a file of the information and add to it over time. You can see some parts of these files at http://www.ldalford.com/ under the "secrets" pages for my books. This isn't all the information, but parts of it. This type of all-inclusive research works well for antiquity, but for more modern history, the number of documents becomes overwhelming. You have to select them carefully. Past a certain point in the modern era (beyond Gutenberg), I'd recommend using only primary and secondary sources. When I researched the period of the civil war for a yet unpublished novel http://www.antebellumnovel.com/, I used only primary and secondary source documents (mostly letters and personal accounts). I limited my research to Southern documents from the area of the events of the novel. I used pictures and my experience of the area along with period documents and reconstructions. Because the information is so copious from that time, I had to intentionally limit my studies to the area and people at hand. This is an important point about your frame of reference. My frame of reference was the people in a certain town, in a certain place, in a certain time. The better your can bound the scope of your subject, the better you can immerse yourself in their lives and the better you can write about them.

Let's look deeper at some very important ways of understanding a culture. Start with a blank slate. I implied this yesterday. Don't start with any preconceived notions about the culture or the history of the times. That might blow your theme out of the water, but it is better to get the history right than to work toward an agenda that will not stand up to scrutiny. Some of the most egregious mistakes I see in historical novels set in antiquity are the obvious historical errors in them. Some of the worse are a lack of understanding of: furniture, clothing, money, cultural ideas, food, meat, sexuality, general culture, slavery, commerce, religion. These basics drive a society and culture. A lack of understanding of them will cripple any historical novel because they define the culture and time and the way people think. For example, in the West, money was not invented until ca. 600 BC by the Lydians. It was not ubiquitous in the known world until the Roman empire and even then it was rare in many areas. If you write a novel in these periods, you have to understand there is no money in general circulation until about 250 BC. You have to figure out, from history, how people traded and did business without money. Even after money is available, it is rare, and people still use the older methods of trading without money. Money, or lack of it, drives the entire culture and ideas of the people. A book with money in it in the periods mentioned (definitely prior to 600 BC but in varying degrees until much later) is just silly. Ubiquitous furniture is another example of a lack of understanding about the past. People did not have furniture, except the very wealthy and royalty, until very late in human history. People in antiquity in the West, especially the wealthy, lay on their sides to eat and sat on the floor or cushions. Slaves sat up to eat. There were few chairs. Tables were nonexistent or very low and small. There were few pots or pans or plates and no utensils used for eating. I'll get into more details about these subjects tomorrow, but you can see how important these details are for understanding about the past and history.

For more information, you can visit my author site www.ldalford.com/, and my individual novel websites: http://www.aegyptnovel.com/, http://www.centurionnovel.com, www.thesecondmission.com/, http://www.theendofhonor.com/, thefoxshonor, aseasonofhonor.

Writing Science Fiction, part 1 Introduction

I'm back!  The first couple of days of my week are packed, and I don't have time or inclination to do any more writing.  I'm wiped right now from writing technical stuff all day.  But that might be the proper frame of mind to begin to approach science fiction.  In fact, it is exactly the frame of mind to wander into the realm of science fiction.  If you remember my personal rules of writing:
1. Don't confuse your readers.

2. Entertain your readers.
3. Ground your readers in the writing.
4. Don't show (or tell) everything.
5. Immerse yourself in the world of your writing - colliery: immerse your readers in the world of your writing.
If you haven't been paying attention, I've spent almost a month developing these rules for you.  Since I am a scientist and an engineer by trade, I have built up my understanding of writing like the engineering community solves problems.  First you bound the problem, then you solve it.  As long as you can properly bound the problem, you can usually solve it.  The same is true of writing and this is especially true in writing science fiction.  Perhaps the first bounding question should be just what is science fiction?  Let me give my own answer.  Science fiction is writing that presumes and interacts with a future.  Writing, broadly focuses on three general periods of interest: writing that interacts with the past (historical fiction), writing that interacts with the present (fiction), writing that interacts with the future (science fiction).  There you have past, present, and future.  Really simple, right?  The complexity becomes developing the worlds that you will immerse your readers within.  In every case of each period of interest, the overall point must be to immerse the reader into the world of your writing--rule number five.  I wrote at length about developing this world in historical fiction.  In engineering terms what we were talking about there is interpolation.  We were taking data from the past and interpolating, that is building the world from the data we had.  Interpolation is relatively easy and it is really very accurate.  The world a writer of historical fiction can build is easy to get right as long as the writer's data is good and plentiful.  In looking at the future, you can't interpolate, you must extrapolate.  Extrapolation means to take your data points outside the maximum bounds of your equations or data.  It means to move beyond current knowledge.  Notice, I didn't say you toss out current knowledge--that's fantasy, and I'm not writing about fantasy here.  In science fiction, we move beyond the knowledge we have now.  We extrapolate beyond our solution sets and equations, but we can never lose our grounding in those bounds.  If we do, we aren't writing science fiction, but rather fantasy.  There is more to come.  Tomorrow, I'll expand on this idea of extrapolation and begin to explain how you do it.

Writing Historical Fiction, part 12 Conclusions (for now)

I decided that it is time to conclude this series about writing historical fiction and turn to writing science fiction.  I do write in both genres.  I hope you discovered that all fiction writing requires immersion in the world you are writing about.  Historical fiction isn't as much a special genre of fiction as much as it is a special discipline of fiction.  The author must be disciplined enough to become steeped in the culture and history of the times he writes about, and he must be able to communicate that past world to his readers.  Further, the author must not compromise the ideas and cultures of the past to make feel-good with modern mores.  When an author does this due to lack of discipline or knowledge, then he aren't writing historical fiction anymore.  Plus, it is kind of stupid to write about the past with the blinders of the present.  Such writing cannot stand the test of time and such writing can't enlighten the next generation that really wishes to know what the world was like.  Such writing is like an Oliver Stone movie--a docudrama about a time that never was and never could be.

So my five personal rules of writing I have articulated thus far:  
1. Don't confuse your readers.

2. Entertain your readers.
3. Ground your readers in the writing.
4. Don't show (or tell) everything.
5. Immerse yourself in the world of your writing - colliery: immerse your readers in the world of your writing.
The fifth "rule" was my main concern in these twelve short articles.  This rule is pertinent to all writing.  It is critical to historical fiction, but in historical fiction, the "world" must reflect some strong degree of reality.  What I want to do next is move to the next obvious point--about worlds that reflect little reality to the past or the modern world.  The how to of science fiction.  We will expand on this concept of immersion there.

Writing Historical Fiction, part 11 more Examples

Applicable to all writing, I offer my five basic rules again, and I will show you some examples of how to immerse your readers in your writing.
1. Don't confuse your readers.

2. Entertain your readers.
3. Ground your readers in the writing.
4. Don't show (or tell) everything.
5. Immerse yourself in the world of your writing - colliery: immerse your readers in the world of your writing.
If you noticed, I added a colliery.  The point here and the point of the question I answered yesterday was, how do you immerse your readers in a completely different world than their own.  I have a foot up because one of my day jobs is to teach people, and in those classes, I try to get them to experience the cultures we are talking about.  Writing however is very different than technical writing or teaching.  You can't immerse your readers by suddenly giving them a treatise on a culture or history.  So I'll provide some examples from my writing.

The first example is description from the novel Aegypt, http://www.aegyptnovel.com/:
"Paul signaled his men to remount. His horse, l’Orage, was skittish and danced back a step as Paul hauled his aching frame into the saddle. Her muscles rippled like silk under her black coat, and Paul touched her gently to soothe her. l’Orage had been his steed for nearly three years, almost half the time he had been in Tunisia.

He had bought her from a Berber’s market on the coast. She was the most beautiful horse he had ever seen. Feral and full of fire, she was uncontrollable in the hands of her merchant owners and stood blindfolded and hobbled in the market horse pen. A demon in the guise of a horse, she was black as charcoal without a trace of lighter markings. Paul knew she was stolen the minute his eyes lit upon her.

He paid in cash—francs, and few of those, because of her temperament. When he entered the pen to claim her, Berbers, Arabs, and Tunisians lined the enclosure to watch the black fiend trample the foolish Lieutenant. Paul walked quietly up to her, and when the laughing merchant stripped off the blindfold and hobbles, Paul spoke a single word. l’Orage calmed immediately and let him stroke her face.

Contemptuously, he led her on a light field-lead out of the marketsquare. The marketplace had turned into a frenzy of babbling men, women, and children. The native peoples sidled out of Paul’s way as if he were himself a demon from the pit. At the edge of the market, to the amazement of the spectators, Paul leapt upon l’Orage bareback and rode off at a gallop. He laughed all the way back to the garrison.

l’Orage was a horse trained for war. She was an Arabian, bred and drilled to the battlefield. She was trained to kill and to the tactics of combat. She was a European’s horse. Paul could tell by her carriage and by the saddle scars on her flanks. Only one type of European warrior had found his way into the wilds of Tunisia: l’Orage had to be a Frenchman’s horse. Paul guessed that, but his confirmation came when he first stood before her, wondering himself if she would strike him before he could speak. His single word was French, and with that single word, he knew she answered to only one tongue—French. Not to the Tunisian or Berber or Arabic her previous masters unsuccessfully tried, only to French. In combat after combat, she proved herself to be, by far, one of the finest horses in the Legion stables."

Right from the beginning of the novel, you have a very short description of how Lt. Bolang bought his horse l'Orage.  The description itself tells you a lot about the times, place, and people.  It gives you a small window into Lt. Bolang and tells you about the languages and the problem of language in Tunisia.  It lets you know the feeling of the people for the Foreign Legion and the fact that horses are still used in warfare at this time and in this place.  This is a method of using description to immerse the reader into the times and place and to let them taste the culture and society.  By the way, l'Orage means tempest or thunderstorm in French and the description takes place right after a thunderstorm in the desert and a tempest-like attack on Tunisian bandits.

Now an example of using conversation to immerse your reader in the times and place.  This is from Centurion, http://www.centurionnovel.com/.

“Where are you from, youngster?” Portius asked Abenadar.

“I came from Natzeret in the Galil.”
“From Natzeret?” said Euodus. “Is the Primus now accepting trash from the provinces?” Euodus was as fancy a man as Abenadar had ever seen. His short hair was carefully shaped to form oiled ringlets in the style of a Persian warrior. His face was angular but well made. He wore a colorful tunic with pins and decorations all over it.
“No, I’m a Roman citizen,” answered Abenadar.
Euodus smiled. “Another bastard child of Rome. You are well placed in this century. We are all bastards of one type or another.”
Portius laughed out loud, but Lupus protested, “I, for one, have a family in Italia.”
“Yes, but does your family claim you?” riposted Euodus.
“They will welcome me back when I am released from service.”
“If your throat is not cut first by these rebels, you may see Italia again.”
Lupus rubbed his throat and made a face. “I wish you wouldn’t put it like that, Euobus.”
“Don’t get carried away, Lupus,” said Portius. “The people fear us.”
“Yes, they fear our blood will splatter their clothing when they slit our throats.”
“Shut up, Euobus,” said Portius. “Come, Abenadar. Don’t listen to his rambling. It is meaningless. As long as we stay together, we are in little danger, and we’re always safe while in camp.”
Without waiting for Abenadar, Portius walked out the door. Abenadar quickly followed behind him. As Portius exited the barracks, Abenadar hurried to catch up. “The camp is huge. How many legions does it hold?”
Portius chuckled. “It doesn’t hold even one.”
Abenadar was shocked.
Portius noted Abenadar’s look and laughed again. “That’s right. This camp holds only two cohorts: the I Cohort, Primus and the X Cohort, Decimus—the first and the last in the III Gallica. Admittedly, the Primus Cohort is the largest and best, but the Decimus isn’t a training cohort. It isn’t made up of inexperienced recruits.” Portius glanced at Abenadar. “You excepted. You will get along well if you can translate in the marketplace, especially if you can speak with the barmaids and whores. I predict you will be a very popular man in the Decimus Cohort.”
“How many men are in our cohort?” asked Abenadar.
“During your training, you will learn how the legion is organized, but I guess I can start your education early. The Decimus Cohort is formed of six centuries. They are called the Pilus Prior, the Pilus Posterior, the Princeps Prior, the Princeps Posterior, the Hastatus Prior, and the Hastatus Posterior. We are part of the Hastatus Posterior, the Lion Century. Each century contains about 80 men. The men are organized into 10 columns of eight each. All the other cohorts from the second to the tenth are put together the same way, but the Primus Cohort is different.”
Here you can see in conversation, I give you many details about the place, times, people, and the Roman Legion.  In conversation, Portius goes on to give Abenadar a host of information about the Legions that the reader likely doesn't know and that Abenadar doesn't know.  The character and the reader both learn from the experience and the tones and conversation tells you a lot about the fears of the Roman soldiers and their concerns.
 
Tomorrow, I'll conclude this series on writing Historical Fiction and move to science fiction.

Writing Historical Fiction, part 9 Into the Future

I just came home from my new work--it's a lot of work.  Mostly all brain kind and writing.  Right now, the thunderclouds outside are delivering rain and hail in equal measure against my basement window.  I'd like a drink.  I need some wine, but the future beacons.  It brays out its clarion call from a different direction--so why is it a topic in writing historical fiction?  Because all writing whether it is historical fiction, science fiction, or modern fiction requires the same approach.  I didn't trick you, I showed you what it takes to write historical fiction.  I hope those who might take a slipshod approach to writing historical fiction might be reformed, but more than that, I hope all authors would at least think about the concept of immersion when they write.  Perhaps this is normal for most authors--I've never met an author who was normal, so I don't know.  I just know that a lot of historical fiction is crippled because the author never grasped the voice of the times.  Equally, a lot of fiction is crippled because the author never grasped the voice of the story.  You might ask, how could that happen?  It happens because the writer was not immersed in the background of the writing and never fully understood his storyline, plot, or theme.  How can you write a historical fiction novel?  You must be immersed in the times.  How can you write a modern novel?  You must be immersed in the times.  How can you write a science fiction novel?  You must be immersed in the times.  This is the very difficult concept an author must grasp--you must live the life and in the world of your characters.  You must understand the forces that move them.  You must have the tools in hand to make their motivations and their lives real to your readers.  This is a new rule for you in my personal rules of writing:
1. Don't confuse your readers.
2. Entertain your readers.
3. Ground your readers in the writing.
4. Don't show (or tell) everything.
new rule 5. Immerse yourself in the world of your writing.
How trite, but true.  If you imagine you are writing a simple story, you will produce a simple story.  If you know you are creating a world, you will create a world.  Your characters act within that world and the depth of your immersion in the development of it, is the size and reality of the world you create.  I will wrap up this subject next time.  I intend to write about writing science fiction next.

Writing Historical Fiction, part 5 Religion

I've been writing about historical immersion as a means to prepare to write historical fiction.  The major points I've made have been about the tools to get historical information (primary and secondary sources) and getting rid of cultural and social prejudice.  I've been using examples mostly from ancient Greece, and articulated in my book The Second Mission http://www.thesecondmission.com/.  Today, I want to focus on religion.  As with all cultural and social mores, we imagine the world was always the way it is for us today.  We imagine our way of thinking and our ways of doing are the ways everyone lived and existed in the past.  The truth is very far from that.  Even today, people think much differently depending on their culture and society.  One of the most important, if not the most important issue in all cultures is religion.  Religion forms, focuses, and directs a culture.  This is especially true in the ancient world.  In a pagan worldview, which includes both animistic and pantheonic paganism, the culture understands the world and its forces only through the gods.  There is no conception of natural forces or nature.  In animism every thing that has force or life (plants, animals, heavens, clouds, the sea, bodies of water,...) has a god in it.  The god sustains and produces the forces in nature.  The god must be placated lest something bad happen.  So whenever a creature is killed, the god within (or in charge of) the creature must be placated--thus all killing required sacrifice to appease the gods.  With literacy comes pantheonic paganism.  In this form of pagan worldview, the gods take on new meanings and responsibilities, but are still the focus of all the power in the world.  Everything goes from the gods and the cause of all action in the universe is due to the gods.  The new functions of the gods are related to civilization itself: wisdom, writing, music, metallurgy, war, love... With literacy new ideas spring fully armed from the minds of men.  In the Greek worldview, men are fated (pathos) and the gods are fated (chronos), and the fates or both are not pleasant.  The world revolves around the gods and fate.  This is the center of the Greek universe.  It is a universe where no one will make a move without a word from the gods.  It is a world where everyone believes and those who don't, don't live long.  The religion is forced and enforced.  It is not coercive, it is obvious to everyone.  Even the Greek philosophers did not disagree on this most basic view in Greek thought.  They played on the edges of the whys and wherefores, but they did not dispute or disagree with any basic point of the pagan worldview.

Therefore, if you want to understand any culture well enough to write about it, you must begin to understand its view of religion.  You can't hold a people's religious view in contempt.  You can't judge it from within.  You can only look at it within the context of their culture.  It is a foundation and a center point of the entire culture, so you can't ignore it either.  Many modern writers completely ignore the religious views of the culture they write about.  They make their characters like modern thinkers who ignore religion or who parrot some non religious worldview.  Their characters miraculously understand the world from a modern world view based in cause and effect.  They assume that modern ideas infuse especially the thinking men and women of the past.  This is a completely false and foolish idea about the past and about history in general.  Religion drives the world--it especially powers the ancient world.  The modern wars driven by Islam and secular Communism should warn us that the modern world is driven by much more religion than many would like to admit.  In your immersion, you must learn much more than what the people ate (we saw religion played a huge role in Greek food) or what they did (look at the architecture of the Greeks, based on temples and the gods).  You have to learn how they thought and why their thoughts became the reality of their culture.  Only then can you start to understand enough to write about their history.

Writing Historical Fiction, part 2 More on Immersion

The basics of immersion.  Immersion, in this context, is placing yourself in the position to understand the culture and times of the people you intend to write about.  I wrote yesterday that the first step is to research and read all the primary and secondary source documents about the time period that you can.  This is when you begin to build your data on the historical period you are studying.  I start a file of the information and add to it over time.  You can see some parts of these files at http://www.ldalford.com/ under the "secrets" pages for my books.  This isn't all the information, but parts of it.  This type of all inclusive research works well for antiquity, but for more modern history, the number of documents becomes overwhelming.  You have to select them carefully.  Past a certain point in the modern era (beyond Gutenberg), I'd recommend using only primary and secondary sources.  When I researched the period of the civil war for a yet unpublished novel http://www.antebellumnovel.com/, I used only primary and secondary source documents (mostly letters and personal accounts).  I limited my research to Southern documents from mostly the area of the events of the novel.  I used pictures and my experience of the area along with period documents and reconstructions.  Because the information is so copious from that time, I had to intentionally limit my studies to the area and people at hand.  This is an important point about your frame of reference.  My frame of reference was the people in a certain town, in a certain place, in a certain time.  The better your can bound the scope of your subjects, the better you can immerse yourself in their lives and the better you can write about them.

Let's look deeper at some very important ways of understanding a culture.  Start with a blank slate.  I implied this yesterday.  Don't start with any preconceived ideas about the culture or the history of the times.  That might blow your theme out of the water, but it is better to get the history right than to work toward an agenda that will not stand up to scrutiny.  Some of the most egregious mistakes I see in historical novels set in antiquity are the obvious historical errors in them.  Some of the worse are a lack of understanding of: furniture, clothing, money, cultural ideas, food, meat, sexuality, general culture, slavery, commerce, religion.  These basics drive a society and culture.  A lack of understanding of them will cripple any historical novel because they define the culture and time and the way people think.  For example, in the West, money was not invented until ca. 600 BC by the Lydians.  It was not ubiquitous in the known world until the Roman empire and even then it was rare in many areas.  If you write a novel in these periods, you have to understand there is no money in general circulation until about 250 BC.  You have to figure out, from history, how people traded and did business without money.  Even after money is available, it is rare, and people still use the older methods of trading without it.  Money, or lack of it, drives the entire culture and ideas of the people.  A book with money in it in the periods mentioned (definitely prior to 600 BC but in varying degrees until much later) is just silly.  Ubiquitous furniture is another example of a lack of understanding about the past.  People did not have furniture, except the very wealthy and royalty, until very late in human history.  People in antiquity in the West, especially the wealthy, lay on their sides to eat and sat on the floor or cushions.  Slaves sat up to eat.  There were few chairs.  Tables were nonexistent or very low and small.  There were few pots or pans or plates and no utensils used for eating.  I'll get into more details about these subjects tomorrow, but you can see how important these details are for understanding about the past and history.