What If? (Robert Cowley, ed., 1999) is a collection of essays postulating counterfactuals--i.e. speculations on how the world would've turned out if just one small detail was changed. What if the Greeks lost at Salamis? What if Publius Quinctilius Varus never lost those legions? What if the Union hadn't found Lee's famous "Lost Order"? Etc.
They're fun reads, though some are far more plausible than others (e.g. I'm pretty sure if Athenian democracy had been nipped in the bud, someone else would've thought of it eventually). The whole exercise is of particular interest to me now, since my WIP is an alternate history, and one that's more a lengthy counterfactual speculation with action and character development than a fantastical alternate history like Naomi Novik's Temeraire series or Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker books.
Showing posts with label alternate history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alternate history. Show all posts
Monday, November 26, 2007
Friday, August 24, 2007
The Footman's Directory and Butler's Remembrancer (Book #83)
As I continue to research the life and duties of servants ~200 years ago for my WIP, I just finished reading The Footman's Directory and Butler's Remembrancer (by "Onesimus," 1823, reprinted in 1998). Fascinating stuff, and more reminders of how much work it was to live 200 years ago! What surprised me a bit, though it shouldn't have in an Advice to Young Men book of this sort, is how thoroughly the author accepts the then-current idea that God has assigned us all to our stations in life and that we must be content in them. I always figured the gentry and the nobility were the only ones who actually BELIEVED all that, since their "assigned station" was so pleasant and convenient, and that the "lower orders" might have given lip service to the concept to keep the peace, but that deep down they knew better. I know I'm being very 21st-century American here, but it's just hard for me to believe, deep down, that anyone ELSE could believe they deserved anything less than the best they could earn on their own merit.
On a lighter note...there's a section of recipes, cleaning tips, household remedies, etc. Some of them are fascinating. I'd love to try old-fashioned ginger- or spruce-beer, for example. But I'm baffled by toast-and-water. Basically, you take stale bread, toast it fairly dark, put it in a jug and fill it with boiling water. When the water is quite cold, you then strain it through a sieve and drink it. I'm completely failing to see the appeal of that one...
On a lighter note...there's a section of recipes, cleaning tips, household remedies, etc. Some of them are fascinating. I'd love to try old-fashioned ginger- or spruce-beer, for example. But I'm baffled by toast-and-water. Basically, you take stale bread, toast it fairly dark, put it in a jug and fill it with boiling water. When the water is quite cold, you then strain it through a sieve and drink it. I'm completely failing to see the appeal of that one...
Friday, August 17, 2007
The Complete Servant (Book #81)
The Complete Servant (Samuel & Sarah Adams, 1825, republished in 1988 with an introduction by Pamela Horn) is one of the earliest domestic advice books. I got it to research a footman's duties for my WIP, in which two of my characters go undercover as footmen. It came to me courtesy of interlibrary loan from Linfield College, which I'd never heard of before but now know is a small liberal arts college in NW Oregon.
The book details the work of all the servants in a well-to-do early 19th century English household, from the butler down to the scullery maid. Reading it makes me want to go home and hug my vacuum cleaner, microwave, dishwasher, etc. Any one recipe in the cook and housekeeper's sections makes me feel tired. I'd never bake a cake if I had to go to that much effort. Not sure I'd like the cakes, anyway. Chocolate was only a drink then, and vanilla doesn't show up in the recipes, either. Lots of almonds and lemon zest, which is fine, and currants everywhere, which isn't. (I've never been a big fan of dried fruit in my desserts.) Currants in pound cake, even! Blech! One of the few recipes that sounded wholly appetizing to my modern palate was one for "East India Curry," which, allowing for changes in technology, sounds a lot like a modern curry recipe, not even especially blanded down for the English palate. But the rest? You can keep your boiled beef and currant-festooned cakes, English people 200 years ago.
Really, it's a fascinating window on a bygone world...that I wouldn't want to eat in.
The book details the work of all the servants in a well-to-do early 19th century English household, from the butler down to the scullery maid. Reading it makes me want to go home and hug my vacuum cleaner, microwave, dishwasher, etc. Any one recipe in the cook and housekeeper's sections makes me feel tired. I'd never bake a cake if I had to go to that much effort. Not sure I'd like the cakes, anyway. Chocolate was only a drink then, and vanilla doesn't show up in the recipes, either. Lots of almonds and lemon zest, which is fine, and currants everywhere, which isn't. (I've never been a big fan of dried fruit in my desserts.) Currants in pound cake, even! Blech! One of the few recipes that sounded wholly appetizing to my modern palate was one for "East India Curry," which, allowing for changes in technology, sounds a lot like a modern curry recipe, not even especially blanded down for the English palate. But the rest? You can keep your boiled beef and currant-festooned cakes, English people 200 years ago.
Really, it's a fascinating window on a bygone world...that I wouldn't want to eat in.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Conference update #2
Today was the busy day at the conference, with a full day of workshops. Right now I'm taking an introvert break before going down for dinner and the historical talent revue, with keynote speech by Diana Gabaldon.
As is usual at these events, the day was a mixed bag. I attended an entertaining workshop on how an author recreates a famous battle, the author in question being C.C. Humphreys, who IMHO bears a striking resemblance to Christopher Eccleston. He read some excerpts from his novel Jack Absolute by way of example, and I was one of many at the workshop who rushed straight to the conference bookshop to buy it. I got the last copy, in fact. If the book lives up to the promise of the scenes he read aloud, I may have found where to get my Age of Flintlock fix once I run out of Sharpes. At least briefly. Humphreys has only written three in the series thus far.
Next came a state-of-the-market workshop, always a slightly depressing event unless you happen to be writing EXACTLY what the market currently adores, which for now is fictionalized biographies of famous women. I think it's wise to know the market, because it can help you package your work for editors and agents--for example, while my alternate history isn't a fictionalized biography of a notable woman, it does have well-known figures ("marquee names," as the agent giving the workshop put it) as major characters, and you better believe I'll tailor my pitch and synopsis for it accordingly.
But in the end, what are you going to do if you're 3/4 of the way through a manuscript on, say, Genghis Khan, and some agent or editor says it's a terrible, unmarketable idea? Go home, give up, and delete the file? Or what if you ARE writing what's hot, but you're me and have a full-time job, a husband, and a 3-year-old and can only write so fast, and you hear that the market for your idea is nearing its peak and likely to start fading soon? Quit the job that pays your bills and alienate the husband and daughter you love just so you can write 80 pages a week instead of 15 and strike while the iron is hot? In the end, you've got to do as Bernard Cornwell recommended at his workshop--write what you want to read. Otherwise it's not worth it.
I spent the afternoon in military history land, between Cornwell's workshop and a Q&A panel, and thanks to Cornwell's generosity, I probably have a lead on the most vexing research question I've encountered thus far in planning my alternate history. And now I need to change for dinner and go fake extroversion again.
As is usual at these events, the day was a mixed bag. I attended an entertaining workshop on how an author recreates a famous battle, the author in question being C.C. Humphreys, who IMHO bears a striking resemblance to Christopher Eccleston. He read some excerpts from his novel Jack Absolute by way of example, and I was one of many at the workshop who rushed straight to the conference bookshop to buy it. I got the last copy, in fact. If the book lives up to the promise of the scenes he read aloud, I may have found where to get my Age of Flintlock fix once I run out of Sharpes. At least briefly. Humphreys has only written three in the series thus far.
Next came a state-of-the-market workshop, always a slightly depressing event unless you happen to be writing EXACTLY what the market currently adores, which for now is fictionalized biographies of famous women. I think it's wise to know the market, because it can help you package your work for editors and agents--for example, while my alternate history isn't a fictionalized biography of a notable woman, it does have well-known figures ("marquee names," as the agent giving the workshop put it) as major characters, and you better believe I'll tailor my pitch and synopsis for it accordingly.
But in the end, what are you going to do if you're 3/4 of the way through a manuscript on, say, Genghis Khan, and some agent or editor says it's a terrible, unmarketable idea? Go home, give up, and delete the file? Or what if you ARE writing what's hot, but you're me and have a full-time job, a husband, and a 3-year-old and can only write so fast, and you hear that the market for your idea is nearing its peak and likely to start fading soon? Quit the job that pays your bills and alienate the husband and daughter you love just so you can write 80 pages a week instead of 15 and strike while the iron is hot? In the end, you've got to do as Bernard Cornwell recommended at his workshop--write what you want to read. Otherwise it's not worth it.
I spent the afternoon in military history land, between Cornwell's workshop and a Q&A panel, and thanks to Cornwell's generosity, I probably have a lead on the most vexing research question I've encountered thus far in planning my alternate history. And now I need to change for dinner and go fake extroversion again.
Friday, June 1, 2007
The strangeness of my brain
My alternate history manuscript is the first time I've used real historical figures as major characters. People famous enough to show up in my story tended to have their portraits painted, some of them so frequently that I swear if you brought them forward in time and dressed them in modern attire I'd immediately recognize them walking down the street. But the funny thing about knowing these people mostly from portraits is that every once in awhile my mental image of the scene will switch from human beings moving through a three-dimensional landscape into paintings done in the style of the era, and I have the hardest time coaxing my imagination back into 3-D.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
On writing and reading
I'm starting to get into the flow of the alternate history. I'm all of 14 pages into the manuscript, though I'd be much further along if I hadn't decided to rewrite Chapter One! I was doing the very thing I know better than to do--spending a dozen pages or so explaining Everything the Readers Need to Know or else they'd never understand my alternate world, what my protagonist, a real historical figure, had and hadn't accomplished when first we meet him, etc. And I was boring MYSELF silly. No reason to expect readers to be excited when I was yawning over the thing. So I went back and rewrote it so Our Hero is in Mortal Peril from the very first paragraph he comes on the scene. It's much better now.
One of these days I'll actually get the beginning right the first time. This is my fourth manuscript; you'd think I'd have learned by now that you don't lead with your explanations!
I think one of the reasons I find the dreaded infodump so very tempting as a writer is that as a reader I put a higher priority than normal on setting. It's not that protagonist and plot aren't important, but when I describe the appeal of beloved books or series, I talk about the setting. A new book in Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series due out this summer means I get to visit Terre d'Ange again soon. Revisiting a favorite Aubrey/Maturin is taking a cruise on the Surprise. The Sharpe books are time travel to the Peninsular War, where I can fight alongside the South Essex. Granted, those settings wouldn't appeal so if I didn't also love the characters who inhabit them--it's not just visiting the places, it's getting to spend time with Phedre, Joscelin, and Imriel, or Jack and Stephen, or Sharpe and Harper. But the characters wouldn't come alive for me if the world they inhabit wasn't richly developed and intriguing.
Hence, my temptation to lead with way too much backstory and setting information. I want to show my readers what a good world I've built for them. Problem is, you can't do it that way.
One of these days I'll actually get the beginning right the first time. This is my fourth manuscript; you'd think I'd have learned by now that you don't lead with your explanations!
I think one of the reasons I find the dreaded infodump so very tempting as a writer is that as a reader I put a higher priority than normal on setting. It's not that protagonist and plot aren't important, but when I describe the appeal of beloved books or series, I talk about the setting. A new book in Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series due out this summer means I get to visit Terre d'Ange again soon. Revisiting a favorite Aubrey/Maturin is taking a cruise on the Surprise. The Sharpe books are time travel to the Peninsular War, where I can fight alongside the South Essex. Granted, those settings wouldn't appeal so if I didn't also love the characters who inhabit them--it's not just visiting the places, it's getting to spend time with Phedre, Joscelin, and Imriel, or Jack and Stephen, or Sharpe and Harper. But the characters wouldn't come alive for me if the world they inhabit wasn't richly developed and intriguing.
Hence, my temptation to lead with way too much backstory and setting information. I want to show my readers what a good world I've built for them. Problem is, you can't do it that way.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Back in the saddle
Last week I wrote for the first time in six weeks. It was all of two pages--the prologue for my alternate history. But it felt wonderful to be a storyteller again. I'm all for taking breaks between books or to deal with major transitions like moving, but six weeks is at least twice as long as I like to go without writing. I get all restless and depressed.
I haven't done actual writing since I finished the prologue, which takes place 25 years before the main action and introduces the change that makes my history alternate. (The prologue is the butterfly flapping its wings; Chapter One will be the hurricane. Hopefully a Category 5 by the time I've got it polished.) I'm in research mode now, but I'll be writing again within the week.
Last night I idly wondered what would've become of the characters from The Inconvenient Bride and The Sergeant's Lady in the alternate reality--what would they have done, would the couples have even met, etc. I realized that there was every chance Jack and Anna from The Sergeant's Lady would meet, but under VASTLY different circumstances. At first I thought there was no way for them to be a couple in the alternate world, but I kept poking at the idea and eventually got them paired off, and it's all very lovely and poignant and starcrossedly romantic, if I do say so myself. I feel like I'm fanficcing my own work. It's tempting to make them major secondary characters in the alternate reality, since they're closer to my heart than any other characters I've created, somehow...but it's probably a Bad Idea. If nothing else, Jack's superficial resemblance to a well-known character in the same basic genre would be a lot more pronounced in this version, and while I don't claim to be the most original writer on the planet I don't want to get TOO derivative. But I might write their story for my own pleasure.
I do so love to tell stories.
I haven't done actual writing since I finished the prologue, which takes place 25 years before the main action and introduces the change that makes my history alternate. (The prologue is the butterfly flapping its wings; Chapter One will be the hurricane. Hopefully a Category 5 by the time I've got it polished.) I'm in research mode now, but I'll be writing again within the week.
Last night I idly wondered what would've become of the characters from The Inconvenient Bride and The Sergeant's Lady in the alternate reality--what would they have done, would the couples have even met, etc. I realized that there was every chance Jack and Anna from The Sergeant's Lady would meet, but under VASTLY different circumstances. At first I thought there was no way for them to be a couple in the alternate world, but I kept poking at the idea and eventually got them paired off, and it's all very lovely and poignant and starcrossedly romantic, if I do say so myself. I feel like I'm fanficcing my own work. It's tempting to make them major secondary characters in the alternate reality, since they're closer to my heart than any other characters I've created, somehow...but it's probably a Bad Idea. If nothing else, Jack's superficial resemblance to a well-known character in the same basic genre would be a lot more pronounced in this version, and while I don't claim to be the most original writer on the planet I don't want to get TOO derivative. But I might write their story for my own pleasure.
I do so love to tell stories.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
More on fictionalizing real people
Another challenge I'm facing as I plot out my alternate history is just how much I can change such details of real people's lives as whom they married and when they died. This is a non-magical alternate history, so it's not like George III is going to be eaten by a dragon or Napoleon is going to be bewitched into marrying a sorceress. So I'm trying to work within natural causes--e.g. if I know a person had a severe illness or injury (or even fought in a battle or traveled to a place where he could've reasonably contracted malaria, cholera, or whatever) and survived, I can justify killing him off. Or, conversely, if someone died of something people had a reasonable chance of surviving, I can make him or her live. (For example, and this is NOT part of my story, what if Stonewall Jackson had survived the amputation of his arm after Chancellorsville? Lots of people survived amputations, or there wouldn't have been any point in subjecting anyone to them, and I bet the Civil War would've played out entirely differently had he lived, since with all due respect to Lee I think Jackson was the most gifted general the Confederacy had.)
Anyway. My specific plotting dilemma is whether I can marry real people to different people than they wed in real life, and, if so, whether I have to find another real person for them to marry, or if I can marry them off to a suitable invented person. In two cases, I think it's probable that my alternate reality would've led them to marry different people, and that marrying them off to their real-world spouses would be too contrived. But I can't see either of them staying single. So do I invent spouses for them? Or do I find other real people of roughly the right age and rank? Either feels a bit presumptuous, somehow. Though, really, I don't suppose it's any more so than killing people early or changing the outcome of battles. Maybe it's just because love and marriage are a bit more intimate than whether one survives an illness or whether the reinforcements make it to the battlefield on time.
Anyway. My specific plotting dilemma is whether I can marry real people to different people than they wed in real life, and, if so, whether I have to find another real person for them to marry, or if I can marry them off to a suitable invented person. In two cases, I think it's probable that my alternate reality would've led them to marry different people, and that marrying them off to their real-world spouses would be too contrived. But I can't see either of them staying single. So do I invent spouses for them? Or do I find other real people of roughly the right age and rank? Either feels a bit presumptuous, somehow. Though, really, I don't suppose it's any more so than killing people early or changing the outcome of battles. Maybe it's just because love and marriage are a bit more intimate than whether one survives an illness or whether the reinforcements make it to the battlefield on time.
Saturday, January 6, 2007
Writing real people
My alternate history series is starting to take shape in my mind. I'm picturing scenes, getting a sense of how my characters will interact, etc. I love this part of the process because it's when creativity goes into warp speed, and my body is folding laundry or buying groceries, but my mind is 200 years and almost 5,000 miles away.
None of my previous books have featured real historical figures as anything more than names tossed in to show readers I've done my homework. The Sergeant's Lady refers to Wellington and to Robert Craufurd (one of Wellington's subordinate generals, commander of the Light Division), but neither gets any screentime. And that works fine when your protagonists are a sergeant and a captain's widow. But half the fun of an alternate history is taking real people and putting them in the altered circumstances.
So I'm developing a few of my own characters, including my main protagonist and his love interest, and researching certain key real people, at least one of whom is nearly as important as the protagonist. And it's WEIRD having so much about a major character be determined before I've written a single word. He's in his 30's when my world noticeably diverges from the real world, so he's got a huge chunk of backstory that's right there in the historical record. His personality is largely set--I can justify certain changes based on how I think he'd respond to my scenario, but I've got to work with the material reality gave me. I feel like I owe it to the real man to try to imagine what he would've done, and not to just make him do whatever is convenient for the story or make him a mouthpiece for my worldview.
I don't mind the restrictions, especially because it IS alternate history. But I don't think I could write the sort of fictionalized biographies Philippa Gregory, etc. specialize in. I'd feel too boxed in by reality.
None of my previous books have featured real historical figures as anything more than names tossed in to show readers I've done my homework. The Sergeant's Lady refers to Wellington and to Robert Craufurd (one of Wellington's subordinate generals, commander of the Light Division), but neither gets any screentime. And that works fine when your protagonists are a sergeant and a captain's widow. But half the fun of an alternate history is taking real people and putting them in the altered circumstances.
So I'm developing a few of my own characters, including my main protagonist and his love interest, and researching certain key real people, at least one of whom is nearly as important as the protagonist. And it's WEIRD having so much about a major character be determined before I've written a single word. He's in his 30's when my world noticeably diverges from the real world, so he's got a huge chunk of backstory that's right there in the historical record. His personality is largely set--I can justify certain changes based on how I think he'd respond to my scenario, but I've got to work with the material reality gave me. I feel like I owe it to the real man to try to imagine what he would've done, and not to just make him do whatever is convenient for the story or make him a mouthpiece for my worldview.
I don't mind the restrictions, especially because it IS alternate history. But I don't think I could write the sort of fictionalized biographies Philippa Gregory, etc. specialize in. I'd feel too boxed in by reality.
Monday, January 1, 2007
Looking Back, Looking Forward
New Year's Day makes me doubly reflective, because it's also my birthday. (I'm 36. I feel oldish, or at least not-so-young. And I'm not sure where the past ten years went, except by too quickly.)
2006 didn't turn out as well as I hoped. I'm still not published. As for the rest of my life...well, I still need to lose weight, we still need a a better house, etc. My accomplishments this year mostly had to do with balance, compromise, and accommodation. Thanks to my agent's patient tutelage, I'm better at editing and rewriting than I was before. I learned to be a reasonably productive writer despite working 40 hours/week and having a husband and a toddler. I made less-than-ideal career and housing situations livable. I realized I needed to make changes in what I write to be happy with my work and (I hope!) improve my chances at publication, and I took the first steps toward making those changes a reality. And that's all important and worthwhile--I'm just ready to have a publishing contract, a house of my own, and a less stressful balance of writing, life, and day job.
So I'm making goals for 2007, hoping they'll get me a little closer to those dreams:
1. Finish my WIP, The Inconvenient Bride, by the end of April.
2. Take a few months to research, then start my alternate history no later than September, with the goal of having at least 150 pages written by 12/31/07.
3. Lose weight and exercise. If I want another 50 years to write and enjoy life, I've got to take better care of myself.
4. Make the housing and career situations better. Somehow. Details of this and #3 are beyond the scope of this blog.
2006 didn't turn out as well as I hoped. I'm still not published. As for the rest of my life...well, I still need to lose weight, we still need a a better house, etc. My accomplishments this year mostly had to do with balance, compromise, and accommodation. Thanks to my agent's patient tutelage, I'm better at editing and rewriting than I was before. I learned to be a reasonably productive writer despite working 40 hours/week and having a husband and a toddler. I made less-than-ideal career and housing situations livable. I realized I needed to make changes in what I write to be happy with my work and (I hope!) improve my chances at publication, and I took the first steps toward making those changes a reality. And that's all important and worthwhile--I'm just ready to have a publishing contract, a house of my own, and a less stressful balance of writing, life, and day job.
So I'm making goals for 2007, hoping they'll get me a little closer to those dreams:
1. Finish my WIP, The Inconvenient Bride, by the end of April.
2. Take a few months to research, then start my alternate history no later than September, with the goal of having at least 150 pages written by 12/31/07.
3. Lose weight and exercise. If I want another 50 years to write and enjoy life, I've got to take better care of myself.
4. Make the housing and career situations better. Somehow. Details of this and #3 are beyond the scope of this blog.
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