I love reading historical fiction.
Getting lost in the world of a great story inspired by true events is the ultimate escape for me.
I’ve always admired authors who are able to describe a world from long ago so clearly that I can put myself right there in the midst of the action. Through the word pictures they paint, I am transported to ancient Egypt or 1930s Chicago.
But let me tell you something.
Writing historical fiction is HARD.
Like, really, really HARD.
I learned this when I published Waverly: A Novel back in 2017, but I guess it’s kind of like childbirth. Once that beautiful baby arrives, it’s easy to forget the pain it took to bring that little miracle into the world.
And now here I am, all these years later, putting myself through it once again.
It’s hard to turn off the inner critic when you write anything, but that’s especially true of historical fiction. Not only do I have to remind myself not to nitpick every little detail and that it’s okay – I can go back later and fix that section of dialogue or verify that date.
I also find myself constantly stopping to google things like the prices of various foods in 1900, train stations, routes, and distances between various cities, and the most popular baby names in 1891. What types of classes were offered at that college in 1898? When exactly was the Model T introduced into the world? Each question leads to another. It’s the epitome of going down that infamous internet rabbit hole with no end in sight.
It’s exhausting. Utterly exhausting work.
This afternoon, in the middle of searching for videos of gymnastic competitions in the early 1900s (don’t ask), I found myself wondering how in the world authors wrote historical fiction before the internet. Did they seriously spend hours combing through old newspapers and books, or did they just make up the miniscule details, safe in the knowledge that no one else would know how much a ticket to the circus cost in 1905 either?
I am a plotter (a writer who plans out the details of the plot before writing) and definitely not a “pantser” (one who just starts writing and flies by the seat of their pants, letting the writing go where it will). That means I am painfully aware that this weekend I worked hard to finish a very rough first draft of chapter 8 out of 38 on this novel. Yes, you heard me, I said 8 out of 38.
All progress is some progress, right? RIGHT?!?
Now, I’m off to research some more.
Anyone know anything about vaudeville acts of the early 1900s?
Sigh.
Amy Bellamy, Author 