It’s time for some writerly chit-chat with author and writing mentor Sydney Smith. This month we talk about the power of historical fiction.
JENNY –
Napoleon once said, ‘What is history, but a fable agreed upon?’ Standard history books don’t tell the truth. Absolute truth is beyond reach. The Dutch historian Johan Huizinga states that, ‘the historian is a wrestler with the angel of death.’ What so often emerges is a collection of stories, written by those in power, designed to influence future generations with whatever they wanted us to believe. And too many voices are left out.
Some fabulous Australian writers have tried to redress this. Take historian Clare Wright, for example. Her marvellous book The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka won the 2014 Stella Prize. Wright reinstated women to their rightful place in the history books. Conventional accounts of the Eureka Stockade – as a founding legend for Australian democracy – were blind to the high proportion of women living and working on the Ballarat goldfields. They neglected the crucial contributions women made as agitators, petitioners, fund raisers and all-round rabble-rousers. ‘Women were there,’ Wright states in her introduction. ‘They mined for gold and much else of economic value besides. They paid taxes. They fought for their rights. And they were killed in the crossfire.’ Other non-fiction books like Australian Tragic by Jack Marx and Forgotten War by Henry Reynold place forgotten stories back on the historical record.
But what about historical novels? Fiction gives writers freedom to fill in gaps and explore new explanations and theories. Kate Grenville’s The Secret River and Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang are prime examples of this. Novelists can tell a fresh version of history, tales of the vanquished, the outsiders and in my case – the animals.
SYDNEY –
The novelist is supremely well-equipped to present a different historical agenda. Tolstoy did this in War and Peace, his brick-sized pot-boiler, which argues his ideas about the vicious futility of power, territorial ambition and war. He includes women as central players – because novels have to be about little people if they are to speak to their readers. Natasha Rostova, his main heroine, comes to stand not only for the soul and spirit of Russia but for all that is life-giving and life-sustaining.
The novel can also criticise history’s opinions. In The Child of Time, Josephine Tey has her detective hero turn his attention to Richard III, the last Plantagenet king of England. In his play, Richard III, Shakespeare presents the king as a villain, a child-murderer and a coward. Through her hero, Miss Tey offers an alternative view of Richard, traces the origins of Richard the villain to Sir Thomas More, he who was sacrificed to Henry VIII’s light-fingered attitude to marriage, and to Holinshed, whose Chronicles provided many stories for Shakespeare. Miss Tey notes that both men lived and worked in the service of Tudors. You will recall that Henry Tudor usurped the throne of England by defeating Richard on Bosworth field.
The novel is a polemic. Miss Tey is bent on reversing the historical view of Richard as a bad man. You only have to check out the Wikipedia entry on Richard III to see how her polemic caused consternation amongst historians, some of whom busily rejected her take on the king. For the sake of this blog, it doesn’t matter who was right and who was wrong, though Miss Tey’s argument is persuasive. What matters is that her novel, a classic of detective fiction, put a hissing, clawing cat amongst the fluttering pigeons of academic history.
JENNY-
It’s interesting how you say ‘novels have to be about little people if they are to speak to their readers.’ That of course is the beauty and strength of fiction. Most academic history does the opposite, and is filled with stories of Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Napoleon and various kings and queens.
I glanced through the historical novels on Booktopia. Many titles point to their strength: The War Bride, The Other Boleyn Girl, The Maid, The Ship of Brides, The Tea Planter’s Wife, Girl of Shadows, Orphan Train, The Potato Factory, The Tailor’s Girl – the list goes on and on. Readers of these novels are drawn to tales of ordinary people.
Tim O’Brien, who wrote novels about the Vietnam War once said: ‘A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.’ Before I began writing my historical novel I asked myself – Is it a great story? Will it reveal some new aspect about the people and wildlife of the period? And lastly, does it deal with issues relevant today? The answers to all three questions was yes.
I’m writing a fresh version of history, giving a voice to the outsiders, the hunted and the animals teetering on the extinction precipice. It’s a unique story. Apart from a little gem, Coorinna, written in 1957, there is no historical fiction concerning the Thylacine. It’s time to fill the gap. My new novel will explore the forces behind the extinction of the greatest marsupial predators since Thylacoleo Carnifex, the mighty marsupial lion, vanished forty-five thousand years ago. What if those responsible weren’t the men who shot and snared them? What part did xenophobia play in their demise? And could the heroic actions of one, young fugitive alter the fate of an entire species?
Shakespeare is famous for his anachronisms. He wrote of a clock in Julius Caesar, when clocks would not have existed. In the same play he talks of a man wearing a doublet, a garment unknown in ancient Rome, but fashionable in Shakespeare’s time. In Macbeth he talks about dollars, the wrong unit of currency. Then there is Cleopatra wanting to play billiards. Billiards was invented almost 2000 years after her reign, but was a game of luxury and masculine entertainment in Shakespeare’s era. The audience would have understood that it was an allusion to Cleopatra’s enormous political power. Such anachronisms were probably intentional, designed to help a contemporary audience engage more easily with a historical period.
The same cannot be said of the anachronisms in the manuscripts I’ve assessed over the years. In some cases, these errors are there because the writer hasn’t done their research. But more often, it’s a failure of imagination. When a writer sets a story in the early 1980s and describes a character texting messages on her phone, I’m quite sure the writer hasn’t exerted themselves enough to imagine themselves into the time of their story. They can’t imagine life without mobiles.
I think this points to one of the nagging problems of writing historical fiction. The writer doesn’t simply have to do their research and get the fashions, architecture, language and political scene correct. The writer has to think themselves into the world they have created. People in the past thought differently, had a different outlook, a different worldview to people of today. Many behaviours remain recognisably the same. But the way people understand the world and how it operates, what they expect, is different. Those who are old enough, have seen how quickly worldviews can change. People who were adults in the 1980s know what it’s like to set out for a date or an appointment or to meet a friend on the understanding that something might happen to derail them. They can’t phone to say something’s come up – they missed their train, they witnessed a mugging and stopped to help the victim, they tripped and sprained their ankle. I postponed for years getting a mobile, hating the idea of being in constant reach of other people. Then one day I set out to meet a friend for lunch. I missed the train. I was only ten minutes late, but she was furious because I hadn’t been able to let her know I was delayed. My attitude was the old one – it didn’t matter if I was ten minutes late. Things happen. Her attitude was the new one – no matter what, you phone to let the other person know something’s come up. The next day, I bought a mobile. Now I’m bumping up against another new assumption about the world – that everyone’s got a smart phone. I still have my old steam-powered phone, which can’t receive emails. People send images to my phone and can’t understand why I don’t respond. But that’s another story!
It sounds like you’d fit perfectly into a historical novel, Sydney! As you say, an anachronistic worldview can be just as disconcerting to readers as obvious lapses like mobile phones that hadn’t been invented yet. This is particularly important when writing about fairly recent periods. I intend writing a book roughly covering the years 1929 – 1960. Some people will remember these times from first-hand experience. My mother once complained about a novel set in World War 2. ‘There weren’t nylon stockings during the war,’ she said. ‘Nylon was reserved for military use, like making parachutes.’
Conflicting goals lie at the heart of Anna Karenina. Anna wants both her adulterous lover Vronsky and her child. In nineteenth century Russia she can’t have both. Will she follow her burning passion whatever the cost? Or will she return to a safe, suffocating marriage for the sake of her child? She chooses Vronsky. Her choice destroys their love and leads to ultimate disaster. Tolstoy uses action, thoughts, dialogue and backstory to emphasise the pull of these conflicting goals. They seem equally matched, until the fatal choice is made.
The greater the war within, the more compelling your story will be. Donald Maass, in Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook, sets out a good way to create conflicting goals. ‘Ask what does your hero most want in the novel – his story goal. Then ask what’s the opposite of that, or mutually exclusive to it? Give your hero an equally compelling reason to not pursue his goal. He wants both at once, but can’t have them both. The story will play out in how the hero pursues these opposing desires until the conflict is resolved, one way or another.’
I see two main categories in this genre. There are the period pieces, frequently romances, such as the books of Georgette Heyer. These novels are set in a specific period, but are not impacted by specific historical events. I sometimes find these tedious, wishing they contained the odd true-life signpost to ground me in their times. Then there are what I call the genuine historicals, where both people and events from the past play a role. When well-written, these are the stories that fascinate me.
SYDNEY-
Also, women had been sent back into the home after the end of World War II, when men returned from the battlefields. The United States went through a period of growth in a materialistic sense, but also underwent torments of another kind. The 1950s is the era of McCarthyism. It’s also the era that gave rise to The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan’s groundbreaking book about the suburban malaise gripping women as their lives narrowed to cramped confinement, all domesticity with no outlet for their intellectual energies and wider aspirations. Hollywood depictions of women changed too. The dumb blonde was born in the 1950s. All of which is great for me and the kind of women’s fiction I write, about psychological confinement and the urge toward liberty.
gum framed by pink sunrise. When you go to the heart of your setting, maps become landscapes. Statistics turn into people. Mountains and rivers become metaphors.
I’m deep in edits for my upcoming novel, Journey’s End, which will be out with Penguin Random House at the end of May. Taking regular walks is a must, to clear my head, and it’s always a treat for me to find an insect like this one during my wanderings – Ctenomorphodes chronus. 
Fossil discoveries from modern-day Mongolia mark some of the earliest examples of twig-mimicking insects. Evolution quickly produced disguises for bugs, with the arrival of the earliest birds and mammals, which visually preyed upon insects during the age of dinosaurs. This is more tantalizing evidence of early insect-plant co evolution. These ancient phasmids were about 7 cm long from tail to antenna tip. They had parallel black lines running along their wings, which at rest would have resembled a ginkgo tree leaf, also preserved as fossils in China and Mongolia where the insects lived.
I’m delighted to be part of the 
There is little more poignant in life, than helping to pack up the house of a loved one who has died too young. This has been my sad task recently, since the untimely death of my brother, Rod Scoullar. He was a learned man, a man who loved Australia’s fauna and flora – a naturalist of the first order. His study was a gold-mine of nature books, stored on impressive floor-to-ceiling shelves that covered an entire wall. It was here that I found the holy grail for Aussie orchid lovers – Australian Indigenous Orchids Vol 1 & 2 by A W Dockrill. These are hard to find volumes, and sell on-line 
for up to $200 a set. But aside from being the definitive treatises on native orchids, they also provided me with a wonderful link to my new book, Journey’s End, which will be out in late May.
The Ravine Orchid is found in wet, humid rainforests of the Great Dividing Range, where waterfalls cascade from the tablelands. It is 
I was fortunate enough to buy a tiny specimen from the 
This is a tricky area. In some instances, an action will indeed reveal how a character feels. But the writer has to make sure that it does, and that it shows it strongly enough. For example, if a character is responding to an insult, they might redden and glare. But what if the character is having a reflective moment, thinking over some revelation that overturns their assumptions? In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen writes such a moment for Elizabeth Bennet, after Elizabeth reads Darcy’s letter explaining his relationship with Wickham and his actions concerning Jane and Bingley. Miss Austen knows an action won’t cover it. Not even a series of actions. The reader needs analysis of how Elizabeth feels, and how her feelings evolve from angry rejection of Darcy’s version to confused acceptance. That means emotions have to be named and thoughts described. If they aren’t named, the reader won’t know what she feels, and won’t be able to feel with her.
For example, maybe our character Peter is in an unhappy marriage, or hates his job. So the writer quite rightly puts Peter in difficult and provoking situations – perhaps he fights with his boss or his wife walks out on him. With something this crucial, it’s important to indicate Peter’s internal thoughts and emotions. There are a variety of ways for Peter to respond to his spouse leaving. He might be angry, resentful, relieved, scared, liberated, or a mix of these. It’s risky to let readers fill in the blanks until Peter’s character is well established. My editor once said you run another risk too. If the writer doesn’t emphasise Peter’s feelings, readers might think he doesn’t care – might think the event washed over him, leaving him cold. So it’s important to show reactions. Otherwise characters might be misunderstood. But don’t overdo it!
‘I lost the baby,’ said Anne. ‘A son.’
As readers, we are on a search for feeling – for a quickened pulse and a brighter pallet of colours than we find in everyday life. To feel, we need an emotional connection with the characters. I believe it’s the place where all good stories start.
Anyway, describing your character’s emotions closes the gap between reader and character. Without that emotional content, the reader is forced to stand at a distance from the story, is forced to think the story, not feel the story. Thinking it is a lesser experience and lets the reader off the hook before they’ve got anywhere near it. Emotional investment is a vital ingredient in that much-desired quality we call unputdownable.
One of the first things I noticed about this passage of dialogue is the power transfer. At the start, the power balance is fairly equal between the two characters, with a slight leaning toward Timkin, who has taken the moral high ground.
Kelleher underlines the menace in Petie’s tone by describing it. This has at least two functions. The first is to emphasise the power transfer. Emphasis is a vital part of good narrative. The second function is to draw a line under the dialogue sequence. The scene goes on but this bit of power transfer has been framed and divided from the next bit of the story by the description of Petie’s sinister tone of voice.
Yes, dialogue gains in texture if the writer uses other ways of conveying what’s going on with the characters, or if they’re inventive with their character responses. It takes practice and confidence to know when to use words and when an action will do the job just as well or better.
‘Here are stories from Australia’s dark heart: Of catastrophe and misfortune, intrigue and passion, betrayal and tragedy. Some you may think you know – others, you have never heard of – but will capture your imagination.’
