|
|
|
January 10, 2012
A slightly shorter version of this essay first appeared at fellow author Suzanne Adair's blog, Relevant History.
* * *
Most people’s knowledge of the French Revolution, picked up from movies and lurid novels, is pretty much limited to 1789, Bastille Day, and howling mobs, illustrated with snippets from The Scarlet Pimpernel. Guillotines, old hags knitting, innocent aristocrats being persecuted, lots of gore.
So what should make all that stuff relevant to us in the twenty-first century? We in North America don’t have kings and queens to overthrow. There’s no palace of Versailles with its obscene opulence, no titled aristocracy, no Marie-Antoinette swanning about with a three-foot hairdo.
Well, just about everything we think of when the words “French Revolution” come up (aside from Bastille Day) actually happened as a result of the second French Revolution.
Eh?
The second French Revolution?
OK, let me explain. 1789—during which a lot of extremely important stuff did happen—is the date most people learned about in school, and they (more…)
August 15, 2011
Tags:
historical mysteries, fictional detectives
I've started something new--a series of interviews with fictional sleuths from historical mysteries being published today. These will, I hope, be posted every couple of weeks. My own blog pieces on various subjects will still come up, now and then, "when I get around to it!"
My goal for the new series is to interview a wide variety of fictional sleuths featured in historical mystery novels (particularly series novels), whether published in print or in the decidedly futuristic eBook medium. I hope that we'll all have fun meeting sleuths from across the globe and across world history. Check back every week or so to see what's going on.
This interview blog will also post at WordPress: http://susannealleyn.wordpress.com/
Feel free to spread the word to other readers and authors via tweet, Facebook, discussion groups, carrier pigeon, etc.
If you are an author of published (or soon-to-be-published) historical mystery novels, and you (more…)
August 4, 2011
Tags:
writing, plotting, mystery writing, plot structure
They say there are two types of fiction writers: plotters and pantsers.
Plotters are blessed with the ability to create complex plots from beginning to end; they write down a complete outline, whether in a loose synopsis, a tightly structured timeline, a series of index cards, or whatever, before they write Word One of the actual novel. Pantsers, on the other hand, can’t possibly think that far ahead, and take an idea, a situation, a setting, a character or two, with a rough idea of where the story is going, and just plunge onward, writing “by the seat of their pants.”
There are advantages to both of these methods, and which method works for you depends on what kind of writer (and basic personality) you are. I, for one, am a pantser. I write mysteries, among other things, and I couldn’t come up with the entire outline of a novel, particularly a mystery novel, even if you held a gun to my head. But if I begin with a basic idea, if I know (more…)
November 3, 2010
Tags:
French Revolution, pop culture
“Wow! You write novels!” people sometimes exclaim when they meet me. “What are they about?”
“Well, I, um, write historical mysteries . . .” I reply (they perk up, thinking perhaps of a nice medieval whodunit with a sleuthing nun), “. . . set in the French Revolution.” And then I wait for that familiar, baffled expression to flicker across their faces. Because I know that the next question, or at least the next question that they’re dying to ask me, is probably: “Why do you write about such a grim, violent, horrible period of history as the French Revolution? Yuck!” (Insert thought balloon above the questioner, featuring a crude guillotine, some severed heads, and lots of blood.)
Actually, I write about it because I don’t think it’s horrible--or at least not nearly as horrible as two (more…)
October 25, 2010
[Note: Janet was also a member of the panel on historical accuracy that inspired the "Rewriting History?" entries, below.]
Me and The Rest of the World
I love reading a book that takes me some place I know nothing about. Sometimes my ignorance is geographic--through literature I’ve learned about the landscape of places as different as East Africa, Chile and the Russian steppes. Sometimes fiction has given me insight into a foreign culture--the astounding ethnic and religious diversity of India, for example, or the highly structured society of Japan. But the best books are the ones that educate me through a history that I had previously been unaware of.
I grew up reading historical fiction. As a ‘tween I loved the swashbuckling novels of Thomas Costain, who could sweep me from (more…)
September 10, 2010
Tags:
historical mystery, publishing, getting published, self-publishing, midlist authors
The following rant is a greatly extended version of my comment to an online piece about self-publishing (I, like the blogger, am largely against it for those who consider themselves professionals, in case you can’t tell). First reading the original post, “A Modest Proposal For Authors Who Abandon Their Publishers--Give Me a Break,” may clarify a bit of what’s below: visit http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/29/self-publish-and-be-damned/
As a professionally/commercially published author of five novels, I would never dream of self-publishing. Why? Because I do want to be taken seriously as a writer. (Self-republishing my own out-of-print work as eBooks, no financial investment required, is another matter entirely--that’s a no-brainer that all published authors with an out-of-print backlist should plunge into immediately.)
I have nothing against publishers in general--they are a vital part of the business. They provide important editorial services, and they filter out the atrocious manuscripts from (more…)
August 17, 2010
Tags:
historical fiction, changing history
[Did you miss Part 1 of this essay? Scroll down...]
So perhaps some commandments for historical novelists should be:
I. Thou shalt not change significant/universally-known historical events and facts. Every reasonably well-read reader of thy story will throw thy book against the wall and instantly label thee an ignoramus who couldn’t be bothered to do even minimal research.
Pretty basic. You can’t get away with saying Marie-Antoinette escaped the guillotine or that some other European explorer got to America first (and lived to tell about it and bring stuff back with him that other people eat in your novel) without plunging straight into the realm of alternate history, and you’d better darn well TELL us it’s alternate history. On the first page.
I should probably use the word “manuscript” rather than “book” here, because it is highly (more…)
July 2, 2010
Tags:
historical fiction, changing history
At the end of May, I went to the Bloody Words mystery conference in Toronto, where I met some wonderful people and (I hope) acquired one or two new readers. As part of the BW programming, I was a member of the author panel discussing the topic “Rewriting History: How much can and do historical mystery writers play with historical facts & people—should facts take a back seat to story?”
Sylvia Warsh, our moderator, started things off with the following quote:
“We must never become slaves to the history; we must be prepared to jettison, rearrange, conflate, to play as fast and loose with the facts as we need to to create good fiction.”
OK, I’m a complete, self-described history geek, as both a writer and a reader, and to me, that quote (by Sarah Bower, a former UK editor of The Historical Novels Review, no less) felt like (more…)
June 11, 2010
Tags:
blogging, journals, writing
I never, ever claim to have a good command of spoken French, but I couldn't resist this multilingual pun. "Blague" means "joke" in French, and the thought of myself (formerly the teenager who could never abide the thought of writing endless self-involved musings in a diary) trying to write the high-tech equivalent of a journal is something of a jest. However...
Bienvenue/welcome! Here I'll be nattering on about historical fiction, the French Revolution in particular, writing historical mysteries, publishing, and any related matters that come to mind. I'll try to post at least once every other week, and also will host some guests from time to time. Please visit frequently, leave a comment if you wish, and stay tuned...
|
|
Aristide Ravel Mysteries:
Book 1 of the Ravel Mysteries Standalone:
A reimagining of Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities |
E-mail me==> Please note! Because I send out a lot of emails, often my messages will end up in a spam folder. If you email me, please check your spam folder for my reply if you don't receive one shortly. (You can also put this email address, aristideravel (at) yahoo dot com, in your address book, which should keep my messages from being filtered out.
Subscribe to the mailing listReceive monthly updates from Susanne
Susanne Alleyn novels at Spoilerville.comDiscuss books and stories after you've read them. Be warned! Spoilers appear here!
Join my Author page at FacebookReceive brief updates and announcements as they happen: click "Like"
CrimeThruTime at YahooGroupsDiscussion for historical mystery fans
 |
|
1 Comment