Writing is more vivid for the reader when the writer inserts certain kinds of details. Any way a writer can get in nuggets of information from any of the five human senses, it makes the written work more alive. In historical fiction, other data bits mined from real history flesh out a novel or story. Searching for the right detail and inserting an appropriate sensation into a piece of writing can be enjoyable, edifying and frustrating.
When the reader hears the tink of a tea cup as a character sets it back down on its saucer, it helps us subtly feel his reaction to something that’s been said. Visual description helps the reader see things through a character’s eyes. When a ski jumper sees whooshing streaks of horizontal colors with a whistled sailing down to the snow, the reader has a brief sense of being the jumper. In one of my scenes in Lawyer Lincoln In Transit to Freedom An historical nonfiction novel, I used two senses to help deepen the focus of a scene and convey a sense of impatience. Lincoln is visiting a former law partner, worried and seeking advice about defending abolitionists and refusing representation to a slave master. While the two lawyers are combing through some legal texts together, I referenced the gentlemanly scent of burning tobacco in the background and the delicate ticking of a brass, mantel clock. Taste and touch are challenging to express. I have not used taste much other than sentences like a bitter taste coursed through him. My touch sensations generally tend to be a mix of visual and sensory: he put his hand to his temple and rubbed it, or, he pounded the podium with his fist.
Other ways of creating verisimilitude for historical fiction is to find and use the material related to artifacts of the era, clothing, furniture and customs of the time and place. In the opening scene of my book, in 1837, one character is holding a rolled up newspaper and looks menacing. I suggested, through Lincoln’s thought, that the man might be concealing an “an iron lid lifter” from a stove, a knife or one of those “new pocket pistols” inside. It took me hours of hunting on the internet, for photos and blogs and articles to discover what things people used in the early 1800’s that might fit into a rolled up newspaper. I also came across a delicious factoid, that Lincoln and his law partner sometimes used a buffalo robe for warmth while riding the judicial circuit in Illinois. I had to place that robe across a chair when the scary would-be client comes calling in chapter one. In another one of my scenes, I try to blend Lincoln’s character and vernacular into a memory of Mary Todd, who Lincoln views as different from the typical, unapproachable porcelain and lace women that attended parties.
It was extremely helpful to me as a writer to visit a number of Lincoln sites in Illinois. The Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield is outstanding. A recreation of Lincoln’s one-room boyhood home that patrons walk through really helped to experience the feeling of Lincoln’s simplicity and what the world of books must have meant to him. In New Salem, walking through the outdoor village staffed with period actors, telling about their daily lives was like cranking up the old cartoon Peabody Way-Back time machine. I visited Lincoln and Herdon’s law office and the Illinois Supreme Court, housed in the Illinois Old State Office building. I cannot underestimate the value of standing in those places, seeing what Lincoln saw, in the environments he lived in. It helped me immensely in crafting Lincoln onto the page. I don’t know how the historical fiction writers do it, who write about Medieval or ancient times—except to think they must be getting in some awfully, cool travel.
When the reader hears the tink of a tea cup as a character sets it back down on its saucer, it helps us subtly feel his reaction to something that’s been said. Visual description helps the reader see things through a character’s eyes. When a ski jumper sees whooshing streaks of horizontal colors with a whistled sailing down to the snow, the reader has a brief sense of being the jumper. In one of my scenes in Lawyer Lincoln In Transit to Freedom An historical nonfiction novel, I used two senses to help deepen the focus of a scene and convey a sense of impatience. Lincoln is visiting a former law partner, worried and seeking advice about defending abolitionists and refusing representation to a slave master. While the two lawyers are combing through some legal texts together, I referenced the gentlemanly scent of burning tobacco in the background and the delicate ticking of a brass, mantel clock. Taste and touch are challenging to express. I have not used taste much other than sentences like a bitter taste coursed through him. My touch sensations generally tend to be a mix of visual and sensory: he put his hand to his temple and rubbed it, or, he pounded the podium with his fist.
Other ways of creating verisimilitude for historical fiction is to find and use the material related to artifacts of the era, clothing, furniture and customs of the time and place. In the opening scene of my book, in 1837, one character is holding a rolled up newspaper and looks menacing. I suggested, through Lincoln’s thought, that the man might be concealing an “an iron lid lifter” from a stove, a knife or one of those “new pocket pistols” inside. It took me hours of hunting on the internet, for photos and blogs and articles to discover what things people used in the early 1800’s that might fit into a rolled up newspaper. I also came across a delicious factoid, that Lincoln and his law partner sometimes used a buffalo robe for warmth while riding the judicial circuit in Illinois. I had to place that robe across a chair when the scary would-be client comes calling in chapter one. In another one of my scenes, I try to blend Lincoln’s character and vernacular into a memory of Mary Todd, who Lincoln views as different from the typical, unapproachable porcelain and lace women that attended parties.
It was extremely helpful to me as a writer to visit a number of Lincoln sites in Illinois. The Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield is outstanding. A recreation of Lincoln’s one-room boyhood home that patrons walk through really helped to experience the feeling of Lincoln’s simplicity and what the world of books must have meant to him. In New Salem, walking through the outdoor village staffed with period actors, telling about their daily lives was like cranking up the old cartoon Peabody Way-Back time machine. I visited Lincoln and Herdon’s law office and the Illinois Supreme Court, housed in the Illinois Old State Office building. I cannot underestimate the value of standing in those places, seeing what Lincoln saw, in the environments he lived in. It helped me immensely in crafting Lincoln onto the page. I don’t know how the historical fiction writers do it, who write about Medieval or ancient times—except to think they must be getting in some awfully, cool travel.
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