My aim when I write is to take my readers back to a time and not tell them about it. I want them to feel it and experience it for themselves.
A good example of achieving this was when I took my granddaughters, then about three and five, to see March of the Penguins. It was July in California. After about half an hour one of them climbed onto my lap. "Can I sit on your lap, Nana? I'm so cold," she said. "Me too," the other replied.
The power of suggestion!
That's what I want to achieve with words.
So I start off by reading all the factual stuff to make sure I get things right. I don't want hundreds of emails telling me that a particular town was bombed on a Tuesday when I said it was Thursday. Yes, people do that. If I have a train leaving at a wrong time they tell me. Never mind if it is filled with fictional people and that something fictionally bad will happen on that train. It matters to them that it is the 2:10 from Paddington and not the 2:15/
So for In Farleigh Field I read a lot of books about the workings of MI5 and Bletchley Park. I studied up on the fake news radio stations being broadcast from Germany. Then I read first person accounts of working for MI5 and at Bletchley. I read diaries kept by ordinary housewives during the war, lamenting how hard it was to feed a family on a tin of spam and potatoes. And doing the laundry when you couldn't get soap. Those are the things that matter when you're reading about a time. You immediately put yourself in the place of that housewife and ask yourself how you could have fed your family when there was no meat to be had.
The final stage was to go there. I'd been to Churchill's war rooms before. I'd been to a museum, now closed, about London in the Blitz and seen their exhibit on evacuated children. And experienced a simulated bombing in a bomb shelter. And I've been into a fabulous London bar in Soho that is in a former Tube station. You go down the actual wooden steps of the former escalator. You are given a ticket and when you present it at the ticket booth you are back in 1940 when the station was turned into an airraid shelter. There are the bunks where people slept. 1940s music is playing, the barmaids are dressed in 1940s dresses. You are spoken to as if you have come down during the air raid.
Brilliant.
And my most important visit was to Bletchley Park. I loved the way they had recreated the cubicles in the huts to make me feel that the occupants had just stepped out for lunch. What depressing working conditions, dark, freezing in winter, cramped and under such pressure.
So I add all these experiences to my own--my memories of post-war childhood with rationing and bomb sites everywhere and my aunts' tales of what they went through when a train they were traveling on was stopped and in the silence they heard bombs being dropped nearby. Or my husband's memory, as a child, of riding his bike past a group standing at a bus stop. A few minutes later he heard a popping sound. A German plane had dived low and machine gunned those standing at that bus stop. That's how precarious life was!
So my question is: what small things have transported you to a time and place when you are reading? Does it really matter to you that the author gets everything right?
I think you got it exactly right, Rhys . . . the feeling and experiencing of events is part of what makes the book so unputdownable. And the story stays with you, even after you’ve read the last words on the last page . . . .
ReplyDeleteAs a reader, I find that sometimes it doesn’t quite matter if the author gets everything exactly right. If the story pulls me in, then I’m not thinking about those details because I’m involved with what’s happening to the characters and have a sense of being there, of being totally encompassed in the story . . . .
true.
DeleteI can relate, Rhys, as you know! I was very nervous about my own research when I went to a local book club meeting and one fellow said at dinner beforehand that he was born and raised here in town, was a bit of a history buff, and had some comments for the book discussion. I was terribly worried about what I had gotten wrong. Instead he said he thought it was completely accurate, that I had all the streets (for the era) in the right places, businesses were named correctly, and so on. Whew!
ReplyDeleteEdith, I was impressed by the Quaker Midwife book. I knew very little about the Quakers.
DeleteMy 3x great grandfather's sister married a Quaker in Indiana. Her husband was excommiunicated (sp?) by the Quakers for marrying someone who was NOT a Quaker. I was surprised to learn that because I thought the Quakers saw everyone as equals?
What a great essay Rhys--if we had any doubts about whether you simply dash things off, they are gone! I have never written historical mysteries like you and Edith, but I understand completely that people don't want to get jolted out of a story by bloopers. My most interesting research could have been playing with actual LPGA golfers to get details right for the golf mystery series. And it was a blast!
ReplyDeleteLucy, that must have been fun playing with LPGA golfers!
DeleteWow. So great to hear how you do your background work. Now I *really* can't wait to read this book! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteSo fun to learn how research work is.
DeleteRhys, I love to be transported and feel like I am experiencing life as it was while reading in historical books. I understand it's a fine balance between doing enough research to get the setting and key details right (i.e. no horrendous bloopers for readers to find) and not overdoing it. Looking forward to reading Farleigh Field!
ReplyDeleteGrace, you would love Farleigh Field. I loved it!
DeleteWhen I'm reading, and I look up, shocked to find I'm in my living room or in the lunch room at work, I know the author has done an excellent job of transporting me to the era/location.
ReplyDeleteI'm about halfway through In Farleigh Field. I have a clear picture in my head of the places, and am convinced I would recognize photos of them. Thank you, Rhys!
Deb Romano
I feel as if I was in a time machine, travelling back to that time in history whenever I read a historical fiction by the author.
DeleteI always think the story will tell you what you need. You've done your research, you have lots of information at your fingertips, and you start writing. Then you 'reach' for a detail to put here, then one there, because the scene you are writing 'needs' that bit of detail. That kind of seamlessness is what sucks me into a book. I really hate it when the research is obvious. When the author is so proud of their work (and I know it's hard work!) that they assume the reader doesn't know anything or else they feel it necessary to mention that the 'x' was just invented and how much more convenient 'x' is than the old way of doing something. Very jarring. Then I put the book down, usually. And honestly, I think that kind of research and attention to detail is used in most good writing--even if you're writing about a place that is utterly familiar to you--you need to pay attention to details to create the atmosphere and setting you want.
ReplyDeleteOn year we took out daughter on a Disney Cruise for spring break. It was exceptionally hot in the Bahamas with the temperature reaching 100F at 10am. I had brought several books to read while my husband and daughter took a sightseeing boat ride (sadly, my daughter turned out to have the same kind of seasickness I do so neither enjoyed it much). I settled into the sand under a palm tree and umbrella with the sweating drink the Disney cast member had brought me and promptly cracked open Deanna Raybourn's Silent on the Moor. And there I proceeded to experience a cognitive dissonance so severe I had to put the book away. The contrast between the damp, windswept weather seeping into the clothing of the characters, the icy wind slapping into their faces and the sweat rolling down my back was too great.
ReplyDeleteThat's the kind of detail that you have to have been there to get right - just how the wind can bite into your skin - so the reader can take the trip too.
DebRo, I would recognize them too! And Rhys, I think, has this serendipitously brilliant combination of real life experience with devoted research. There is such a moment between having read about something, and knowing something. And that's what is evident in a truly transporting book.
ReplyDeleteI think the rhythm of the language is also important, not just the facts, it all has to be so seamless. It has to be sales, as well, and contemporary novels, you know? Depending on where you are and who was talking. And even a few years difference in the year makes a huge difference, for instance, whether someone is using a fax machine, or a Betamax!
So when people say to me "how do you bang out a book a year?" I barely know how to answer…
So Rhys, you have hit it out of the ballpark. Oops, I mean, what-- batted it out of the cricket…lawn ? Or wait, would that be a good thing?
Rhys, how much did the research change the specifics of the plot? Did it give you a completely different direction to go in? Or did it torpedo something you had in mind?
ReplyDeleteIngrid, one piece of annoying research was that I wanted the German soy to be given away by a different aspect of his uniform. Alas that wasn't true so I had to improvise.
ReplyDeleteI plead guilty to being a former 'nit-picker' reader. I found it jarring especially when characters would travel from point to point without taking time zones, or travel time into account; taking 5 hours to go from Paris to Brisbane. I wondered if this is sloppy research, or sloppy editing; it got in the way of the reading experience.
ReplyDeleteOnce I gave up on assigning perfectionism to the reading experience, it became much more pleasant. Better to find enjoyment than fault.
Coralee, I think there is no ecuse for getting anything wrong that can be looked up on the Internet. Occasionally the author has no way of knowing she doesn't know something. Street names in Paris change so often that it was hard to find out what St street was called in 1905. But the wrong station in London, the wrong form of address.. I'll put down the book
DeleteCoralee, I am a former nit-picker too. There was a historical fiction that mentioned that Princess Margaret Rose was born in 1932, when I knew that she was born in 1930. Other than that, the book was great. So I was willing to overlook that little fact.
DeleteJungle Red Writers - the author's note is much appreciated!
Having lived in the Washington, DC area for forty years, I am very conscious of geographic errors in novels and movies -- but I wouldn't criticize an author or director for something like that. What makes the written word feel real is the atmosphere and the descriptions of food, clothing, furniture, etc. I love that you do this research and every bit contributes to your writing, whether or not you use a specific "fact." I can tell if there is depth to a writer's recreation time and place.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a great book.
Rhys, one of the aspects that I so enjoyed about In Farleigh Field was the differences in the well-connected, upper class and the average citizen in their deprivations and their attitudes toward those deprivations. You did such a great job of taking us back to that time and place. I felt it.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a stickler, where an occasional mistake will ruin my reading of historical fiction, but I like learning history through fictional tales, so I prefer and appreciate accuracy in the truly important details. When an author like you, Rhys, does the work, the reading and on-site research, it is much appreciated, and it shows in the writing.
Rhys, you are always brilliant at creating an authentic sense of time and place. I particularly loved the account of the earthquake and fire in San Francisco in A Time of Fog and Fire. It made it so real for me that even when I was there a few weeks ago, I kept thinking about the scenes from the book!
ReplyDeleteI agree that details, whether writing historical fiction or contemporary fiction, are so important. I want to know how things sounded, and smelled, and how a piece of clothing felt. I only discovered that I loved history when I started reading historical novels:-)
I am not, however, a stickler for things like the getting the train time right, unless it matters to the plot!
I do, however, seem to recall weeks of agony over research into when they put the lights on one of the bridges in London. You wanted to get it just right, and you did. You are a demon researcher when working on your own books--willing to take to the Thames in a racing shell with some guy you met in a bar--if necessary to get the sound, smell, and feel of rowing at dawn. It's part of what makes them special.
DeleteI think it's a balance. Writing fiction should give some poetic license but then again you have to get the details right. I am really good at suspending my disbelief so I'm definitely not a stickler but if I hear a contemporary voice come out of a character in a story set in the past, well, they'd better be time traveling! Rhys, I love hearing about how you research your work - fascinating!
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to reading the book, so I enjoyed reading about the research behind it.
ReplyDeletejanet
Some of the little details makes the story more real. I think if the author knows certain flowers are blooming at this time and place, or that certain things are unavailable at the markets due to the season or to shortages, then I can trust he/she has done her research. Sounds and scents reported make me believe that the place is not unknown to the author, that he/she has visited to get the feel of a place.
ReplyDeleteRhys, I always enjoyed reading your historical fiction novels. I feel as if I stepped into a time machine and travelled back to that place in history when I read your books. If there are historical mistakes, then I wonder if it is the author's way of using poetic license for the stake of the story?
ReplyDeleteInteresting about comments about train timetables. I used to be a nitpicker about facts like the birthdate of Princess Margaret Rose in one of the novels. I decided to forget about the "facts" and enjoy the book.
When I had to read "dry" history books for my University history classes, I also read historical fiction by Jean Plaidy. That was how I found out about Margaret Tudor, who married the King of Scotland then Charles Brandon.