Carl R. Brush, Author THE SECOND VENDETTA |
Carl R. Brush is a writer.
He just released his historical thriller, The Second Vendetta, based on real
people in the pre-WWI San Francisco area. He has also published his work in The Summerset Review, Right Hand Pointing, Blazevox, Storyglossia, Feathertale,
and the Kiss Machine. In the
following post, he shares some tips on turning real historical people
into engaging characters.
Turning Real People Into Real Characters
By Carl R. Brush
If you write historical
fiction, you’ll almost surely want to include known historical figures in your
narrative. Our readers hunger not only to learn about, but to experience these
people and their times with an intensity no textbook can offer. Presenting your
audience with “real” characters creates a sense of authenticity that puts the
reader’s imagination in the midst of the period and the scene like no other
device. They’re also fun to write.
Sometimes, they’ll simply
pass through, adding a bit of background and color. Your fictional family
might, for example, catch sight of George Washington in a parade, but would be
no more likely to meet him than you are to meet Barack Obama. Often, however,
you’ll involve such characters closely in your story. In a novelized biography
they’ll likely appear as protagonist, like Nell Gwynn in Gillian Bagwell’s Darling Strumpet. More often, they will
take ancillary, though important, roles like Ambrose Bierce and Hiram Johnson
in my The Second Vendetta.
With well-known characters
such as Nell Gwynn, the world (not to mention that pesky scholar) knows so much
about your subject that your task is not so much to create a story as to make
what is known entertaining and absorbing and to perhaps add facts and events
that are not general knowledge. (“My goodness, how interesting. I didn’t know
that,” is the reaction you want from your readers.) You’re free to invent
details and sparkling conversations, and you get to allow readers delicious
peeks behind the curtains to find out what Charles II was “really” like, but
you must hew closely to the basic facts.
Of course, you do have
latitude where there is scholarly disagreement or speculation, as when Hilary
Mandel in Bring Up the Bodies, decided
whom to include and whom to omit in her narrative about Anne Boleyn’s supposed parade
of lovers. However, your essential job is to take the body of known fact and
opinion and transmute that “life” into art. You can’t have someone tomcatting
around the South Seas at a time when he was supposed to be occupying the White
House.
Lesser known figures such as
my Ambrose Bierce and Hiram Johnson gave me more storytelling latitude than
either Bagwell or Mandel had. Many will recognize Bierce as a turn-of-the-20th-century
San Francisco newspaper columnist, the author of The Devil’s Dictionary, and, perhaps, as the main character in
Oakley Hall’s recent fine mystery series. Not so many will recognize Hiram
Johnson as the premiere reform governor in California History. Elected in 1910
(the election in which my protagonist, Andy Maxwell, becomes a reluctant
candidate for the state assembly), Johnson served only two years of his term
(No Palin-like resignation. He went to the U.S. senate.), but in that short time
brought to the state women’s suffrage, the recall and the referendum, and a
spate of anti-trust legislation that loosened the railroad’s stranglehold on
the California economy.
Not that I didn’t have to do plenty of research. However, I didn’t feel I had to include most of what I found out, and I didn’t have to present every detail with great historical accuracy. I had parameters, of course. I couldn’t have Bierce writing for the Chronicle, for example, instead of the Examiner; or I couldn’t locate him in Los Angeles instead of San Francisco—Well, I could, but I’d have to come up with dandy historically inaccurate reasons for doing so. Although people in general may not know much about Bierce, plenty know better than that. And there are California history buffs who know every detail. Plus, readers of historical fiction love to catch us up in errors, don’t they?
Not that I didn’t have to do plenty of research. However, I didn’t feel I had to include most of what I found out, and I didn’t have to present every detail with great historical accuracy. I had parameters, of course. I couldn’t have Bierce writing for the Chronicle, for example, instead of the Examiner; or I couldn’t locate him in Los Angeles instead of San Francisco—Well, I could, but I’d have to come up with dandy historically inaccurate reasons for doing so. Although people in general may not know much about Bierce, plenty know better than that. And there are California history buffs who know every detail. Plus, readers of historical fiction love to catch us up in errors, don’t they?
Johnson’s life is even less
well-known, so, although I applied the same criteria as with Bierce, I felt more
free to wander. After his progressive period in California, Johnson had a
change of attitude, became a granite conservative, and his long stint in the
U.S. Senate brought him fame for opposing America’s entry into both WWI and
WWII. I used that metamorphosis as an excuse to present him as a stubborn and
intractable man whose political power came less from idealism than ambition.
I was free, then, to involve
both men in my protagonist’s dispute with the University of California and to
create their characters to suit my story instead of being bound by historical
reality to the same degree as with a more biographical project.
Whatever your subject,
however, it still comes down to what Hemingway said: A writer should create living people: people,
not characters. A character is a caricature.
Simply invoking the name of historical persons won’t give them life. That’s as
much—or more—up to you as it is to the writer who fabricates a story from
imagination alone.
THE SECOND VENDETTA
Not again.
It’s taken Andy Maxwell two
years—1908-1910—to help his family recover from the vendetta that nearly killed
his mother, burned their Sierra Nevada ranch house, and exhumed some
long-buried family secrets—including the fact that his father was black. At
last, Andy thinks, he can return to University of California and pursue his
history doctorate in peace.
Not so.
First of all, it turns out
they don’t want a miscegenated mongrel in the Ph.D. program. Just when he’s
enlisted the eminent San Francisco journalist, Ambrose Bierce, to help him
attack that problem, it turns out that marauder who started all the trouble in
the first place didn’t stay Shanghaied. Michael Yellow Squirrel is back for
another try at eliminating every last Maxwell on earth. So much for school.
And then there’s the
election.
Reform gubernatorial
candidate Hiram Johnson wants him to run for the California legislature and
help foil the railroad barons.
And then there are the
women.
The debutante beauty and
the Arapaho princess.
So, how is Andy Maxwell,
going to deal with all these quandaries? The Second Vendetta answers
that question and many more with a tale-telling style that pulls readers into
the book and doesn’t let them go till they’ve turned the last page, wishing
there were more yet to turn.
LINKS
THE SECOND VENDETTA by Carl R Brush from Solstice Publishing
available on Amazon and at Solstice Publishing
Website
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