Unlocking the Power of The Arts in Historical Fiction Research

Discover the power of art and music in historical fiction research with award-winning author, Sheena MacLeod. Infuse your writing with the emotional depth and rich dimensionality that these two mediums offer. Our conversation journeys through Sheena's fascinating approach to research, touching on areas such as the emotional turmoil of Scots during the clearances as depicted in Thomas Faed's painting, 'The Last of the Clan,' and how broadsheets of Restoration London used music and poetry to pass on messages. It's a splendid mix of academia and artistry that's bound to enrich your understanding of historical fiction writing.

We then tread the path of symbolism in art - a path riddled with enigmas and packed with profound meanings. We'll decode symbols in works like Mary Queen of Scott's dropped glove and Michael Angelo's Sistine Chapel, and explore how they're used in story and plot development. Sheena's insights on the matter are a treasure trove for any writer looking to add layers of meaning and resonance to their work. No stone is left unturned as we examine everything from the significance of jewellery like the Clan Brooch to the hidden dissatisfaction in Michael Angelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling paintings.

Our final discussion wraps up this enlightening journey. We talk about how art and music can evoke emotion, inspire stories, and bring meaning to your work. The power of these mediums in research is truly extraordinary, and Sheena's unique perspective on it is sure to inspire. So, ready to unlock new depths in your writing with the charm of art and music? Come, join us on this remarkable journey and discover the magic yourself.

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Transcript

Wendy H.Jones: 0:03

Hi and welcome to the Writing and Marketing Show brought to you by author Wendy H Jones. This show does exactly what it says on the tin. It's jam-packed with interviews, advice, hints, tips and news to help you with the business of writing. It's all wrapped up in one lively podcast. So it's time to get on with the show. And welcome to episode 180 of the Writing and Marketing Show with author-entrepreneur Wendy H Jones. As always, it's a pleasure to have you join me, and here we are for episode 180.

Wendy H.Jones: 0:35

I cannot believe where the year is going. Today I'm going to be talking using art and music in your research for your books, and I'm speaking to Sheena MacLeod, who is very well versed in this and does talk about it and run workshops on it, and I've heard her workshop and it is excellent. So before then, what have I been up to? Well, i'm very excited today because I've got new hearing aids. Now you're probably thinking, well, what's that got to do with us? Well, i'll tell you, i can hear so much better now. It's amazing, and it's amazing how things have moved forward. I've got all super-duper hearing aids that are Bluetooth to my phone. I can use a nap and they can access them remotely to repair them. How cool is that? I mean, things are just moving on exponentially in terms of computing, in terms of digitalization and what we can do. Now that's a talk for another day. Obviously, i did do a session on AI for authors and gave a very balanced approach with that. So I'm not talking about AI, but it's just to say that things are moving on. Things are moving on all the time, and if we don't keep up with them, then we're going to be left behind, is what I'm saying. However, there's also a place for history, and this is where the paintings and music come in, and that's where I'm going to be talking to Sheena.

Wendy H.Jones: 2:01

Before we get on with the show, i'd like to say that, as I say, it's a pleasure to bring you this every week, but it does take time out of my writing. So if you would like to support this time, you can do so at wwwpatrioncom, wwwverbalslashwendehjoundscom, and you can do it for the price of tea a coffee a month. I would be very grateful, and it will let me know that you are still want the actual show to continue, And I would love to continue with it, because we're heading up for four years and obviously, at four years you take a take stock of where it's taking you and how much time it's taking you, and you decide whether to carry on each year. And I would love to carry on, but obviously doing it for nothing all the time is. I need to use my time wisely. So think about supporting me on Patreon and that's wwwpatrioncom, wwwverbalslashwendehjoundscom.

Wendy H.Jones: 2:54

So what of Sheena? Well, sheena McLeod is an award-winning bestselling author. She lives in a seaside town in Scotland where she gained a PhD at the University of Dundee, where she lectured in mental health nursing. After leaving teaching, sheena combined her love of history with her passion for research and turned to novel writing. She's written a number of short stories, in poems as well. Rain of the Marionettes was her first published historical fiction novel. But she has also turned her hand to crime writing and written a crime short story in an anthology called Deadly Traditions, and she's currently researching and writing a novel set in Dundee. So very multi-talented, and I've also heard her give talks on numerous topics and run workshops. She's highly sought after and one of the actual workshops she does is talk about using art and music to help research for your books, and I am delighted that she has agreed to join us.

Wendy H.Jones: 4:01

So, without further ado, let's get on with the show and hear from Sheena, and we have Sheena with us. Welcome, sheena. How are you today? I'm fine. Thank you, wendy. Oh, hey, it's lovely to have you here, and we're in a very special place, aren't you? Can you tell us where we are?

Sheena Macleod: 4:20

We're writing today from the scriptorium in our broth Abbey. Our broth's on the east coast of Scotland and it's famous for the Abbey itself where the famous declaration of our broth was written. It's also famous for its fish. we're near the sea, it's arborothmokies, or something to taste for.

Wendy H.Jones: 4:44

They are Arborothmokies are to die for If you're a smoky fan, i mean I love fish and I don't mind smokies, but they've got a lot of bones in them, guys. And I have to say our broth Abbey is stunning, stunning. And you know, as Sheena says, it's where the declaration of Scottish independence was signed. So it's called the declaration of our broth and the declaration of Scottish independence. We like a bit of independence here in Scotland, don't be Sheena? Anyway, much as I could talk about that all week, wendy would hear to talk about art and music. So can you tell me where your interest in using art and music as a research resource for your books came from?

Sheena Macleod: 5:30

Well, wendy, I came to fiction writing late in life and for years there was a story grumbling away. I wanted to write a historical fiction novel set in the past, up in the Highlands of Scotland around about the time of the Cleannces. When I went to research I found that the history books were good. They were mainly filled with facts, events, dates, and it wasn't really what I was looking for. I wanted more of a feel about what was happening at the time, how people hoped.

Sheena Macleod: 6:07

My big question was how did people manage, how did people survive through the Cleannces? And that's where I found that the arts themselves offered information, and social historians draw widely on the arts for their work, and so they writing off the time, the paintings of the time, the songs they all provided me with information that helped me get the feel for what was happening, the emotion behind what was happening, the feelings of the people at that time, for the events. I think as historical writers we're all looking for the same things that, regardless of when we write or the characters we're writing about, we all want to know what everyday life was like for people who lived in our time that we're writing about. We want to know what they saw, where they lived, what they did, what they experienced and what kind of external things were going on in life at that time that influenced them.

Wendy H.Jones: 7:23

Yeah that's excellent And then that's really good because it shows you a lot about the everyday things and you don't think you can get so much from a painting, but obviously you can. You know, I'm fascinated by that because if we can just look at a painting and go, oh it's a painting, or we can look at it and get it's a social history.

Sheena Macleod: 7:43

It is indeed, And there's also a lot of missing history that's not in the textbooks, not in the books that poetry and paintings can give us some of that missing history.

Wendy H.Jones: 7:58

That's great. It really is. I mean, I've never thought about it, as I say like that before, and how you can get so much from one painting. Can you give me an example of a painting you've used and how you used it?

Sheena Macleod: 8:12

I can. I used a lot of paintings, I've drawn on quite a few, so the big choice there is hard choice. But for Tears of Strathnever, the book that is set in the Highlands during the Cleanses. It has to be The Last of the Clan, by Thomas Fade, which was painted in 1865. Thomas Fade himself lived between 1826 and 1900.

Sheena Macleod: 8:42

This painting is a very moving painting. It's used a lot by others. It's displayed a lot. It was meant to be a view from a ship or a boat of the land as people leave Scotland the left and drops, as you know, at that time that I'm writing about, And what it shows is an elderly man. He's sitting slumped over a pony, He has a plate around his shoulders and he looks lost, he looks dejected. So the view from the ship is the people that have been left behind And this man shows that it was a lot of the older people that were left behind and the very young And that's who is surrounded by very young or older people, well-ontied luggage and things that show that people are moving away. It's not a romanticised view, which often paintings and things can be, of Scotland. It's a very emotional. It's full of feeling. It was the end of a way of life, and to me Thomas Ferd's painting of the last of the clan depicts that.

Wendy H.Jones: 9:58

Yeah, to be honest, that brought a lump to my throat, you know, because you could just imagine it. His family are leaving on a ship and he's left behind in the ruins of what life was like for the Scots of that time And you often think, oh well, you can see physical things in paintings, but actually finding out what the emotional turmoil was as well is another way of looking at it. That's absolutely brilliant. I've seriously never thought of it like that before at all. Yeah, and that's surprising. So I know you can sometimes find surprising things when using a painting. Can you give us any examples of this?

Sheena Macleod: 10:44

I agree there's lots of surprises, aren't there? When we go in, we don't often expect the visual thing when we go deeper. If you start to explore it deeper, i think for me the art of going back even further, to the first booker, historical booker, at the time of the Restoration in London, which 1600s going back in time. What surprised me was that women were contributing more to the arts than we give credit for. I think about women coming after post-war period, when opportunities were opened up and even if it was slightly earlier, but I was surprised to see how much women actually contributed to the arts at that time.

Wendy H.Jones: 11:34

Yeah, that is surprising Yeah.

Sheena Macleod: 11:38

Playwrights, poets, artists, sculptor, sculpt, and I think, after Ben in the 17th century, england was perhaps the first woman to earn a living from writing Gosh.

Wendy H.Jones: 11:57

That's surprising, i think. Do you know what? I think that we often think that women were subjugated till post-war, but I think they were kind of subjugated during Victorian times and prior to that there were a lot more free, and then, somehow or another, despite the fact we had a queen on the throne, you think of women.

Wendy H.Jones: 12:15

There we were. Yeah, women seem to lose a lot of their freedoms. You know, guys, guys, if you can hear squeaking, that's my chair. I've got a very squeaky office chair. I don't know why. I better stop moving at all, you know, but hey, but you can. It's not just art, but the arts. So when you think about writing and music and how people contributed, both men and women, you know. and moving on to music, i believe you also use music and poetry as research. Can you tell us about this?

Sheena Macleod: 12:49

As I did in all my books, i've drawn very widely on music and poetry. In terms of music and poetry, they often depict the social issues of the time and in Restoration London, the broadsheets. Because so many people couldn't read and write, the broadsheets were put out as ballads and song. So whatever message they wanted to give out, the give out as ditties wouldn't even the lower classes and people who couldn't read or write would be singing and around. So the messages were passed on, often through poetry and song.

Wendy H.Jones: 13:32

Wow, that's so interesting. I didn't realize that and who they had. You know to turn cryers reading things out and stuff. But I didn't realize that, you know, and of course the songs are repeated. I don't mean people sing them, then you see them again, sang even by young children were singing them and We think fake news is new.

Sheena Macleod: 13:50

It's not. Often it was What they did was put out fake news through these songs and wow, and people would sing them and pass them on.

Wendy H.Jones: 13:59

Oh, there's nothing new under the sun, as they say, is that even fake news was invented hundreds of years ago. But yeah, i think that's amazing and the fact that you know the repetition means it goes into the brain more. You know, they're hearing it over and over and over in a natural way. And I mean that, suppose the sea shanties and things as well. You know for for the the naval, or not just naval but sea Going people, you know seafarers, the sea shanties were all part of that as well and would be giving Information. You know you can learn so much from it.

Sheena Macleod: 14:33

And at the time of the clearance, as many people didn't leave for written records, so it was hard. You'd often have a secondary rather than primary sources of Information that was written up after the event, about people rather than the people themselves. Yeah, writing, but sorely. Mclean Gather together a lot of the poems of the clearances and published them and It definitely gives you the anger, this full of anger. They're feeling a loss, the cut loss of culture, all that's within the poems and it's that emotional sense that you get. Yeah like the paintings.

Sheena Macleod: 15:16

Yeah you're right.

Wendy H.Jones: 15:18

Yeah, you're right. I mean, when you think songs as well, we're still singing them now, because what one example over the sea to sky. You know that's a very romanticized view of, you know, bonnie, prince Charlie and Florida McDonald ruining them all, rowing them to sky to get them away from the in the Jacob Ike rebellion, yeah, so we're still singing them now. It's history. Yeah, that's gone. Yeah, yeah, i think I find that fascinating, gosh, i could discuss that sort of thing all day, you know, but the podcast can only go on for so long, so we'll move on to the next question and you, perhaps you and I can have a chat about music later. You know, and there are some really famous paintings that everybody knows or feels they know, like Giddle with a pearl earring. Is there a way in which we can use these differently?

Sheena Macleod: 16:11

That's a fascinating painting, isn't it's?

Sheena Macleod: 16:13

a painting that we most people, i should say think they know, yeah, but with It's probably one of the most famous paintings now because of Tracy Cavillers. Yeah, trivler's book, which sold multi million copies, and she based it on the Giddle in the painting And normally that should be stood on the artist himself, john's Vermeer, was around about. It was about 16 with 1600s. He was very little known about him and I think that gave her the freedom to write his story as she saw, based in the Netherlands. Yeah, she could reconstruct his life in a fictional sense because there was little known about him. But if it is about looking deeper and when you look deeper at the artist, for all historical fiction, really using the arts, whether it's painting, you have to look and see. You It's still six on a seven men, isn't it? We as writers use any of the what, the where, the why, the how, the brain. I think I've missed some there, have I?

Wendy H.Jones: 17:30

No, that's great. Again, it's really interesting, and we do know so much about that from him And we all know the painting because of the book, even if we've never seen the painting, you know. Another example of that that's just come to my mind is The Donna Tart by And The Goldfinch, i was thinking it starts with a. Basically The Goldfinch starts with a little boy being blown up. Well, it starts with his memory, an old man's memory, of when he was a little boy And he was in a museum, an art museum that was blown up and his mother was killed And he stole the painting of The Goldfinch. And I thought this is a load of old talk. The book's brilliant, by the way.

Wendy H.Jones: 18:10

I'm not saying the book's a load of old talk, but my thoughts were how on earth could a small boy steal a painting I mean, with all due respect, you know, these paintings are huge How could he steal it and get away with it Even in the midst of chaos, you know, even in the midst of? Well, then the painting actually came to Scotland and was in the Scottish National Gallery, and I was going through to Edinburgh anyway for a meeting. So I went to Erling, went to see the painting. It's tiny. You can slip it in your pocket, you know, but you don't get a sense of that from the book. You get a sense of how beautiful the painting is, but you don't get the sense that it's so small And so he could have stolen it easily. Nobody would have seen it. It wasn't a big painting that was bigger than him And he was staggering off with it.

Wendy H.Jones: 18:54

But you do get a real sense And using paintings like that, even if you veer off from what is, it's just a, you know, fictional. It's not like the girl with the pearl earring a view of somebody's life. It's a brilliant way of starting it. You know, finding a painting And nobody's heard of the Goldfinch. Now everybody knows the Goldfinch, absolutely Everybody knows the Goldfinch because of that. So you can't use it as a springboard for moving forward and writing an entire book on it. It's a long book, very well written, brilliant book. I would recommend everyone to read it. I think I've spoken about it on here before, but very, very good. So are there any specific details we can look for in a painting that help us to bring realism to our narrative?

Sheena Macleod: 19:42

Well, i think, in addition to finding inspiration for a writing from paintings or the arts, you can also use it as a form of research, and many paintings, many pieces of art, are considered primary sources of research, not secondary sources. They're considered primary sources particularly if they were written at the time by people at the time. I also advise for realism to look and see if you can find our paintings about key events like weddings. If you want to write about a wedding, you can often find a painting depicting a wedding at that time, or you could play a song about a wedding and funerals. Any scenes from everyday life, like markets, shopping, what people wore, can all be very, very rich details in some of the paintings. So I've used them a lot.

Wendy H.Jones: 20:44

Yeah, you're right about the paintings, because I was out in Antigua and in the museum they have a painting of a slave market, which completely confused me because I thought, well, they're not selling slaves, that's pretty obvious. Antigua was the first place in the world to get rid of slavery and I was astounded by this. But the slave market was where they were still called slaves. It was like a job, even though they weren't slaves, they were free, yeah, but that was where they went to buy their provisions And I found so much about that, about what it was like then. So when my gentleman was out there, they get the food, they bought what they wore the fact that there were the gentry were there as well as the actual black slaves, who were more servants then than slaves.

Wendy H.Jones: 21:39

They weren't called up, it was still called the slave market and you got a real sense of, as you say, everyday life and I didn't even know I'd seen that until you said this today. It didn't impact on me what I was seeing. So that is really helpful. Thank you, really really helpful. And the other thing with paintings is they often contain symbols of the time and place, and that's an often debated subject. Can you tell us a bit about this and how we can use it as writers.

Sheena Macleod: 22:07

Symbolism in art oh, and symbolism yeah yeah, well, as you know, paintings are often rich in symbolism, some paintings more so than others, and they're much debated. Even to read some of the debates about the symbols that are present can give you great insights and help you with your writing and for inspiration. And also the symbols of the time, as you know, change over time and give us some clues that we can use these symbols ourselves, for a writing, for the basis of them, and it's like, for example, mary Queen of scott, before she was incarcerated, in leaving oh yeah, leaving yeah she.

Sheena Macleod: 22:57

There's a painting depicted in a drop cloth, which is a challenge. It's the, the hero, yes. No one coming forward to help, yes. Little issues like that, wow. In my own story, tears of strife. Neither I used the clan broach as a symbol of family. Off bonds, yeah. Off clanship, yeah. And that that was carried throughout this broach, given the idea wow, that's amazing, and even jewellery can be used.

Wendy H.Jones: 23:33

You know, i went out to Rome. I was in Italy on holiday and we were in Rome and we went obviously went to the Sistine Chapel and apparently there are symbols in the roof of this, the Sistine Chapel, that basically tell the pope that how, how not keen michael angelo was to paint this. He was forced into it, he didn't actually want to do it, and he's put symbols into there that tell people that he wasn't very happy about all of this. I can't remember what they are, but yeah, people did use symbols.

Wendy H.Jones: 24:04

It's huge area, yeah yeah, huge mass mass area and it wasn't until then I realized and that drop, glove, that is brilliant, you wouldn't notice it unless you examined it closer. No, absolutely brilliant. I love it. Um so, if someone wanted to use art as a basis for the, for the research, where would this start?

Sheena Macleod: 24:28

well for a span. It's not about critiquing that. I'm definitely no critique critiquer and it's not. I'm not particularly knowledgeable about the answers. You're probably picked up, but what I do feel is that everybody can use the answers, that that primary source, to look at the area the right and about the people the right and about, yeah, um, everything is not, as it seems, in the art world, as you know as well.

Sheena Macleod: 24:57

So it's looking deeper and asking these, these questions about who painted it, why did the painter it, why did the writer, when was it written it go deeper and deeper and deeper into it and the more you go, the deeper you go, the more you discover and the more you'll find out. It's a great resource for writers, particularly writers of historical fiction. It can provide inspiration, it can provide a rich source of detail, as we said, about everyday life plus emotions. It's just about asking the right questions good point, yeah, asking the right questions.

Wendy H.Jones: 25:43

I like that now all podcasts have to kind of come to a little bit of a conclusion eventually.

Sheena Macleod: 25:50

But but before we go, i'd like you to tell us about your own books, because you've done a lot of writing yeah, i started off writing historical fiction, as I said, and um, although I wanted to write about the clearances and novel set at that time, i went back in time to see if I could understand a bit more about what was happening. My first book, reign of the Marionettes, is set um during the restoration in London. It's about survival during a time of great unrest. There's a lot of conspiracies and fake news floating around that five people. I wonder where we've had that.

Sheena Macleod: 26:32

Yeah, absolutely and it was about how people got through that and survived it and all the dynamics that were going on, and then wrote Tears of Strathnever, which is a historical novel set in the Highlands of Scotland at the time of the clearances. It tells of a family. It tells how the this is a story of family. It's about survival against the odds at the turn of the century. Last century, in terms of non-fiction, i've written a book about women in the vote oh yeah, um, for so you say I can't vote, and it rather it focuses very much on the work on class women and when they got the vote and their involvement in the fight for the vote for women in the UK yeah, and it's a very good book, and I believe you've written a short story for an anthology.

Wendy H.Jones: 27:31

I have a few.

Sheena Macleod: 27:32

Yeah, i have indeed, you know.

Wendy H.Jones: 27:34

But hey, you wrote a crime, one, didn't you?

Sheena Macleod: 27:38

I did a crime one, you know, and I did a historical one. That's right. Yeah, it's fascinating, it's. It's great to do the short stories in between, and build up.

Wendy H.Jones: 27:47

Yeah, it gives you a bit of a a bit of a change from writing a whole novel, especially historical one, which can be really hard. It takes time, it does so. My very last question is where can my listeners find out more about you and your books?

Sheena Macleod: 28:03

have you got a website the usual places here. I have a website. I can be found on Facebook author page as Sheena MacLeod. Yeah, right under Sheena MacLeod and um books are available for sale in all the usual places like Amazon.

Wendy H.Jones: 28:24

Amazon, waterstones, barnes and Noble, just the usual outlets, all the usual places. And just to say, before we go, that it's Sheena MacLeod and MacLeod is M-A-C-L-E-O-D. I'll put a link to the website in the show notes. And, sheena, it was great to have you here it was pleasure to be here, wendy.

Wendy H.Jones: 28:46

Thank you, you are welcome and thank you for joining us this week. Again to the listeners, it's been an absolute pleasure, as always, and I will be back next week and we will have another fantastic show. So thanks to Sheena and goodbye. That brings us to the end of another show. It was really good to have you on the show with me today. I'm Wendie H Jones and you can find me at wendiehjonescom. You can also find me on Patreon, where you can support me for as little as three dollars a month, which is less than the price of a tea or coffee. You go to patrioncom, forward slash wendiehjones. I'm also Wendie H Jones on Facebook, twitter, instagram and Pinterest. Thank you for joining me today and I hope you found it both useful and interesting. Join me next week when I will have another cracking guest for you. Until then, have a good week and keep writing, keep reading and keep learning.