The Writing and Marketing Show
The Writing and Marketing Show
Breathing Life into Bygone Eras for Today's Readers
Unlock the secrets of authentic historical storytelling with historian and author Lexi Cunningham as we paint the past with words. From the serene setting of Westerwood Hotel and Spa in Scotland, our writing retreat provides the perfect backdrop for this rich discourse on infusing your fiction with the hues of history. We venture beyond the surface of online encyclopedias, diving into the depths of scholarly texts and the whispering tales of old graveyards to create characters that resonate with truth. The art of capturing the essence of bygone eras in narrative form is a delicate one, where the choice of a single word can mean the difference between maintaining the period's authenticity or shattering the illusion.
Journey with us as we explore the corridors of museums and tread the cobblestones of historic sites to bring you invaluable insights into crafting believable settings. Lexi and I reflect on the balances struck between language of the past and reader accessibility, sharing our methodologies for steering clear of anachronisms, with my own creative choices in my Viking series as a case study. The episode is a wellspring of inspiration for fellow writers seeking to navigate the complex interplay of fact and fiction, to breathe life into the pages of history, and to create a world so vivid, readers can almost reach out and touch the threads of time.
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 198 of the Writing and Marketing Show with author-entrepreneur Wendy H Jones. As always, it's an absolute pleasure to have you join me here Today. I'm going to be talking about writing historical settings with prolific author Lexi Cunningham, and it was very good of Lexi to join us again on the show, and I know that she will have a lot of wisdom to impart to us today and I'm very much forward looking forward to that.
Speaker 1:Before then, what has been happening in my life? Well, at the moment this is coming to you from the Westerwood Hotel and Spa in Cumbernauld in Scotland, and I am here because I am running a writing retreat. So a shout out to all the people, the delegates who have come along and are on the writing retreat in Scotland with me. It's all Scott publishing in retreats. It's our very first writing retreat and it's running here in Scotland and we have people from Australia and we have people from America, so it's a real pleasure to be working with them and I'm looking forward to an absolutely fantastic week with them of learning and enjoyment. What else have I been up to? I'm getting ready for the London Book Show in a few weeks. I've got some book signings coming up next week, so really hectic time for me between now and July because I'm also going to another conference, the Scottish Association of Writers' Conference, in a few weeks as well. So a crazy busy time for this author and I love being busy and I love doing everything writing related.
Speaker 1:Before we get on with the show and meet Lexie, I would like to say it's an absolute pleasure to bring you to show every week. I do so willingly and I enjoy doing it. However, it does take time out of my writing. If you would like to support that time, you can do so by going to patreoncom that's p-a-t-r-e-o-ncom forward slash wendah-h jones and you can support me for three dollars a month, which is less than the price of a tea or coffee per month, because tea and coffee in Britain now costs about three pounds to buy. So it would be lovely if you could support me. It would let me know you like the show and you want me to continue, and I would also be very grateful.
Speaker 1:So what of Lexie? Well, as I say, we've had Lexie here before and it was an absolute pleasure to have her here. She is a historian living in the shadow of the Highlands. Her novels are born of a life amid Scotland's old cities, ancient universities and hidden away aristocratic estates, but she has written since the day she found out that people were allowed to do such a thing. Beyond teaching and research, her days are spent with wool, wild allotments and a wee bit of whiskey and, of course, lots and lots of writing. So, without further ado, let's get on with the show and hear from Lexie, and we have Lexie with us. Welcome, lexie.
Speaker 2:Hello how are you?
Speaker 1:I am very well and it's lovely to have you with us here today. Well, I know you're in Scotland, but whereabouts in Scotland are you? I am?
Speaker 2:in Aberdeen, which is. It's been a beautiful day in Aberdeen. I've been gardening and the sun has been shining.
Speaker 1:Oh, how lovely Gardening. You can always think about writing when you're gardening, can't you? It's very fair Well yes, yeah, right.
Speaker 1:Well, hey, we're going to talk about historical settings here, which is something very dear to my heart, given I'm writing a historical fiction book, so it's very helpful to have this session right now. So thank you for joining us to talk about that, and I know you know a lot about history because you're an archivist by background and historian. So I'm curious is can you share your process for researching historical settings when preparing to write a piece of fiction, and are there any specific sources of methods you find most effective?
Speaker 2:Well, it does tend to vary depending on what I'm doing. I think if it's something entirely new, I have to admit I start with Wikipedia, but the important word there is start, because some Wikipedia pages ones on railway engines or regiments, for example are usually very reliable, but others, as people will know, not so much. But you can usually pick up references and places to go from there and often some very good images as well. And then I head for books of a more scholarly nature and what I really like doing is reading fictional books that were written at the time and in the place, as tall as possible. Then archives for the details.
Speaker 2:And I say I say that but I don't always follow it, because as a professional archivist, much of my research has started accidentally with some detail. I've read in an old letter or a register or something like that, and I've then gone backwards and read about the wider field. And then again with my Viking books, where there's no contemporary literature and no archives, but many hundreds of modern books. I've had to be quite selective, but I have also included archaeological reports and, much later, sagas. And then there are some very specific methods for some things, for example for character names that sound contemporary. I often just take a trip to a graveyard and wander around looking for something at the right date, and I love museums. Museums are wonderful.
Speaker 1:No, that's fantastic. I mean, I'm with you with the museums in the graveyard, you know, as long as you get their correct date, you know, and you're not picking one that wasn't really in use, then yeah, they're fantastic. And you learn so much in graveyards and museums. It's never know what you'll come up with and you come up with it. You go to a museum and thinking you're going to learn one thing and you come out learning something totally different, exactly, and it takes you in a different direction, which is great because it really enriches what you're doing. It's really difficult because we're writing fiction, so we've got to be creative, but obviously we've got to get things correct, because someone's going to write and say, actually that didn't happen. Then it happened 300 years before or 300 years later. So what challenges do you encounter when balancing historical accuracy with the creative liberties necessary for storytelling, and how do you navigate the development, the delicate balance?
Speaker 2:Oh, I think every writer does this differently. I tend to err on the side of historical accuracy, sometimes to the point of madness, because as a reader, I, as you say, I hate to be jolted out of my enjoyment of a book by thinking, no, that couldn't have happened surely. I think we're very lucky as writers of historical fiction. We've got a fantastic setting almost ready made for us and in return, it seems ungrateful not to play by the rules of that setting. In fact, I regard it as another challenge to be taken into consideration when you're constructing a plot, because it would be lovely, for example, if the male coach ran there and stopped at that point, but it doesn't. So how do I get around that? And sometimes the getting around the problem actually brings in something else that fits beautifully and it plays to your advantage after all. So you know, stick to your guns sometimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would agree. Like, for example, the. What I'm writing is set in Echo Fekhen in 1818 onwards and you think, oh, that's great, echo Fekhen was a bit of a, you know, a hub for the postal service, you know, and. But then you realise that what you're actually talking about is that a hub. So everything's dropped off at a certain point and then taken to points north, and then the points north, the male coach, everything's dropped off at a certain time and then goes to points south. So you have to be careful that you're not having me. You know, your points north going at six o'clock in the morning when they didn't coach, didn't actually arrive until three o'clock in the afternoon, you know. So it's, you know you've got to get it right. So yeah is a is a delicate balance. So I'm curious are there any specific time periods or historical events you find particularly inspiring or intriguing for storytelling, and why do you navigate towards them?
Speaker 2:I'm very much at home in the late Georgian periods, so 1800 up to 1830. And I started my first series when I was working in Georgia, edinburgh, surrounded by Georgian documents, and just at the time that the BBC's supreme production of Pride and Prejudice was got, was going out. So going back to that period always feels to me like putting on an old pair of slippers. It's just I'm there, I'm happy, it's graceful but it's brutal. It's relatively simple but it's sophisticated at the same time. And it's sometimes quite surprising. And on the other side of that, I feel that the Scottish side of that period hasn't been done much. It's quite overlooked. Victorian Scotland's been overdone, I think. But there we are, the Vikings I fell into my accident but I love them.
Speaker 2:I've written two books now set in the Second World War and I find that's a very easy period to write about. I think, probably having been brought up by a generation who lived and fought through it, it's almost not historical, it comes quite naturally. I'm not sure I'm ready to start a series set in yet another period just yet. I love reading books set in the 1920s, that sort of frantic guilt trip of surviving that war and the damage done by it and high medieval settings appeal as well. I love that period but I think, like the 1920s, they've been overwritten. Now there's really no space for another series on either of those periods, but they are fun to write up to read about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were a fun period really because it was post-war, so people were still reeling from it, but they had a sense of gaiting as well. Yeah, so I was guilt, yeah. The guilt, yeah, yeah. What role does cultural context play in your writing when incorporating historical settings, and how do you ensure your characters and plot resonate centricly within the cultural norms of the time? That's probably two questions. Maybe I should ask one at a time. A huge question Do you actually want at a time, or shall I?
Speaker 2:I'll just go on.
Speaker 1:I'm impressed. I knew you could rise to the challenge. That's why I did it, Rexie.
Speaker 2:It means I can ignore the bits that I don't understand. I think if you're reading I think reading contemporary literature in documents really helps, particularly correspondence, because it gives you an idea of how people think and speak and what bothers them, what they're looking forward to, what they're not bothered by too, or what they're not looking forward to. That we might think looking back is a huge event, but it just passes them by and we find out to who they talk to and how they talk to them. Do they talk to people on the street? Do they talk to? How do they talk to the servants? Or, if they're servants, how do they talk to their masters?
Speaker 2:And we mustn't assume we mustn't look back from our perspective and assume that people felt the same way as we do. I mean, we can't assume that all the women in the 18th century would have been feminists if they'd had the option. Also, we need usually to slow down. We need to pace ourselves to a period where, for example, it takes a good while to make a cup of tea if you're boiling the water over an open fire, or to get a letter across the country like your male coaches. To travel to the nearest town could take an awful lot longer than it does today. So the trick, I think, is to cast a spell over our readers so that they slow down to the same pace and they're not reading along and wondering why the Georgian heroine doesn't just get her mobile out and call for a taxi or something. So really we need to get inside the heads of our characters and then draw our readers in there too. But that sounds very claustrophobic and slightly cramped, but I think that's what we need to do.
Speaker 1:No, that's a good way of looking at it. I love the claustrophobic and a bit cramped, but it's true they need to be there as well. So we always fall across things, don't we, when we're, as we said, about the museums and things that you weren't expecting to. So can you share an example of a historical detail or fact that you discovered during your research that significantly influenced the direction of your story?
Speaker 2:I can't think of a significant one that happened while I was actually writing the coincidence of Ballotur on Royal Deeside being badly flooded at New Year I think it's 2016,. It happened and me having read about the Muckles Spate, which was a huge flood that happened there in 1829, that actually inspired a whole series just drawing from that one incident I came across when I was working in Edinburgh Castle, I came across a story of miniature coffins being found in Arthur's seat in Edinburgh. I was working for the National Museums and it came out that they were kept in the National Museums and I thought even at the time I thought, right, that's going in a book, no problem, even though I wasn't actually writing anything at the time. Unfortunately, ian Rankin found out about them as well, put them in one of his books, but I still couldn't resist and eventually they appeared in my second series. I couldn't keep them out for any longer. They're just fascinating.
Speaker 2:There was I was in the middle of writing a book once when I came across an important detail that I did need for the book and I completely forgotten about it and it was pure chance. I was talking about the book on an online talk and somebody in the audience said oh, I bet you're including the Bear Amulet. And I thought, oh, I've forgotten about the Bear Amulet. Yes, of course I'm including the Bear Amulet, it's vital. Yes, I think I probably should. Yes, front of the, go back and try and remember all the details about the Bear Amulet, so the Bear.
Speaker 2:Amulet is in the book now. Thanks very much to the person at the talk. It would look stupid about it.
Speaker 1:Well, that's good and things do happen. You know people remind you of things or you'll see something that sparks one thing and then ends up as another and it's so interesting when you read it. You know another problem with doing historical research. You know you start out looking for, you know, guns in the army during the Crimea and before you know where you are, inside of Victorian sewer and you're like, how did that happen?
Speaker 2:Oh, the possibility for rabbit holes is endless.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yes. So that takes me on to do. You believe it's essential for authors to visit historical locations relevant to their stories, and how has any such first hand experience impacted your writing?
Speaker 2:It is extremely important, certainly. Sometimes, of course, it's impossible, because if you're setting your novel in the glory days of the hanging gardens of Babylon or something like that, you really would have to go by description and imagination. But at least you could visit Iraq and feel what the air is like and talk to people and see the likely dimensions of the setting. I've been to everywhere I've written about so far, I think, but sometimes, up to you know, 10 centuries too late, and when it comes to some books I've planned, it's going to be really difficult for various modern reasons to visit the settings. I'm just going to have to do a lot of research. But going does offer you some things you can't get any other way, like the dimensions of things, how the landscape fits around a setting, the way the sea plays on the shore, how the buildings tower over the street, how the water runs under the bridge, things that you just can't pick up from photographs or reading about them.
Speaker 2:My visit to the Brockham Bursey, where much of my Viking series is set, was complicated. For one thing, an awful lot of the land had fallen into the sea since the time of Thorfinn Sigurdarsson, so you had to imagine where it might have been, and for another it was actually much, much smaller than I thought it was. I had to go home and rewrite all the times it took for people to travel from one place to another and the great vista they could see from their longhouse door. I had to reduce it severely, so that was extremely useful and I really wouldn't have thought about it. I've just been pouring over maps and just imagined it as huge when it really wasn't at all. So yes, vampal.
Speaker 1:I would agree. I went out to Antigua and you think of it being this massive Caribbean island. You know it's not as big as you think. You know who doesn't take that long to get across it, and that's in a car, though, so you can take a little bit of poetic license for the. You know the time it would have taken them in those days, because they were marching, you know, or eventually they would have had carriages. But yeah, you're right, it's the size and it's the smell of the sea and the, and you can realise things. I learnt something. I was chatting to a historian, a lovely, lovely Antiguan lady, and she said something about of course it smells lovely and Antiguan, but it smelled like a sewer when your chap was here, because you threw everything into the sea over the side of the ships and I was like, oh, I would never have known that.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's just lovely yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's things like that as well. You know that visiting gets you a lot more. Yeah so when we're going to go into dialogue. I'm all over the place here. I told you we're going to be talking about setting and I'm asking you questions about everything. When you're crafting dialogue in historical fiction, how do you strike a balance between authenticity and accessibility to the modern readers, and have you faced any linguistic challenges?
Speaker 2:This is a tricky one because you want your characters to sound real but not to sound like the bloke on yesterday's bus. I haven't. I haven't had to face any of the sort of the and the problems because my, my Georgians, speak really quite normally, I think you'd say, but avoiding any anachronisms or peculiar slang or metaphors. I'm very picky about my metaphors. I go back and check things like the one that bugs me is are you on the right track? And I'm convinced that derives from railways. So you know you've got to watch that kind of thing and words like silhouette and hypnotize are actually a lot more modern than we might hypnotize in particular, there's not an awful lot of swearing in my books, but I do try and make it accurate. So slang and swearing are just the other things that move fastest in language, so they're the ones that you have to keep. Keep a finger on.
Speaker 2:My Vikings are definitely more challenging. I don't speak old Norse and I suspect most of my readers probably don't read old Norse. I do speak Norwegian and I learned it really just to try and get all the Norwegians are really modern language to try and get a flow and some of the idioms and metaphors. Maybe that would come through. So I try just to let the speech flow and, as I say, watch out for anachronisms and little things like mentioning the front door, which is a subtle thing for us. I think the front door is opposed to the back door, but of course Longhouse has only had one door, so it meant that would mean nothing to a Viking.
Speaker 2:I'm also unreasonably obsessed with not using the word orange in the Viking ones because it's derived from a Spanish word and it came to the UK much later. So there are no oranges, nothing is orange. I'm probably putting in a lot of other complete, horrible, terrible, accidental things, but just not the word orange. With the Second World War books I try very hard, as a slang moved really fast, particularly when the Americans came into the war and started coming over, and I'm trying very hard to keep the language in the year that it was actually happening rather than skipping and bringing in stuff that came in later.
Speaker 2:Google Ngram is a brilliant device for this, to check stuff. You're right, because you can see you've got to make sure you're doing the right region for the language. But if you put a word in, it'll show you the frequency of the use of that word in written stuff but you extrapolate speech from that. The trouble is it did lead to a terrible disappointment. When I discovered that the word ''cludgy'', which you will know is a fine slang term for a chamber pot, only came into use in the 1960s apparently, I was horrified.
Speaker 1:Oh way I know I wouldn't have known that.
Speaker 2:So I'd have to go back and take it out of my Georgian book, unfortunately, but it's a brilliant word.
Speaker 1:It is. It's a fabulous word. Yeah, that's really interesting because trying to avoid slang and I mean when you write contemporary books as well slang is a big thing, because they are literally saying that you know, slang moves so fast now that it's impossible to use it because it dates your book before it's even out Exactly yeah. Especially when you're writing for the young adult market or anything like that. The slang they're using will have changed by next week.
Speaker 2:I mean the reverse support. It starts at all fast.
Speaker 1:Precisely it's just, it's a minefield, at least. At least you know it's. If it was in use, then it may have changed since then, but that doesn't matter yeah. If it was in use in the year you're writing about. Then you're on a winner.
Speaker 2:You know a lot safer writing contemporary.
Speaker 1:Precisely. Yeah, so often we have real historical figures in our historical fiction, and this is one that's dear to my heart because it's based on, so this is why I'm asking this question, you know. So how do you handle the inclusions of real historical figures in your fiction, and what considerations do you take into account to portray them accurately while still serving your narrative?
Speaker 2:Well, in the Viking books there's lots of leeway because, apart from the later saga, there's really nothing much to tell us what the individuals were really like and very few close descendants to complain either.
Speaker 2:So if I've made Earl Thorfinn's wife a snobby flirt which is, incidentally, a phrase that I wouldn't use in a Georgian book I don't think anyone will really mind. My pair of books set in 18th century Aberdeenshire, are based on two real historical events, so the inclusion of real people is inevitable. So I read as much as I could about them. I read letters written by them so I could try to hear their voice. I looked at portraits, read letters about them as well from people who knew them. I stuck with as much history as possible and then really went with my instincts, which I think worked for those two books.
Speaker 2:In later books it can be trickier and I usually incorporate only quite minor. Well, I incorporate them as minor characters about whom? Often about whom nothing much is known historically. I think I've got a very brief cameo of Wellington in one book, but I heard a lot about Wellington even for that one cameo, and in other cases it's somebody that I knew was there but nobody knows much about them now.
Speaker 2:The big exception is my latest series, which is the journals of Dr Robert Wilson, based on a Berkshire Doctor. He was definitely real and I read all his journals and looked at his belongings and his portrait. I haven't brought myself to read his poetry yet, but I'm sure the time will come, and I stuck to his historical account, but I've inserted events between the lines, as it were. The funny thing is my colleague and I, when I was first reading the journals, thought he was quite a heroic figure, but when I came to write him he headed off in an entirely different direction and he's a very different person, not a particularly comfortable person, but a fortunate thing is I don't think there's anyone left in his family to sue me, so I should be okay.
Speaker 1:Well, if he wanted to go in that direction, he was going in that direction, that's for sure. Trying to wrestle the characters back doesn't work. No, no absolutely hopeless. Yeah, yeah. So we're going back to the settings. As I say, I'm all over the place here. I'm trying to help myself as well here, as well as the listeners. Is that how, in what ways do you believe incorporating historical settings can enhance the overall themes and messages of your fiction, and how do you use it to the historical backdrop, to add depth to your storytelling?
Speaker 2:I think when we're panicking about something happening in the world at the moment, it's always worth looking back to see what happened when it happened before, like reading about the Spanish flu during COVID, for example.
Speaker 2:We might not learn anything practical, but sometimes it just helps to see that others got through, that people have made it through such times before, and a new perspective is always good. As for adding depth, I sort of had to think about that because in some ways it's contradictory. If I were writing a contemporary book, there's all the depth of the world available to me. There's my own knowledge of current affairs, what people say to me, the world around me, my own experience. It might be easy to become too distracted and, almost as a reaction, the story itself might become too shallow, maybe over-focused, but because I've chosen a specific point in the past and learned about it and set it in its context, perhaps it is a depth because of that focus. Not sure I can quite decide on that one. The easy answer is sort of to say that you do tons of research and then leave almost all of it out and hope for the best.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is a difficult one because you want to give it a sense of setting without overwhelming characters. It needs to be part of the overall story because of course, that's what they did and you know it can be tough to handle really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't want people to be reading the book and thinking and then and then being surprised to find it's historical as well. You want them to be aware of the historical context but find it relevant Absolutely.
Speaker 1:That's good. It's relevance as well. So in what ways do you believe incorporating historical settings can enhance the overall themes and messages of your fiction, and how do you use?
Speaker 2:I've just asked you that one. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:Listen, I'm going mad. Okay, let's put this into context Wendy's going mad.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:We've asked you that one and I like the answer. I'm going mad. I know you're a really prolific writer, so can you tell us a bit about your books?
Speaker 2:Sure. In the last year I started two more series, so that makes five series, which is just silly. My first series is Murray of Letho, which is set in late Georgian times and mostly in Scotland. I started my second series because I felt I was writing the Murray books too quickly, so that's the Hippolyta, napier or Ballotry Motor Series set in what's now Royal D-side, starting in 1829 of that flood I mentioned. My Orkney-Yinga series is set in Viking Orkney.
Speaker 2:As a result of a random conversation with a neighbour and then, because I couldn't get back up to Orkney during lockdown or for a good while afterwards, I started a Second World War series set in Aberdeen which was easy to research. I just had to walk out the front door and look at stuff and that's the Alec Katanach series. And then, finally, I started this really tricky series based on real journals of this rector, dr Robert Wilson. The first one was set in the Pardecalée just after the Battle of Waterloo, which the French call the Battle of Mont-Saint-Jean. Incidentally, and therefore nice historical context, the French do not refer to it as Waterloo.
Speaker 2:I didn't know it before the book. The second will be set in Paris, which is otherwise known as an excuse to visit my niece, and then he carries on eastward after that, so that could get quite tricky. I was the archivist who listed the journal years ago and this idea has just been in my head ever since to try this series. And then there have been a few stand-alones and that pair of books set in 18th century Aberdeenshire. I think that's about all of them really.
Speaker 1:You have to be the most prolific writer I know, which I'm glad about because it means I can keep reading them. I think I'm single-handedly supporting your lifestyle. It's much appreciated. They're great books, I have to say they really are. I love your books. So my final question where can my listeners find out more about you and your books?
Speaker 2:Well, the books are all on Amazon, or hard copies can be ordered from my website, which is just lexiconiancouk. I'm on Twitter and Pinterest, but I'm most active on Facebook, where you are very welcome to come and join me Excellent.
Speaker 1:Well, it was an absolute pleasure to chat to you again, even if I am asking you the same questions over and over Good practice. Thank you very much indeed. No worries, enjoy the rest of your day, thank you.
Speaker 1:That brings us to the end of another show. It was really good to have you on the show with me today. I'm Wendy H Jones and you can find me at wendahjjonescom. You can also find me on Patreon, where you can support me for as little as $3 a month, which is less than the price of a tea or coffee. You go to wwwpatrioncom. Forward slash wendahjjonescom. I'm also Wendy 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.