Lucia Robson's facts can be trusted if, say, you're a teacher assigning her novels as supplemental reading in a history class. “Researching as meticulously as a historian is not an obligation but a necessity, ” she tells me. “But I research differently from most historians. I'm looking for details of daily life of the period that might not be important to someone tightly focused on certain events and individuals. Novelists do take conscious liberties by depicting not only what people did but trying to explain why they did it.” She adds, “I depend on the academic research of others when gathering material for my books, but I don't think that my novels should be considered on par with the work of accredited historians. I wouldn't recommend that historians cite historical novels as sources.” And they sure don't. They wouldn't risk the scorn of their colleagues by citing novels. But, Lucia adds:“ I think historical fiction and nonfiction work well together. … I'd bet that historical novels lead more readers to check out nonfiction on the subject rather than the other way around, ” she says, and then notes: One of the wonderful ironies of writing about history is that making stuff up doesn't mean it's not true. And obversely, declaring something to be true doesn't guarantee that it is. In writing about events that happened a century or more ago, no one knows what historical ‘truth’ is, because no one living today was there. That's right. Weren't there. But will be, once a good historical novelist puts us there. James Alexander Thom
I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.
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Robert Louis Stevenson
In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?
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Rainer Maria Rilke
If you are a writer you locate yourself behind a wall of silence and no matter what you are doing, driving a car or walking or doing housework you can still be writing, because you have that space.
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Joyce Carol Oates
A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.
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Mark Twain
And there was that poor sucker Flaubert rolling around on his floor for three days looking for the right word.
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Dorothy Parker
More Quotes By James Alexander Thom
You come to understand that history might be, as Thomas Carlyle put it, “a distillation of rumor, ” or, as Napoleon said, “a set of lies generally agreed upon
A novel, or so-called “fiction, ” if deeply researched and conscientiously written, might well contain as much truth as a high-school history textbook approved by a state board of education. But having been designated “historical fiction” by its publisher, it is presumed to be less...
My own definition of bad historical fiction hits these points: It fails to transport the reader to a former time. It fails to put the reader in another place. It fails to bring characters to life. It fails to make the reader shiver, sweat, sniffle,...
Before you're ready to tell that story well, you might have to study and learn the equivalent of an entire specialized college education on the society in which your story takes place, because all sorts of things were happening that you need to understand before...
Mortmain is an old French word that should be tattooed on the inside of any historical novelist's skull. This wonderful and terrible word means “dead hand.” Its definition is: “The influence of the past regarded as controlling the present.” (It is also used as a...
