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Tag Archives: historical fiction

Too Much History?

12 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by Nancy Clark in Writing Biographies

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biography, Chicago World's Fair 1893, Dr. Blaine, Garfield Assassination, historical fiction, Toledo Medical College

Last November I wrote about the dilemma of what to include and not to include in the biography of my great -grandfather. I’ still fighting that challenge to some degree, but now there is a new one on the table–or at least a variation.

As I start to put all my individual stories into some rough semblance of order, I’m beginning to see gaps that could be filled with historical content. The question becomes how much background history is necessary and how much could be a distraction. Some examples might make the dilemma a little clearer.

If you read my blog post from last April on private medical schools, you’ll remember that I included the Toledo Medical College as an example of those early attempts at medical education because Dr. Blaine had received a degree there and had also been on the faculty a short while. So far in the biography, I have mentioned the school only in passing. But is that enough? Should I use that school as a vehicle to give the reader a more detailed impression of the state of medical education in the late 1800s? And, if so, how much detail do I include? My files are bulging with facts about financial problems and disagreements about the administration of the school. Dr. Blaine and several other faculty members were even charged with trespassing when they attempted to attend a closed meeting of the board. Maybe all this does merit a separate chapter in the book!

Another example is not so closely tied to Dr. Blaine. It involves the assassination of President James Garfield in 1881. Like many other American citizens, the doctor followed closely the news reports of the shooting in June, the subsequent attempts to save the president’s life, his death in September, and the trial of the assassin Charles Guiteau. The main reason I am thinking of including this historical event is that it serves as a prime vehicle for revealing some of the misconceptions then prevalent in medical practice, misconceptions that actually hastened the president’s death!

In both of these examples, I can see evidence that the historical background does help to establish the setting of the story. And, as James Thom said in his book The Art and Craft of Writing Historical Fiction, “Most regular readers of historical fiction are reading to learn, and they gain historical knowledge from story to story. They take pride in having some knowledge they can keep and believe” (29). Since my book is turning out to be a combination of historical biography and fiction, maybe both of the examples I mentioned do fit!

I’m already committed to writing a chapter on the 1893 Chicago World’s FHistoryair because the doctor and his wife actually visited that remarkable event. So we’ll see what happens. Stay tuned!

And feel free to leave a comment on how much history is too much history in a historical-fiction-biography.

Source: Thom, James Alexander. The Art and Craft of Writing Historical Fiction. Writer’s Digest Books, 2010.

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Adding Characters in a Biography

19 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by Nancy Clark in Writing Biographies

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biography, characters, historical fiction

To include or not to include — that is the question! As I write the biography of my great-grandfather, it is obvious that he is the main character, but who else do I include as supporting cast? His wife and four sons were a main influence in his life, and I feel that I know enough about them to do them justice. But what about the myriad of friends, neighbors, co-workers, and other family members that peopled his word? Since I know so little about any of them, do I mention them only by name? Or do I once again slide over the boundary between biography and fiction and flesh some of them out as real people? I have seen examples of other writers doing that very thing in order to carry the story along. Whether or not I can find enough confidence in my ability to create characters on my own remains to be seen.

If anyone has any advice or has wrestled with a similar dilemma, please feel free to

Dr. Blaine's sons: Ernest, William, Earl, Harry S.

Dr. Blaine’s sons: Ernest, William, Earl, Harry S.

respond!

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How to Write Biography Right

03 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by Nancy Clark in Writing Biographies

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Tags

biography, historical fiction, old time doctor

Dr. Blaine 1889 Tiffin, OH

Dr. Blaine 1889 Tiffin, OH

While most of my writing friends are busy extracting story after story from their vast storehouses of imagination or musing about the significance of their lives in their memoirs, here I am still struggling with how to write a compelling biography about my great-grandfather Harry Gordon Blaine, a country doctor in northwest Ohio from around 1880 to his death in 1930. The idea came to me more than 25 years ago. With an abundance of source material at hand, how difficult would it be to reconstruct this man’s life? It would be just like writing a research paper, wouldn’t it? And, unlike many students, I always enjoyed the challenge of gathering lots of information on a topic and organizing it  into a coherent whole.

But after many long years of reading and researching, I finally decided it was time to start organizing and writing. And that  has been like trying to hold on to a slippery eel while balancing on one foot! Where should I start? Should it be organized in strict chronological order?  How much background and historical material should I include? How can I keep it lively enough so the reader will keep wanting more? What is my overarching theme? No research paper has ever been this hard!

My solution so far has been to find individual stories from Dr. Blaine’s life — there are many! — and write those, not worrying right now how they will all fit together in the end. I have also experimented with creating dialogue to help move the story along and have leaped to conclusions that may or may not be valid.

So if I continue in this vein, will I end up with a biography or with what some might call historical fiction? Whatever it may be labeled, my goal is to create a compelling story that will be an appropriate tribute to a remarkable, yet truly human man.

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