What has changed?
Do you remember any history?
The pictures that
will appear with this posting apart from representing transportation in various
eras, have another connection with the subject. Any idea what that connection
is?
I’ll explain later. A "Brake" --- yesterdays pick-up truck
If you made it
through school, you did read some history. Did you remember any of it? Did you
find all those facts and dates boring? Have you ever made a mistake and
realized, “I should have known that wouldn’t work”?
I believe that is
part of the answer to the third question about writing.
Question #3. How do you balance historical accuracy with creating an engaging story?
To my mind this question is answered within itself. I you’re
writing a story then engaging or entertaining are the primary
concern. If you’re writing history, then history is
the primary concern.
However, if that concept is acceptable then extending the
question it becomes, why write “historical fiction”? The primary response for
me is that a small percentage of those who read will read history and few of those
will remember what they read. For those who believe either that we,
collectively and singularly, are the product of history, or that it is
important to learn from that history and not repeat it, we have to first
remember it. We also learn from that same source, history, that memory can be
aided by including entertainment with the history.
1908 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost
My primary requirement then is entertainment. I attempt then
to create a story that may be remembered. The secondary objective then becomes
the historic accuracy, but if veering from the actual event destroys the story
or its entertainment value, then a follow-up with the particulars of the
historical recounting should not only supply the required accuracy but
strengthen the memory.
1930 L-80 Chrysler Imperial Roadster
For example, in “Homesteader: Finding Sharon” I recount a
stage robbery that took place outside of Calgary which helps to demonstrate how
two of my characters have been forced to demonstrate their true characters as
immoral, narcissistic and evil, that they are still in the country and may be
involved in other crime. This is undoubtedly true for the two individuals who
actually DID commit the crime in the area depicted and with details depicted.
However, in the story the holdup took place in 1887 but it really happened
August 23, 1886 and the discovery of “Clinker” Scott’s body (also part of my
story) a few days later.
This information is recounted in the “Author’s Note” at the
end of the novel, a feature I try to include in one form or another in
everything I write. Usually this is at the end in the “Author’s Note” as
mentioned, but in the case of the short story collection, “People of the West:
A short story timeline” it’s part of the introduction the piece in question.
1969 Ford Mustang
The short answer to all the questions at the start of this
piece are that history is, like most things, about people. Not the date but
what the people did that affected the country next door or the people ten years
later or the people of today.
If you read about how an assassination in Sarajevo, July 28th,
1914 led to the death of perhaps 22 million in the following 4 years you may
immediately think the people of the time were stupid. However, if you
understood their attitudes of the time, the fear and misunderstanding of others
and desperate attempts to protect kith and kin from the unknown you would
realize, not stupid but ignorant.
We’re doing it again: making decisions about people of which
we know nothing based on misinformation --- ignorance --- of others.
What are the connections of the pictures included here?
There was a time when each method of individual transport could excite men of
that era and of a certain age. Most of the time a bicycle would be far more
practical. Yes many things changed about transportation in 200 years --- or it
could be communication, or farming practices or dozens of other things --- but the people of then and now all had
and have the same wants, needs and motivations.
Leave a comment or take a look at a few slide-shows with
some dialogue at https://www.youtube.com/@davemcgowan6231
Look at some entertainment
with a longer life at
OR
https://www.amazon.com/~/e/B004V9WZVI
because a book is
good for at lest three reads over the years.
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