Tag: historical fiction

Bits of Fun

Reading Recs for Women’s History Month — 2020 Expansion!

CassMorrisWrites

Five years ago, I put together a rec list for Women’s History Month. I’ve read a lot of books since then! So I thought I’d expand the list with some newer titles (or new-to-me titles) featuring amazing women from history.

As in 2015, inclusion on this list doesn’t mean the book is perfect or 100% historically accurate. It just means I enjoyed the read, and I think other folk might, too! For the purposes of this list, I’m focusing just on books with real historical figures as characters. I’ve read a ton of other books featuring invented female characters inside real historical context, though, and I might make another list with those, because so many of them are just so good.

Fiction

  • 48355011The First Actress, by C. W. Gortner: I would subtitle this book “The Rise of Sarah Bernhardt”, as it mostly follows the early life of the Divine Sarah. It’s a rich exploration of the formation of one of the modern world’s first celebrities. Much attention is paid to her family and their echoing influence on her life. I don’t know enough about Bernhardt to know how much of that is historically verified and how much was authorial invention, but I could certainly believe it all within the context of fiction, and it makes for a compelling character study.
  • The Borgia Confessions, by Alyssa Palombo: A dark spiral into one of the Renaissance’s most fascinating and infamous families. While the main female character is Palombo’s invention, we see enough of women like Lucrezia and Vanozza that I feel solid including it on this list. Palombo also faithfully re-creates the world of Renaissance Rome in all its spectacle and decadence.
  • 44059557._SY475_The Magnolia Sword, by Sherry Thomas: I’m including this one even though Mulan is more of a legend than a historical figure, because this retelling is so rooted in the history of 5th-century China. This YA novel centers not only Mulan, but other women she encounters on her journey, plus it has some really spectacular fight scenes, all rendered in Thomas’s typically wonderful writing.
  • Ribbons of Scarlet, by Kate Quinn, Sophie Perinot, Laura Kamoie, Stephanie Dray, E. Knight, and Heather Webb: This ambitious multi-authored project tracks six women across the French Revolution’s various phases, showcasing a variety of political opinions and socioeconomic realities. I really appreciated how the authors gave each heroine her own voice. Sophie de Grouchy and Charlotte Corday’s sections were probably my favorites, but each section of the book invests you in its characters and their trials navigating a period of upheaval and danger.
  • Glass Town Game, by Catherynne Valente: This book really is a fantasy, but I’m including it on this list anyway, because the heroines are the Brontë sisters as children! Who get transplanted, along with their brother, into a strange world derived from their games and imaginings. Somewhere between Wonderland, Narnia, and Fairyland, you’ll find Glass Town. This is a middle-grade novel, but I can highly recommend this flight of fancy for readers of all ages.
  • 46138193The Mercies, by Kiran Millwood Hargrave: A deep dive into a witch trial I had no idea existed, in 1620s Norway. This book is bleak and moody but absolutely enthralling, exploring the poisoned psyche and power dynamics in an isolated Arctic town. (FWIW, I’ve seen it positioned as a fantasy novel in a few places, but I would definitely place it firmly on the historical side of the fence. The narrative never really suggests that the folk magic some of the women get attacked for has actual magical force in the way you’d expect from a fantasy novel).
  • Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood: I read this after watching the miniseries, and only then realized that it was based on real historical events. Grace Marks, aged 16, was arrested in 1843 for the murder of her employer and his housekeeper/mistress. The trial was sensationalized, and it was never quite clear how culpable Grace was — but it makes for a gripping read, and the book unfolds in a way that unsettles the reader’s brain.

Non-Fiction

  • 36525023._SY475_Women & Power: A Manifesto, by Mary Beard: Look, Mary Beard is just awesome. This tract is a trumpet calling out the deeply ingrained misogyny of our world, in history and in the modern day. I’d love to read a deeper dive from her on the same topic.
  • Domina: The Women Who Made Imperial Rome, by Guy de la Bédoyère: I had some issues with this book taking Tacitus a little much at face value, but overall, it’s a solid exploration of the women of the Julio-Claudian dynasty — who are the only reason, Bédoyère frequently reminds us, that the dynasty existed at all. Particularly great is the examination of Roman feminine virtues and the way in which transgression could lead to both power and punishment.
  • Jane Austen: A Life, by Claire Tomalin: I don’t read a lot of biographies, but I enjoyed this one. It goes into incredible detail about Jane Austen’s life and the world she was living in, lending color and context to her books. I only had a sketchy outline of her bio prior to reading this book, and mostly her early life at that (which, okay, I mostly got from watching Becoming Jane); this filled in a lot of those gaps.

And here are a few historical books on my TBR!

  • 40993442Bakhita, by Véronique Olmi
  • Queens of the Conquest, by Alison Weir
  • Agrippina: Empress, Exile, Hustler, Whore, by Emma Southon
  • The Hidden Lives of Tudor Women: A Social History, by Elizabeth Norton
  • My Dear Hamilton: A Novel of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton, by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
  • Alison Weir’s Tudor Queens series
General

Wonder Woman, Historical Fiction, and Fantasy Fulfillment

CassMorrisWrites

A few days ago, I finally saw Wonder Woman, and it was as delightful as the internet had promised me it would be. I want more movies like this. I want sequels. I want prequels that just focus on the Amazons kicking ass thousands of years ago. I want spin-offs. And I want more heroines, all over the place. More movies focusing on women as central characters, unapologetically, from all kinds of stories and backgrounds and cultures and facets of the multiverse. I want princesses and generals and princesses who grow up to be generals.

I love that the major sentiment women have expressed after seeing this film has been: “Is this how guys feel all the time?” What a powerful thing it is, to come out of a movie feeling like you can take on the world.

WWmachinegun

This dovetails with another thought I’ve been having lately: how much articles like “Not in this day and age: when will TV stop horrendously airbrushing history?” and “Women writers must stop falsely empowering female characters in history” annoy the living daylights out of me.

The basic premise of these articles (both of which appeared this summer) is that women couldn’t express feminist ideals before feminism existed — that writers should stop ascribing “modern” viewpoints to pre-modern female characters. Apparently not wanting to marry a guy who makes you miserable is a “laughably liberal” 21st-century ideal.

Atiapissoff

Let’s set aside that such complaints register a pretty narrow and (yes, I’ll say it, despite the esteemed source quote of one of those articles) uninformed view of women in history. I could point to example after example of women throughout time and across continents who demanded some degree of agency and control over their own destinies — and, in fact, I’m doing so over on Patreon!

And let’s also set aside that these complaints about ahistoricity are always centered on women‘s supposed societal transgressions: whether it’s sexual agency, domestic and economic power, disobeying their husbands, whatever, the thinkpieces always want to complain about women not behaving as they expect. Funny, isn’t it?, how the complaints about historical realism are never about suspiciously literate stable boys, the unlikelihood of landless rogues being able to afford the upkeep of warhorses, or the preponderance of male tavernkeepers in an age when brewing was a primarily female occupation.

But even if we grant the articles’ premise that modern historical fiction creates anachronisms in the independence/sexual agency/snarkiness of its female characters — Why in the name of Juno shouldn’t it?

Women are finally beginning to get their own degree of fantasy fulfillment in sci-fi and fantasy. Yet in historical fiction — a genre that has long placed female characters front and center, showcasing their emotional journeys — writers are disparaged for doing the same. Though, I suppose, it’s also worth noting that historical fiction is a genre where male authors have long been taken “seriously” and female authors have been dismissed with the same derision as romance novelists.

Harlotssisters3

I resent the implication that my modern fiction — the books I read and the shows I watch for pleasure, for personal enjoyment — shouldn’t reflect the sorts of heroines that modern women want to see and enjoy. I resent the implication that any girl discovering history through a fictional lens (as most of us do) should be denied the sorts of role models she deserves.

I’m a historian. A persnickety one, sometimes. I twitch when New World fruits and vegetables get mentioned in Old World stories. I flinch when I see patterned fabrics in pre-industrial-manufacturing societies (looking at you, Hobbits). I’ve spent hours combing my own manuscripts for words that wouldn’t be conceptually available to my characters, even though they’re speaking another language (it is shockingly difficult to discuss energy-based magic without the language of the atomic age — another upcoming Patreon post).

But let me state quite flatly: if my historical fiction features an unusually high proportion of smart, sassy women, I have no objection whatsoever. I’ve no doubt that some will take umbrage at the Vitelliae and their patriarchy-challenging transgressions — and I simply could not care less.

hoistthecolours

Give me fantasy fulfillment in every genre — just as men get and have always gotten.

Bits of Fun, Inspiration

Reading Recommendations (while you’re waiting for FROM UNSEEN FIRE)

CassMorrisWrites

Hallo! Cold, grey, dreary wintry days always have me wanting nothing more than to curl up with a good book, so I thought I would share some of my favorites with y’all. Not just favorites, but favorites that, in some way or another, I think will be enjoyable to the folk who will like From Unseen Fire. Or, if you like these books, I think it quite likely you’ll enjoy From Unseen Fire!

Some are on the list because they’re Roman historicals: Colleen McCullough’s wonderful Masters of Rome series, and the exquisite explorations of famous or forgotten women by Kate Quinn, Stephanie Dray, and Michelle Moran. Others are classical-flavored fantasies, like Kate Elliott’s Court of Fives and Sabaa Tahir’s An Ember in the Ashes. Some are fantasies with elemental magic or other magical systems I find delightful, such as Mercedes Lackey’s Elemental Masters series or the works of Cat Valente. A few are nonfiction resources: Tony Perrottet’s Pagan Holiday and Philip Matyszak’s wonderful Roman resources. A great many are simply wonderful epic fantasies, often with historical aspects: Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel trilogies, Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind, Juliet Marillier’s Sevenwaters series, the tri-authored Heirs of Alexandria series, the works of Guy Gavriel Kay.

So while you’re counting down the days til September 5th (230, incidentally), give some of these a try, or revisit some old favorites!

Aven Cycle Suggested Reading

And while you’re on Goodreads checking those out, add From Unseen Fire to your “to-read” list!

General

Reflections on Revisions

CassMorrisWrites

So remember those revisions that I started way back in June? Last week, I finally finished them. This draft took longer than some earlier revisions had, because it involved a lot more restructuring — that “Come to Proserpina” moment did its job and forced me to really rethink a lot of the shape of the book. I had to spend a couple of months moodling — looking at my outlines, shifting scenes around, deciding that wasn’t going to work, making false starts, hitting snarls, trying again. I think the right word for the process is “detangling”. I had a lot to smooth out, particularly after I’d made the initial cuts.

Samwriting
Yeah, it went pretty much like this.

Only in the past month or so did I really start producing new material at a good generative rate. I’m estimating that I scrapped something like 70,000 words, maybe more, from the last version of the manuscript — and then added about 63,000 new ones back in. And that’s not counting the minor changes I had to make to nearly every scene to reflect the adjusted timeline and other little ripples. In a lot of ways, this revision felt like writing most of an entirely new book — and yet that wasn’t what I was doing. The characters and the world are the same; I just had to find a different angle on them.

Someone over the weekend asked me if I like this version of the book better than the last draft. It’s a weird answer to find. I’m in love with this book as it stands now. I was in love with the earlier version, too. I was in love with last year’s draft, or I wouldn’t have inflicted it upon agents. They’re just all differently shaped beasts. As the book now stands, it’s shaped much more like a fantasy novel than it used to be — and that’s good, since we have to sell it in that genre. It has more rapidly shifting highs and lows, more exciting incidents, particularly earlier in the novel, and more intense “high-stakes” moments. The magic is also a lot more front-and-center than it used to be, and that was fun to play with, because I love dabbling with thaumaturgical theory. The earlier drafts were written much more like historical novels — and I liked that about them. I like the idea of treating the magic in this book as just another component of the world, and otherwise going about as though this is straight historical fiction, with the somewhat slower pace and deeper introspection that that genre embraces. But that runs against the grain of the industry as it currently stands, and part of being a working writer is knowing how to maneuver within the system without sacrificing your story, vision, and creativity. For me, it meant not losing the important character moments (something that historical novels display so well) amid the more energetic plotline (critical to moving a fantasy novel along). I think I’ve hit that sweet spot now in a way I hadn’t before.

I did lose some material that I really adored. One major chunk took out close to 20,000 words in a single, devastating blow. It was a major event in the earlier draft, but with the changes I made to the timeline and the plot, it became entirely irrelevant. As I’ve said before, though, I almost never actually “kill my darlings”. I just defer them. I’m sure I can use at least some of that material in the second book. That’s definitely the case for another big scene that I cut, an emotional confrontation between two characters — it no longer fit with the flow of events here, but it’ll definitely make its way into the next book. Other things may not even stay in this story, but might get revived for a later project.

Revisions like this are a lot of work. Since the end of August, I think I’ve spent as many hours on this as I have at my day job. The “I can’t; I have rehearsal” mantra of my youth became “I can’t; I have revisions.” I spent two entire weekends glued to my chair (which made me viscerally aware that I need a writing chair that isn’t straight-backed and made of hard, uncushioned wood), not leaving the house, mainlining black tea and Diet Dr Pepper with nature documentaries running unobtrusively in the background. I’m super-pleased with the results of all of this focused grinding — but I am also, I confess, a little relieved that now I get to step back from the story while my agent and beta readers have at it.

General

On Writing Historical Fiction

CassMorrisWrites

Tips for Aspiring Historical Fiction Writers, by Stephanie Dray (author of Lily of the Nile and its sequels)