Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Report from Santa Barbara Writers Conference
I travelled up here to Santa Barbara with two main objectives: to test fly my book concept with agents and to expose my first chapter to practiced writers for critique. I've gotten good news and bad.
The first agent I spoke with, a man who deals equally with book and movie projects, was immediately hooked with the storyline. "That's perfect for HBO or Showtime, with a special cast," he responded, with wide smile and bright eyes. "Do you write scripts as well?" he asked. When told the project would need a scriptwriter, he shrugged that off: no problem. "When can you get the completed book manuscript to me?" he followed up. GULP. Next spring, I ventured. OK, he said, "I'll be waiting for it."
The agent's response was exactly what I wanted to hear. I'd put him on my short-list because of his experience with film as well as books, and I was curious if he would himself suggest the story is ripe for a feature film or TV production.
The other agents I spoke with, either in one-to-one conversation or in a workshop wanted to hear or read a sample of my writing. "Dense," was the universal judgment of the chapter from the middle of the book. By that, I deduced they meant too academic, too burdened down with the details I've uncovered which slow down the pace of the story. "Extraordinary!" "Can't wait to read it!" These were the reactions to my Prologue, which uses detail to tease interest in the characters and circumstances of the story.
My challenge is reconfirmed: I have a great story to work with, but hobbled by limited first-person accounts. It's a difficult story to write because of the huge gaps in documented information. The temptation to invent scenes, flesh out characters from informed imagination is strong.
Yet, coming from my training long ago as a historian, I really yearn to share every detail arduously dug out of reluctant archives.
So, my dilemma continues...
The first agent I spoke with, a man who deals equally with book and movie projects, was immediately hooked with the storyline. "That's perfect for HBO or Showtime, with a special cast," he responded, with wide smile and bright eyes. "Do you write scripts as well?" he asked. When told the project would need a scriptwriter, he shrugged that off: no problem. "When can you get the completed book manuscript to me?" he followed up. GULP. Next spring, I ventured. OK, he said, "I'll be waiting for it."
The agent's response was exactly what I wanted to hear. I'd put him on my short-list because of his experience with film as well as books, and I was curious if he would himself suggest the story is ripe for a feature film or TV production.
The other agents I spoke with, either in one-to-one conversation or in a workshop wanted to hear or read a sample of my writing. "Dense," was the universal judgment of the chapter from the middle of the book. By that, I deduced they meant too academic, too burdened down with the details I've uncovered which slow down the pace of the story. "Extraordinary!" "Can't wait to read it!" These were the reactions to my Prologue, which uses detail to tease interest in the characters and circumstances of the story.
My challenge is reconfirmed: I have a great story to work with, but hobbled by limited first-person accounts. It's a difficult story to write because of the huge gaps in documented information. The temptation to invent scenes, flesh out characters from informed imagination is strong.
Yet, coming from my training long ago as a historian, I really yearn to share every detail arduously dug out of reluctant archives.
So, my dilemma continues...
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
The Continum of Written History
There are a number of different genres within the broad field of written history: academic history, popular history, historical fiction, family history, memoirs and perhaps others. I am beginning to see the virtue of dialogue among practitioners of these very different approaches to history: we have a lot to learn from each other.
Just yesterday, I was intrigued to learn about the North American Historical Novel Society, which held its first conference in April 2005 in Salt Lake City. The kick-off speaker on opening night was Jack Whyte, who admonished the assembled writers, “Just tell a story, Forget trying to write classic literature. Keep it simple.”
The Society's second conference, by the way, is scheduled for early June 2007 in Albany, NY.
Whyte's advice brings back to mind several conversations I had about six months ago with two friends with long experience in the book publishing business. Both knew about the three years of research I've done and the general theme of the story. And both told me, "Stop focussing on research. Write!" And they both followed up with advice: emphsize character and action; historical detail is less important.
I found that advice very unsettling. It did, however, come at a crucial stage, just as I myself was beginning to write the first draft of a book proposal and to undertake a search for a literary agent. Over intervening months, I've struggled with issues of "how" to write history.
Google led me to a few websites that mention the difference between academic history and popular history. My meanderings through bookstore shelves have put into my hands quite a number of books about seafaring expeditions, naval battles, shipwrecks, even medical history that fall into the same kind of territory I'm beginning to write about. Many of those books are clearly of the "popular" variety. I do not find them satisfying.
Nor do I find much of academic histories very engaging either.
I'm beginning to understand that I wish to occupy that space somewhere between the "popular" and the "academic." Nathaniel Philbrick, whom I've mentioned in an earlier post, is this kind of historian. Rigorous in research, faithful in his retelling of events, accurate in his quotations, yet very well written -- a genuinely good read. That's what I hope to accomplish.
One would think, with my lifetime of writing, teaching and fascination with cultural history, that I would not be fidgeting so much about the writing process I'm engaged in. At the core of my problem is inadequate documentation: while the timeline of my story is quite well documented in archives in Spain, the Canary Islands, the Caribbean countries, Mexico, the Philippines and even Macao, almost nothing is known about the characters themselves. While there are plenty of officials letters describing the highlights of events, there is no true first-hand account from any of the participants or their contemporaries. And, in many ways, the story becomes very repetitious and boring after awhile.
All of these deficiences in the record encourage one to "fill in the blanks" with invented description and dialogue, with characterizations drawn out of thin air. I'm not satisfied with that.
Consequently, my research has reached far beyond the story itself, searching out corollary information. For example, when my main character is caught in a frightening and destructive typhoon at sea, I've turned to a description of such a storm by a contemporary in the same waters. It took months and lots of patience to find that description. I've been writing up that section of the story over the past few days, finally with enough detail and drama to satisfy the demanding historian in me. Altogether, it amounts to little more than a page of single-space text. Whew! So much work, so few words to show for it!
Just yesterday, I was intrigued to learn about the North American Historical Novel Society, which held its first conference in April 2005 in Salt Lake City. The kick-off speaker on opening night was Jack Whyte, who admonished the assembled writers, “Just tell a story, Forget trying to write classic literature. Keep it simple.”
The Society's second conference, by the way, is scheduled for early June 2007 in Albany, NY.
Whyte's advice brings back to mind several conversations I had about six months ago with two friends with long experience in the book publishing business. Both knew about the three years of research I've done and the general theme of the story. And both told me, "Stop focussing on research. Write!" And they both followed up with advice: emphsize character and action; historical detail is less important.
I found that advice very unsettling. It did, however, come at a crucial stage, just as I myself was beginning to write the first draft of a book proposal and to undertake a search for a literary agent. Over intervening months, I've struggled with issues of "how" to write history.
Google led me to a few websites that mention the difference between academic history and popular history. My meanderings through bookstore shelves have put into my hands quite a number of books about seafaring expeditions, naval battles, shipwrecks, even medical history that fall into the same kind of territory I'm beginning to write about. Many of those books are clearly of the "popular" variety. I do not find them satisfying.
Nor do I find much of academic histories very engaging either.
I'm beginning to understand that I wish to occupy that space somewhere between the "popular" and the "academic." Nathaniel Philbrick, whom I've mentioned in an earlier post, is this kind of historian. Rigorous in research, faithful in his retelling of events, accurate in his quotations, yet very well written -- a genuinely good read. That's what I hope to accomplish.
One would think, with my lifetime of writing, teaching and fascination with cultural history, that I would not be fidgeting so much about the writing process I'm engaged in. At the core of my problem is inadequate documentation: while the timeline of my story is quite well documented in archives in Spain, the Canary Islands, the Caribbean countries, Mexico, the Philippines and even Macao, almost nothing is known about the characters themselves. While there are plenty of officials letters describing the highlights of events, there is no true first-hand account from any of the participants or their contemporaries. And, in many ways, the story becomes very repetitious and boring after awhile.
All of these deficiences in the record encourage one to "fill in the blanks" with invented description and dialogue, with characterizations drawn out of thin air. I'm not satisfied with that.
Consequently, my research has reached far beyond the story itself, searching out corollary information. For example, when my main character is caught in a frightening and destructive typhoon at sea, I've turned to a description of such a storm by a contemporary in the same waters. It took months and lots of patience to find that description. I've been writing up that section of the story over the past few days, finally with enough detail and drama to satisfy the demanding historian in me. Altogether, it amounts to little more than a page of single-space text. Whew! So much work, so few words to show for it!
