Once Upon a Time it was now : : the art and Craft of Writing Historical Fiction

Locations
Call Number: 808.381 Th
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	808.381 Th	4-week checkout	On Shelf

Subtitle from cover.
Includes index.
Preface: Once upon a time it was now -- In the river of time -- History: a distillation of rumor -- A catalytic remark -- Modifying the truth -- Searching and researching -- Old stuff in a new package: history in the computer age -- Genealogy is like the potato -- Taming your research data -- It was a dark and storm night -- Ain't like it used to was -- Songs, smells, and sensations -- Catching the historians -- How much credibility? -- What's then got to do with now? -- How not to write historical fiction -- Around the fire.
Historical fiction writers and historians are not the same. While a historian stands firmly planted in the present and looks back into the past, a historical novelist sets readers directly in the past and shows them forward. The job of a historical fiction writer is to make readers feel the victories and defeats, joys and pains, as if they were there. James Alexander Thom guides aspiring writers through the creation of historical fiction. He includes tips on problems many writers face, including: how much credibility is too much?; telling facts from opinions and seeing through the bias; knowing when to embellish and when not to; researching with archives, genealogy, site visits, journals, and memories. Highlighted with humor and personal anecdotes, Thom's detailed guides uses invaluable insights from himself and other historians and historical novelists to help the reader create a novel that is true to what was then, when then was now.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Summary / Annotation
Table of Contents

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Not great submitted by zmclaugh on July 27, 2018, 11:09am This was more for people obsessed with American history and writing about specific historical figures than for people interested in learning about writing historical fiction more broadly. The author also talks a lot about himself, which I didn't find particularly useful or interesting.