Blending Fact and Fiction with David Cairns

Uh, they just want the story to clip along and, and go through to the end.

Uh, for me, I don't believe that you can create an enveloping experience, you can't make your reader a time traveler unless they experience the three-dimensional world that you're talking about.

You know, for example, we don't get smog in London today, but I'm old enough to remember walking home in a pea souper in the East End of London when I was much younger.

Uh, and I remember the ethereal quality of the night.

You know? I couldn't see my hand in front of me, it was that thick, and I was walking along beside a park.

Um, and the hair-raising experience of hearing disembodied footsteps suddenly appearing and then disappearing.

Um, things like that, um, as I say, you don't get today.

It was not uncommon there.

Um, and the, all other things around this create, uh, uh, the experience, uh, that, that allows you to tell the story and bring your v- reader back in time.

You've got to immerse the r- reader in the time if they're going to really become part of the story.

Mm.

Yeah, that makes total sense.

Um, and in your recent article for Writing Magazine, you discussed building dynamic characters in historical fiction.

Um, why is this so important, and can you give our listeners some techniques potentially that might help them in their own writing?

Okay.

Well, let me first of all say I'm still learning my trade and always will be, so I would preach in...

I would approach any recommendation with a certain [laughs] degree of humility in that respect.

Um, but I think I, I'd emphasize that there are no right ways and no wrong ways.

Um, but, but there are certainly some things that you do need to pay attention to.

For, uh, there was a friend of mine recently, uh, they, they've started writing a book, and they've set it, they want to write a book about transportation or people being transported to Australia.

And, uh, she's actually, uh, from England originally.

Uh, and in her story she, she asked me, "Can you read a chapter so I can figure I'm on the right path?" So I read the chapter, and I had to explain to her that they didn't drink mead in the pubs in 1980, or sorry, 1883.

They would drink small beer typically if they were poor.

Um, and it's little things like that.

So a- another example is, uh, I had, uh, somebody, uh, proofreading one of my books, and they came back and said, "Oh, you need to capitalize the N in Northern Ireland." And says, "No, I don't, because Northern Ireland didn't exist in 1865.