GUEST POST: J.F. Ridgley--Author of Red Fury Revolt

I'm thrilled to have J.F. Ridgley, the Author of Red Fury Revolt as a guest blogger today, talking about the process of writing historical fiction (a subject near and dear to my heart.)

 

Writing Historical Fiction is not a “walk in the park.”

Writing historical fiction is more of a learning quest. Upon writing the first draft of Red Fury Revolt, I had the Roman legion coming into the Iceni village and taking over the people’s huts, imprisoning Boudica and her two daughters in a hut with an escape tunnel. And yes they did escape. It was a fantastic scene. However totally wrong.

First, Roman legions didn’t camp in a village. Each night, they built a marching camp with an encircling ditch, dirt berm, and perfect rows of tents inside. That was the beginning point of my learning details of Rome’s powerful force, as complicated as understanding the details of the U.S. Marine Corp.

The first draft of Red Fury Revolt began eighteen years ago. It started out with the discovery of the magnificent Iceni queen Boudica, or most commonly known as Boudicca or Boudicea. I discovered a book by Graham Webster titled Boudica where Mr. Webster explains why why he changed the spelling of her name because no one on this island could write at this time, so no one knew for certain how her name was spelled. When the History Channel began referring to her as Boudica, I decided to go with Mr. Webster’s spelling.

Okay I’m searching through Boudica’s history and discover a young Roman named Gnaeus Julius Agricola who was present in Britannia when the queen was flogged and her daughters raped. During Boudica’s revolt, Julius became the consul/governor’s second-in-command, or as I had his title as his lacticlavius. This is a misspelling because, as one of the wonderful Roman reactors told me, it’s laticlavius. These reenactors were and are amazing with their knowledge and with keeping me straight.

Gnaeus Julius Agricola started and, after many tours here, ended his career in Britannia. After his time as laticlavius, Julius returned to be commander/legate of the XX Legion. Then he returned again four more times as consul/governor. My thought was why? Research said Britannia was NOT Rome’s most profitable province. Besides, it’s cold, rainy weather was not a favorite of many in command. So why did Julius Agricola spend 90% of his career here?

That was my author’s inspiration to changing my story from Boudica’s to his story. Why did Julius return? My answer resulted in my Agricola series, which addresses why he chose to return to take the legions farther than any consul ever did, including Hadrian and Antonius. Then he was recalled to Rome to die at the age of 53. Some say he was murdered by Domitian Caesar. But no one knows that for sure either. Again, as an author, I have to say no.

My advantage and greatest resource was the great historian Tacitus who was his son-in-law and wrote Julius’s biography. However with all Tacitus’s adoration of his father-in-law, Tacitus never mentioned Julius’s daughter by name. His wife! Not in anything he wrote. I looked and asked everywhere and everyone I could find on her name. His daughter had to be a character in her father’s story…right? So, what was her name? NO ONE KNOWS.

So I had to pull on what I had learned of Rome’s customs. The ‘name game’ in Rome is a nightmare for any author. Sons carry their father’s name exactly. Gnaeus Julius Agricola’s sons’ names would have been Gnaeus Julius Agricola, even if he had ten sons. Daughters’ names followed in the feminine form of his name. So, all of Julius’s daughters name would be Julia. And daughters’ were prima, secunda and so on, meaning the girls were named Julia Prima and Julia Secunda.

The name game doesn’t stop there.  Only the personal family may use the first name only of a family member.  Common folk had to use the full name- Gnaeus Julius Agricola, or, Julius Agricola. Julius’s wife and mother referred to Julius as Gnaeus. 

And as a writer, how do you keep these kids clear, dear readers? So I named his daughter Julia, and everyone referred to Julius by Julius, including his mother and future wife. If I didn’t do that, my readers would be banging my book on the wall.

This is the adventure I love of writing historical fiction as well as the challenge of sticking as close to the discovered facts as I can. I never know where I’m going to land or what I’m going to do. But I do love writing in ancient Rome.

Links :

Cornelius Tacitus

https://wolbongreview.wordpress.com/2014/12/29/agricola-by-tacitus-2/

Graham Webster  Boudica

http://www.amazon.com/Boudica-British-Against-Conquest-Britain/dp/0415226066/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1425529690&sr=1-7&keywords=graham+webster

 

Book one of my Agricola series

 London’s statue to Boudica

 Roman officer with his legions

 

Website   http://www.jfridgley.com

Blog http://www.jfridgley.com/writerswolrld

Facebook  http://www.facebook.com/authorjfridgley

Twitter  http://www.twitter.com/@jfridgley

Google+ http://www.google+.com/jfridgley

Pinterest http://www.pinterest.com/jfridgley

Linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/jfridgley

Email  jfridgley@jfridgley.com

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/jfridgley


For a chance to win a copy of Red Fury Revolt or other great prizes, visit the HFVBT host site here.

 

Red Fury Revolt Blog Tour Schedule

Monday, March 2
Spotlight at The Maiden’s Court
Tuesday, March 3
Spotlight & Giveaway at Passages to the Past
Friday, March 6
Guest Post at The Reading World
Saturday, March 7
Review at Book Nerd
Spotlight at Curiouser and Curiouser
Sunday, March 8
Review & Excerpt at A Virtual Hobby Store and Coffee Haus
Monday, March 9
Interview at A Virtual Hobby Store and Coffee Haus
Tuesday, March 10
Interview & Excerpt at Becky on Books
Wednesday, March 11
Review at Deal Sharing Aunt
Thursday, March 12
Interview at Curling Up With A Good Book
Friday, March 13
Review at Genre Queen
Review at With Her Nose Stuck in a Book
Guest Post at Just One More Chapter

 

 

GUEST POST: Two books about Malcolm X

The latest choice for our historical fiction/history book group was The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley. I had mixed feelings about the book. I learned quite a bit about the time period and about the man. But I found it to be slow reading, particularly the first part of the book detailing his early life and criminal past. Once he was imprisoned and began his career with the Nation of Islam, the story became more compelling. While I know that we have to understand his past in order to appreciate the path of his life, I just didn’t find the way it was narrated to be all that interesting.

So, I thought it would be a good idea to read Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable for comparison. How would a different writer present the life of this important historical figure?

Here’s what happened. We got Marable’s book out of the library and my husband read it first. Meanwhile, I started Anna Karenina for the Back-to-the-Classics challenge. And as we both worked our way through our chunky books, I had an even better idea. A guest post!

I introduce to you, historian Brad Asher, (author of Cecelia and Fanny: The Remarkable Friendship Between an Escaped Slave and her Former Mistress) to discuss two books on Malcolm X.



Sue asked me to guest blog because I read both The Autobiography of Malcolm X for our history book group and then followed it up immediately with the 2010 biography Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable. So I have been immersed in Malcolm X for the last few weeks, even watching on YouTube some of his old speeches and the 1959 documentary, "The Hate that Hate Produced," which first brought him wide attention outside the African American community. Despite my immersion, though, I wonder if a middle-class white guy has anything useful to say about Malcolm X.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X, of course, is a modern classic, widely assigned in college classrooms to this day. It tells the story of Malcolm’s redemption from a life of criminality and drug abuse to national and international prominence as a spokesman for the ghetto-ized poor blacks of America’s northern cities. While Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders were fighting legal segregation in the Jim Crow South, Malcolm and other like-minded leaders were fighting structural racism and racist exploitation in the urban North. The vehicle for Malcolm’s redemption was the Nation of Islam, a cult-like religious and social movement led by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, who was viewed as a divine messenger sent by Allah to the black masses of America.

From the vantage point of 2012, it is hard to read the Autobiography and not notice the wacky theology of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm’s retrograde views on women, his blanket condemnations of whites as "devils," and his offhand dismissals of civil rights leaders like King. The things that are so important in Malcolm’s life story and his ideology—his emphasis on black pride, black self-help, black self-respect—are in the 21^st century ingrained in many aspects of American culture. It can be difficult—for whites, at least—to remember what a cultural shock such sentiments were in the early 1960s.

That’s where I found Marable’s book so helpful. He is not uncritical of Malcolm or the Nation of Islam, but he puts Malcolm’s story in the context of the larger currents of civil-rights history and African American history. Whereas Malcolm’s eventual break with the Nation has a slightly incongruous feeling in the Autobiography, given all that’s come before, Marable is able to integrate the break into the larger story of Malcolm’s evolution as an activist, a leader, and a Muslim. Marable also makes clear that American culture’s domestication of Malcolm—the tendency to view him as someone who was moving toward the civil rights mainstream by the time of his assassination—is a misreading of the man’s life and legacy.

I don’t think I would have enjoyed Marable as much if I hadn’t read the Autobiography, but I also think I "get" the Autobiography better as a result of Marable’s book.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: DORI JONES YANG

I'm fortunate to have Dori Jones Yang as a guest on my blog today. Dori is an author who writes YA historical fiction. I reviewed her previous wonderful book, Daughter of Xanadu, back in October. Her current book, a sequel, is titled Son of Venice. I'm one of the stops on the arc tour for this book, so my review will follow!
Here is the publisher's description:

Son of Venice continues the story begun in Daughter of Xanadu, set in thirteenth century China. In that book, Emmajin, an excellent archer and fictional granddaughter of Khubilai Khan, poured all her energy into her dream of becoming the first woman soldier in the Mongol army. When she met Marco Polo, a traveling merchant from Venice, he fascinated her with tales of romantic love and caused her to question her ambition. Son of Venice picks up the story as Emmajin begins her journey to the West, assigned by Khubilai Khan to carry a letter to establish peace and cooperation between her homeland and Marco Polo’s. Marco is to travel in the same caravan. But a shaman’s warning of traitors and danger casts a shadow over their journey. Emmajin wants to win respect as an ambassador of the Great Khan and also to enjoy her time with Marco Polo. But her guards—and her cousin, Temur—insist on keeping them apart. Plus, as she travels west with the army, she begins to doubt the Khan’s intentions. Does he really want her to make peace with the West? Told in alternating points of view, this book follows the adventures of Emmajin and Marco Polo as they head west along the Silk Road. They face battles, intrigue, sinister plots, and unexpected challenges to their unconventional love. Can Marco’s famed eloquence and cleverness help when Emmajin faces perils beyond any she imagined?

 

 

Here is Dori Jones Yang:

 

 

 

 

 

And here is what Dori has to say:

 

 

INTERVIEW:

Susan: Your personal history shows a long interest in Chinese culture. According to your website, you quit your job in journalism to write a book about Marco Polo. Daughter of Xanadu is told from Princess Emmajin’s point of view. The sequel, Son of Venice, alternates viewpoints between Emmajin and Marco Polo. What made you decide to approach Marco Polo’s story by coming at it first from Emmajin’s perspective rather than his own?

Dori: Marco Polo became famous because he wrote his own book about his travels to China; he was one of the first Europeans to go there. So we already have his perspective. In the U.S., most of us learned history from books written by European or American men. I wanted to turn history on its head and write from the perspective of a woman—and an Asian. What did Marco Polo look like to an Asian woman? When everyone you know has brown eyes and black hair, Europeans must look very strange. Also, the Mongol Empire was the superpower of its era, and Mongols looked down on people from other countries. They saw Europe as a distant, backward place. I believe that when you live in a superpower, you should take care not to seem arrogant or superior to people from other countries.

Susan: The historical details of the books are very realistic and the reading experience is immersive. What sources did you use to research Marco Polo’s life? Same question for Khubilai Khan and for Mongolian court life.


Dori:
 One of the versions of Marco Polo’s Travels, the Yule-Cordier edition, has some amazing footnotes filled with background research and details. Marco described a Mongol princess who challenged every suitor to a wrestling match and defeated them all; that got me thinking. I also read a lot about Europe in the High Middle Ages, during the thirteenth century, the era of medieval courtly love. How would stories of courtly love go over with the tough Mongols? But most of my research was about Mongolian lifestyle, culture, and history, and about the Mongol Era, which I knew little about. Jack Weatherford wrote a great book about Genghis Khan and another about how the Khan gave surprising power to his daughters, making them Mongol queens of conquered territories. Also, I spent many happy hours pouring over maps.

Susan:
 We met on a panel at The Historical Novel Society meeting where we discussed YA versus adult historical fiction. What made you decide to write for a YA audience?

Dori:
 Originally, I wrote this story for adults. But I found a terrific, enthusiastic editor of young adult fiction at Random House, and she convinced me that high school students would love this story. Since then, I’ve discovered one reason why: Today’s teenagers and twenty-somethings grew up in a multicultural society and a global world. A novel about the Mongol Empire is no more foreign to them than a book about Italian Renaissance painters. They don’t necessarily have preconceived notions about historical fiction. I’ve done more than thirty school visits and discovered that students love learning about faraway places and different cultures.

Susan:
 You’ve visited Xanadu. What was it like? Have you been to Venice? How large a role does travel play in your research and writing?

Dori:
 Finding Xanadu was amazing. It is only 170 miles north of Beijing but it took us two full days to drive there, through winding mountain roads that are not well-marked. When the Mongol Empire was overthrown, the marble palace and flowering gardens of Xanadu were completely destroyed, so there is little left to see. But with my historical research and my novelist’s imagination, I could envision the Great Khan’s court in session and Emmajin riding in the nearby hills. My friend and I stood in a huge field of wildflowers and recited the poem "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan." I also traveled to Venice and am eager to go back. Travel helps me as a writer create a vivid sense of place. It’s not essential, but it sure is fun.

Susan:
 Thank you so much for sharing with us on my blog. What do readers have to look forward to from you next?

Dori:
 Thanks so much for your interest! I have just finishing writing another cross-cultural, historical novel for younger readers, age 10 to 12. It is set in a totally different time and place. Once I have a publisher, I’ll announce it on my website, www.dorijonesyang.com.

COME SEE ME AT THE MOD PODGE BOOKSHELF

Today I'm being interviewed as part of the author interview series 2011-wrap-up at The Mod Podge Bookshelf.




Come have a look at my guest post and check out some of the other author interviews as well!

DRESS AND POLITICS IN ENLIGHTENMENT FRANCE by Laurel Corona

Welcome to Reading World's first guest blog. Laurel Corona, author of Finding Emilie, will tell us about 18th century fashion. You've seen the giant dresses and mounds of hair. You have been curious, haven't you?

Dress and Politics in Enlightenment France

by Laurel Corona

When I leaf through history books, or go to an art gallery and see portraits of men and women in white wigs and wearing the tight, constraining clothes of the Enlightenment era, something in my head says, “move on.” Maybe it’s a bit too much of the Founding Fathers in school, but they all seem so starchy, unfun, and, well, academic.

The more I learned doing research for FINDING EMILIE, the weirder they became. I discovered, for example that the panniers the women wore to balloon their skirts out like boxes over their hips made it impossible to sit on a chamber pot, so they wore huge numbers of petticoats and simply peed where they stood.  Ewww!!  And one reason that enemas were so popular was--well, do I need to say how difficult a major rumbling in the gut might make things?

I discovered also that tight and precise fits made it necessary to be sewn into gowns, particularly the sleeves, and that gowns were often varied by choosing different sleeves, or different outer or inner layers that would peek through or cover up a fabric one didn’t want to be seen wearing too often.  I wondered then about all these scenes of seduction from racy French novels of the time.  Surely a woman could not allow her sewn-in body to be bared. How would she get home with torn-off sleeves and ripped seams?  No quickies in a back room, that’s for sure, unless she just took off her panniers and lifted her skirt. How romantic! 

And then again, it seems as if the whole point of seduction was to leave men unrequited.  It was about teasing, about ardor, about hope and imagination. While she’s flirting, a parallel conversation must have been going on in the woman’s mind. How can I get this man into my bedroom after I’ve undressed?  Do I really want to take that risk? How attractive, rich, powerful, charming is he anyway?  My guess is the answer was often a flirtatious flick of a fan, a “come hither but stay away” reply, and not much in the way of action.

As I pored through source materials, I also discovered what social forces drove women into corsets, stomachers, busks, and panniers. In some respects I suppose it’s the same things shoveling women into push-up bras and body shapers today--an idealized body ours inevitably falls short of, and social pressure to make ourselves as attractive as possible.  But the extremes of dress at Versailles in the eighteenth century reflected something much deeper. Women’s gowns and hair were not only symbols of that culture but also actors in a complex story of social dominance.

Panniers became ever wider and skirts more voluminous in the years before the French Revolution.  Hair was piled higher and higher, with elaborate decorations perched on top. Such things were a contest of sorts, an opportunity to show one’s grace and breeding by the simple act of managing to wear such a thing at all.  Picture it.  You’re sewn into a dress in which you can barely move.  Your arms are encased in skintight sleeves, tipped with layer after layer of delicate lace just long enough to brush across the remnants of food on your plate, and overturn a thin porcelain teacup or delicate crystal glass.  Yet you must move your arms because it is ungracious just to sit there.  You must coyly offer a bite on your fork to the man next to you, or touch his hand to make a point. You must lean toward him, or toward your glass or plate from the hips because the rigging of your dress makes it impossible to bend from the waist or shoulders. Your hair style has doubled the height of your head and is weighed down with a headdress that feels as if it might be shifting, but you must tease and flirt without appearing stiff necked.

Madame de Pompadour's dress

Marie Antoinette

All of this is a test. How do you handle a dress like the one worn by Madame de Pompadour in the painting shown here?  How do you look relaxed in a hairdo like the one Marie Antoinette is sporting here?

 Can you float your way through a room filled with delicate furniture topped by precious porcelain decorations, without knocking anything over (a mere touch might do it) in a skirt so wide you had to turn sideways to get through the doorway?  Can you sit down gracefully, ballooning out the yards of fabric in your skirt just so--and even harder, appear relaxed while you converse, and then rise with no apparent effort to your feet?  If a gentleman offers you a hand to get up, can you lay it in his without grasping or tugging on it, to prove that you needed no help at all?

In this scene from FINDING EMILIE, the heroine Lili and her friend Delphine practice for their presentation at Versailles:

“And now, Mademoiselle du Châtelet, shall we try it again?  And please do not sigh this time.  A show of frustration is most unbecoming.” She lifted one hand in a delicate arc.  “Fluid grace.  Effortlessness.  That is your goal.”  She turned to Delphine.  “But first, Mademoiselle de Bercy, show us how you rise from a low couch.” 

Her eyes followed every move as Delphine stood up. “You are launching yourself upward. [...]To do it properly, Mademoiselle de Bercy, you must summon your strength by drawing your toes under you to support your weight, and come up using the strength in your upper legs, comme ça.”

Madame de Quesnay’s corset kept her back rigid as she tilted her body forward just a little from the hips. “From the thighs,” she said as she rose from her chair in one motion. “Mademoiselle du Châtelet, let’s observe you again.  Sit where Mademoiselle de Bercy just was, as if Monsieur were an admirer you are delighted to see.  Then get up from the couch as gracefully as if the air under your gown was setting you afloat.”

Walk to couch. Rotate hips to move panniers aside so I can land on my behind. Stick out left foot enough to help shift my weight to right foot but not enough for it to show from under my petticoats.  Weight on right foot, bend at hips, brace leg against couch and go down slowly. Voilà. Lili hit the seat with only a little bump.

“Quite improved,” Madame de Quesnay said.  “But you are showing far too much concentration.  Your lips had practically disappeared inside your mouth and that is, of course, most unattractive. Practice at home until you can get up and down as if you gave no thought to it.” Seated again in her fauteuil, Madame de Quesnay raised and lowered her hand in a fluid motion.   “Remember, you have no thoughts at all, except how pleasant it is to have the opportunity to converse with an attractive gentleman. Now, rise as I explained, and repeat the entire motion--down, then up.”

 Get up from the couch as gracefully as if the air under your gown was setting you afire, Lili thought, suppressing the urge to laugh. 

Except it wasn’t funny. In a world where impoverished hereditary aristocrats and wealthy bourgeoisie intermarried--the former for money, the latter for title--to fail to be effortless and gracious indicated poor breeding, a sign that, poor dear, you really don’t belong in society.  Lives could be ruined over a porcelain figurine knocked from a table, an indecorous laugh, a poorly received remark, a toppled hairdo. As Lili and Delphine prepare for Versailles, they know that their future depends entirely upon things that don’t--or at least shouldn’t--matter at all.


Thank you, Laurel!!