When you write historical novels, you don’t. In fact… you can sometimes make things up! Which is one of the major inducements for writing fiction, if you ask me.
However. When you write scientific papers, you are normally dealing with a very limited and specific set of circumstances: You are interested, say, in the salinity preferences of the Chinese mudskipper, Periophthalmus chinensis (Gordon, Gabaldon and Yip, 1987). You will therefore start with a dual search: for general information on Chinese mudskippers and for references on salinity preference experiments.
You will attempt to find every single reference locatable in both categories, plus all relevant references to which these lead— and then to read them all carefully. This is necessary, if tedious; scientific research depends on accuracy of observation and replicability of results—and every new bit of knowledge rests upon a firm foundation of what is already known (we disregard for the moment the fact that such foundations shift now and then).
Since someone coming after you may wish to build on your work, you have to leave clearly marked trails and well-built walls; it’s a professional obligation. Consequently, you must include citations of all the work that you yourself used as background for your hypothesis and experimental design, and you must make this as complete and well integrated as you can.
You don’t do this with a novel. A novel stands alone; no one (other than possibly yourself, if you end up writing a series of books) is coming along after you, depending on your work to support later hypotheses.
ONE OF THE Ten Favorite Questions Interviewers Ask is: “How did you make the transition from being a scientist to being a novelist?”
“Wrote a book,” I reply tersely.⋆ If it’s a formal interview, though, I usually feel obliged to explain that the implied notion that science and art are diametrically opposing poles of human endeavor is mistaken. Many people think that science is logical, rigid, and cold, while art is intuitive, flexible, and touchy-feely. In fact, both processes are simply two faces of the same coin. Intuition feeds logic and vice versa. Science without imagination is useless; art without structure is pointless.
Both science and art ultimately rest on the same foundation: the ability to draw patterns out of chaos. It’s just that when you do science, you observe the chaos; when you do art, you get to define it.
Likewise, the purposes of a novel are not those of scientific research, though there are similar goals. In both cases, you’re constructing a small picture of reality; you are attempting to explain the world and how it works. However, in the case of scientific research, you’re doing your explanation via facts, and in the case of a novel, you’re doing it with lies—i.e., you’re telling a story.
RESEARCH ASSISTANTS—OR NOT
Given the necessity for so much background material, factual trivia, etc., many writers of historical fiction use research assistants—and in fact, I’m often asked how many research assistants I use! Actually, I don’t use assistants at all. It’s not that I don’t think they’d be helpful; it’s just that I couldn’t possibly tell them what to look for.
It’s rather like getting groceries for dinner. You can send someone to the store with a list—say, hot dogs and beans—and sure enough, they’ll come back with hot dogs and beans, and you’ll have a fine dinner. Or at least you’ll eat.
On the other hand… when I go to the grocery story myself, I may have it in mind to buy hot dogs and beans, but as I pass the meat case, I see that there are nice-looking lamb chops in today. Hmm, I think; lamb curry is awfully good, and I already have basmati rice and mango chutney at home. So I add the lamb chops to my basket, and then get a white onion, some garlic, and a six-pack of V-8 to make the curry. And on the way to the vegetable department, I pass the deli, where there is a special on fresh shrimp. Ooh, a shrimp salad to precede the curry! Get a nice green-leaf lettuce, some spring onions and a cucumber. Oh, and dressing. And then, of course, Mountain Dew, because nothing tastes better with hot curry than cold Mountain Dew….
So I spend a good deal more time (and money) by going to the store myself—but I get a much tastier and more original menu as a result. Novelists who use research assistants tend to get hot dogs and beans.
Translating this into writing—naturally there will be certain things that I find I want or need to know, as necessary ingredients to the story. However, more often than not, when I go looking for these tidbits of information, I come across something much more interesting; some fact whose existence I never dreamed of, and therefore couldn’t have sent someone to find.
As a brief example, take Monsieur Forez. I was reading a book on the practice of medicine in France during the second half of the eighteenth century, with the notion that I might pick up tips for Claire to use in her work at L’Hôpital des Anges. I did, in fact, pick up any amount of useful background: small technical trivia, like the art of urinoscopy, but also general information on practitioners of the period.
Licensed physicians were rare, expensive, and not always trusted by the general populace (for good reason; a license didn’t always imply either education or effectiveness). “Wisewomen” (les maétresses sage-femme) were not only popular as midwives, but were respected general practitioners, and many people with no medical education also dabbled in the healing arts, while plying a commercial trade for their principal living (e.g., Monsieur Parnelle, the jeweler with a sideline in trusses).
Among the “healers” who were not licensed physicians were—weirdly enough— the public hangmen. Because of the requirements of their trade, hangmen were not only executioners, but torturers, being often required to assist in official investigations by extracting testimony from unwilling witnesses. They were also often skilled bonesetters; you can’t disjoint a body easily without knowing quite a bit about how it’s put together in the first place.
Likewise, since it was often necessary to keep a victim alive for long periods, the hangmen had considerable knowledge both of gross anatomy and of physiological processes. A Monsieur Forez was cited as one of the best-known of these medically competent executioners, with the casual note that he did a good business in such lucrative sidelines as the sale of victims’ bodies (parts of which were used either as dissection room specimens, or as ingredients in magical charms), and the production of “hanged-men’s grease”: the purified fat rendered from the boiled bodies of executed criminals.
Now, I certainly didn’t go looking for a hangman, but having met Monsieur Forez, I was thoroughly charmed. I was also determined to get the hanged-men’s grease into the story in some fashion. So I got what I’d been looking for—a general picture of French medical practice, plus interesting medical details—and something totally unexpected, besides.
Since I did now have this entertaining hangman, I was obliged to construct a place for him in the story. I could just have used him as part of the background personnel at the Hôpital, and in fact I did this to begin with. I didn’t want to waste the hanged-men’s grease in an offhanded way, though; I needed an occasion for its use—someone should be injured or suffer from rheumatism. I had already intended to use the stables at Argentan in some way (another accidental detail; my father-in-law, Max Watkins, a cowboy with a passion for horses, had visited Argentan and told me all about the Percherons and their history), so the notion of some accident involving horses arose—and thence the scene with Fergus and the stable-lads, in which Jamie rescues Fergus, straining a muscle in the process.
Having written the scene in which Claire applies the ointment to Jamie, and in which he makes a nervous joke about having come too close to being one of the ingredients, I began to think (well, actually, I think pretty much all the time when I’m writing, but it helps to have some specific direction).
Hangmen, being hanged, a traitor’s death—which is precisely what Jamie was risking by his actions. Enter Monsieur Forez again, for the purpose of pointing out—to Jamie, Claire, and to the reader— that while politics might be played as a game, it was nonetheless one with possi
bly fatal consequences. (As to Monsieur Forez’s scholarly lecture on the details of evisceration—well, I had one postdoctoral appointment in which my main job was butchering seabirds. People always ask me whether my previous education and experience as a scientist is useful to me in writing these books. Not often, but it comes in handy every now and then.)
In terms of the overall book, I thought that Monsieur Forez captured nicely the balance between the farcical aspects of the Rising (which were many), and the deadly serious outcome. He’s a minor note in the book, but an important one. And yet, I couldn’t have gone looking for him—I didn’t know he existed.
The reason I don’t take notes on the research I do is that as the story takes shape in my mind, bits and pieces of research material are incorporated into it. Sometimes a piece of research material will trigger a specific scene, or even a subplot; sometimes a particular scene will demand a specific piece of information, which I then go and find. In either case, though, the research information becomes part of the story; and from that point on, it’s in my head; I can’t forget it. On the other hand, I instantly forget anything that’s written down: phone messages, grocery lists, errands…
As for the things that I need to know… well, some of these simply have to be looked up before a given scene can be written. Most small bits of incidental information, though, aren’t really necessary to the shape of a scene or its events. In these cases, when I come to a spot where I need—for instance—to list the herbs that Claire is using for a specific purpose, or the name of a street in Edinburgh, or the height of a mountain—I just put a pair of empty square brackets—“[]”— in the text where that information should go. That way, I can continue writing without breaking my stride, and go look up the necessary bits of information later on.
“I took down my mortar and rubbed a handful off] into it. Adding [] and [], I pounded and ground while thinking what to do next.”
The next-to-last thing I do to a book before printing it off to send to the editor is to go through and look up the necessary information to fill in any of the []’s still remaining. (The last thing I do is to break the text into chapters and title them.)
“I’VE DONE MY RESEARCH, AND NOW YOU’RE GOING TO PAY”
Don’t let the storytelling aspect of the business escape you, by the way. Historical research is fascinating, and many writers fall under its spell; the more you know, the more you want to find out, the more you research, the easier the search becomes—and before you know it, you’re in the position of a writer with whom I once shared a panel at the World Fantasy Convention.
The panel was on “Research,” and this particular writer was explaining a difficulty she had encountered in her most recent novel. The novel was set’ in an alternate universe, but involved a caravan, based on those that once traversed the great Silk Road through China. She wished at one point to describe the bells on a camel harness, and had found exactly the reference necessary to do this: an exhaustive account of the shapes of camel bells used in caravans of exactly the right kind, taken from precisely the right time period. However… the article was unfortunately written in Chinese.
The author held the audience rapt as she described in some detail her struggles to get this article translated, so that she could accurately describe the camel bells. Meanwhile, I had picked up one of the display books sitting in front of her and looked at the spine. FANTASY, it said.
DIANA’S CURRY
(with Lamb, Beef, Chicken, or Tofu) White onion garlic
raisins (optional) olive oil
meat or tofu (about 6 oz. [or one
medium chicken breast] per person) curry powder cayenne pepper (optional) V-8 juice cocktail
Mince a good handful of white onion and four or five buds of garlic. If you like raisins, add a handful or two. Saute the minced onions and minced garlic and the (whole) raisins in olive oil until the onions are transparent (the raisins will puff up). Add the Main Ingredient (cubed meat or tofu), and brown (or cook through, for shrimp or tofu), stirring frequently. Add curry powder and cayenne to taste, and stir; I prefer enough curry powder to liberally coat the meat, and four or five shakes of cayenne, but the proportions depend on personal taste and on the type of curry powder you use; some brands are much hotter than others.
Add one medium can (12 oz) of V-8 juice per two people. Simmer over low heat. Can be eaten in fifteen minutes, but better if simmered for an hour or two. Even better if simmered for a couple of hours, then allowed to cool and stand overnight, reheated next day. Add additional V-8 if sauce becomes too thick while cooking.
Serve over rice (basmati or jasmine rice is good, as is short-grain white rice). Garnish with chopped cashews, almonds, or coconut; serve with mango chutney and/or fresh pineapple.
Now, I would simply have decided for myself what the bloody camel bells should look like, and got on with writing the story, but… methods differ.
Still, this sort of attitude toward historical research all too often leads to a phenomenon which my friend Margaret Ball (who herself writes excellent fantasy novels) describes as: “I’ve done my research, and now you’re going to pay.” That is, novels that include mind-numbing masses of detail, because the author can’t bear to “waste” any of the effort spent in research.
Don’t forget that the purpose of research is to support the story; not the other way around.
1 If you really want to know about the economic ramifications of the French-Austrian treaty of 1752, fine, but it’s much more entertaining to find out that French ladies at Court did not as a rule retire to the nearest rest room when impelled by urinary urges; instead they simply spread their legs slightly and peed on the floor under cover of their ornate gowns—underwear having yet to become customary. I mean, there’s background, and then there’s background.
2 The address for Dover Publications, Inc., is 31 East 2 Street, Mineola, NY 11501
3And if it’s not, it’s in one of the piles on the floor. Unless it’s downstairs in the kitchen, that is. Or under the front seat of the car. Or maybe…
⋆That’s really all there is to it. They don’t make you take a Changing-Careers Exam, you know, or apply for a Novelists License. Write a book and poof! you’re a novelist, just like that. Much easier than becoming a doctor or a firefighter.
BOTANICAL; MEDICINE: DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME
n occasion, the boilerplate clauses in book contracts I’ve received have included something like the following: (Page 2, clause 3) “The author guarantees… that any recipes, formulae, or instructions in [the book] will not injure the user.”
To which I was obliged to reply (via my agent): “Given that these books are set in the eighteenth century, and make frequent and explicit reference to medical practices of the period, I couldn’t reasonably agree to this particular provision. Anyone seeking to abort themselves by means of taking blue cohosh, for instance, would almost certainly be injured. While I think the circumstance unlikely—still less, that someone would treat headache by drinking powdered amethysts, cauterize a wound with boiling water, or treat concussion by trephining the skull—I do think we must delete this phrase.”
The British publisher who printed Cross Stitch did in fact include an author’s note in the book, urging readers not to dose themselves with recipes given in the book and warning them about the dangers of practicing uninstructed herbal medicine. This was done at my suggestion, but neither they nor the American publishers have thought it necessary to do this for subsequent books. For what it’s worth, I haven’t yet heard of any readers succumbing to the effects of any recipe in the books (mind, rubbing the penis with a diamond to ensure potency is likely harmless, but still…).
The author’s note in Cross Stitch reads:
I would also like to note that while the botanical preparations noted in the story were historically used for the medicinal purposes indicated, this fact shouldn’t be taken as an indication that such preparations are necessarily either effective for such purposes, or har
mless. Many herbal preparations are toxic if used improperly or in excess dosage, and should be administered only by an experienced practitioner.
I suggested to the American publisher that we include a similar note in Outlander, just as a precaution. The general reaction was a) “We’re trying to sell this as a commercial novel, quit with the footnotes already,” and b) “Nobody would be stupid enough to use eighteenth-century medical treatments, anyway.”
Well… I really hope no one would use antiquated medical treatments described in a time-travel novel (I mean, it does say FICTION on the spine, after all….), but what with the increasing interest in herbal therapies and alternative medicine in general, I do get frequent questions regarding my sources, or requests for recommendations. People want to know how I know all this stuff—am I an herbal practitioner myself? Am I a professional botanist?
Definitely not.
I do grow herbs in my garden, though. I cook with them (I have a very nice recipe for chicken and mushrooms in orange juice with fresh marjoram, which I will include at the end of this section, in case you’re interested), and I collect exotic mints (did you know there are varieties of mint that smell like pineapple, bergamot, orange, apple, grapefruit and chocolate?).
I also grow other herbs for aroma: rue (I’m told you can eat this in sandwiches, like watercress, but since I don’t really like watercress, I haven’t tried it), lavender, and lemon balm—or as insect repellants: yarrow, pennyroyal, and marigold (pennyroyal is strong enough to repel just about anything, believe me).
The Outlandish Companion Page 37