Writing history
The joy of writing historical fiction is that much of the story is given to you by history. When I was writing my latest, Burke and the War of 1812, I didn’t have to invent reasons why Burke might be fighting in Canada: the War of 1812 was a real thing and British troops were fighting there.
The Battle of Queenston Heights by eyewitness James B. Dennis
I wanted to tell the story of how the Native American tribes were drawn into the war and that was easy too. The British were heavily involved with some Native American leaders, so I have James Burke building links with the Shawnee people, who were amongst the first to fight alongside the British against the invading Americans. I would have had Burke working with the Shawnee in any case, but I was delighted to discover that there were rumours at the time of two British soldiers (and who’s to say it wasn’t James Burke and his regular sidekick, William Brown) who were advising the Shawnee before the Battle of Tippecanoe, which features in the story.
I also had to explain some of the political background and give an idea of what life was like in Washington in 1812. Again, the facts are readily available and there is some wonderful gossipy detail thanks to memoirs of the time, so I have James Burke in Washington, doing what he does best, which is spying on the enemies of Britain. And it would be helpful to get the political background to the Native American alliances as well, so it would be handy to have Burke at a famous tribal meeting near modern Tallassee, Alabama.
Fun as all this background detail is, you can’t really write about the War of 1812 without covering the American army’s march north to Canada, so William Brown is doing his own spying in the American force, while Burke is planning the defence of Canada alongside the British General Brock in York (now Toronto).
So there’s the outlines of the story already written for me. Now all I have to do is to get James Burke and William Brown to Indiana to meet the Shawnee, before packing Burke off to Tallassee. Then William has to be marching from Dayton, Ohio, up to Detroit, while Burke is in Washington. Burke then has to get from Washington to Toronto, to meet with Brock before heading west to Windsor. By then I need William to have slipped away from the Americans so that he can gather the latest intelligence from the Shawnee before he meets up with Burke so that they can both witness the American defeat at Detroit.
All this has to be done using riverboats and horses and communications can’t include radios or telephones. And you have to be aware of any limitations on travel. (In an early draft I had Burke sailing up a river before I realised I had just sailed him over the Niagara Falls.)
So, yes, I don’t need nearly as much imagination to outline a historical novel as I do when I’m inventing a whole vampire sub-culture around Brampton Cemetery (in Something Wicked). But the mechanics of making all the moving parts work together brings its own problems. Sometimes you can even come up with solutions for mysteries history can’t explain. For example, Nelson was able to destroy the French fleet in Egypt because it remained vulnerable at anchor long after it should have put out to sea. Historians often wonder why but in Burke and the Bedouin we learn about the British agent who killed the courier carrying orders from Napoleon for the fleet to set sail.
Historical fiction: where history writes the plots and plots may write the history.