I’m delighted to welcome Nancy Northcott and her historical fantasy series to the blog. Nancy is sharing a fabulous post, about Challenges in the Past, with us.
Writing historical fantasy obviously requires dropping one’s characters into an historical world and making it seem real, vibrant and alive for readers. This holds true even when a writer decides to create an alternative timeline, or even an alternate universe for a particular era, as with steampunk, which is often set in a Victorian England that has steam-based and other tech. The more different the timeline and universe are from the way our history depicts a period, the more leeway an author has available in creating the world.
I like to stick close to the actual timeline, fitting my characters and their magic around the events of the era. That means I need to be fairly true to what people wore, how they lived, what they ate, and so on. In this post, I’ll share some of the challenges I faced in recreating the periods of the three books in my Boar King’s Honor historical fantasy trilogy.
The action in the first book Boar King’s Honor trilogy, The Herald of Day, takes place in 1674, during the reign of Charles II. Although the book opens in Dover, most of the scenes take place in London. I happen to like that period, so I didn’t have to do much reading about the political situation in England at that time. I did, however, have to find out about travel, food, clothing, customs, and language. I started this project before the internet had virtually every kind of information on it, so I had to do a fair bit of hunting for answers.
Finding out about clothing was harder than I expected. I had a scene in which the villain undressed, and I realized I had no idea how men’s pants closed in 1674. I started asking writers, and someone knew someone who was not only a writer but a costumer. This friend of a friend generously provided sketches, references on clothing design and fabric, and other information that was helpful for all the characters.
Despite preferring to stay close to established history, I took a leap with that book and decided to have the villain, a wizard, figure out how to go back in time and change history to create a dictatorship of the magically Gifted—with himself at the head, of course. So I had to decide whether he made the change before, during, or after the Restoration of Charles II. I went back and read from the events leading up to it through the period immediately after and weighed the results of several options. I won’t say what I finally picked because the characters have to figure that out what the villain did, and I don’t want to spoil that for readers.
The second book, The Steel Rose, was the scariest to write from a research standpoint. By the time I started that one, the internet offered reams of material, and books on historical costume were easier to find around here than they’d been before. That simplified choices for the characters’ clothing, but the period brought a new headache.
The Steel Rose is set in 1815 during the hundred days between Napoleon’s escape from Elba and the Battle of Waterloo. This period is known as the Regency because King George III was incapable of ruling and England was governed by his son, the future George IV, as Prince Regent. This is Jane Austen’s era. It’s also one of the most popular for romance novels. During the Regency, social classes were rigidly stratified, and manners made the difference between social success and ostracism. There was a very great deal of etiquette to learn.
As though that weren’t tough enough from a writer standpoint, there are vast numbers of people who love the era’s social history. They create historically accurate costumes, learn the dances, and memorize the etiquette. They’ve been known to eviscerate writers who got something wrong, and the internet didn’t offer the specific information I needed. Fortunately, some Regency romance writers came to my rescue, answering questions and pointing me to resources. I did cut come of the bowing and curtseying customary during the era in the interests of moving the story along.
The social niceties weren’t my only concern, though. This story would include both Napoleon’s departure from Elba and the Battle of Waterloo. You may be aware that literal armies of people re-enact Waterloo every year. And they do it wearing uniforms accurate for both the period and their military units. That means many, many potential readers would know if I made a mistake.
Fortunately for me, Osprey Publishing puts out wonderful books full of detailed information on military uniforms and equipment. They also had a terrific book on the battle that led me to other books full of the meticulous details that gladden writers’ hearts.
With those challenges behind me, I turned to the final book, The King’s Champion. It posed a different problem. There are many, many, many books about Britain during World War II, including libraries’ worth on social history. The trick, I quickly realized, would be in synthesizing all this information so that it offered an accurate picture of the era without including so much that it overshadowed the story. There are still people alive who remember the war years. There are many more who remember what those people said about life during the war. I had to depict British society in a way they would find acceptable.
Friends whose parents remember hearing about the war from relatives helped me out, especially about rationing and housing. Other friends knew the answers I needed or knew British veterans who would answer my questions. The Imperial War Museum website was very useful, as were, again, Osprey books. It was from that website that I learned about the 5” per person per week rationing of hot bath water, but I was never able to figure out exactly when that started.
At one point, my heroine is on a tugboat headed back to Dover from Dunkirk, and she asks the captain how long the trip will take. Unfortunately, I didn’t know. I could’ve deleted the question, but it would be logical for her to ask. I wanted to find the answer. This sent me down a research rabbit hole that grew ever deeper as I searched. Finally, after several attempts, I put the right combination of words into a search engine and hit upon a website devoted to the Little Ships of the evacuation.
These are some of the challenges I stumbled into while building the worlds for these three books. I didn’t want to hand-wave the problems away and just put down something convenient because “it’s fiction.” I’m grateful to everyone who helped me find the answers I needed.
I enjoyed the hunt for information, so finding it was a true delight each and every time. I’m happy with the worlds in this trilogy, and I hope readers be will as well.
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Thank you for having me, MJ!
Thanks so much for sharing your fabulous post with my readers.
The Boar King’s Honor Trilogy
A wizard’s misplaced trust
A king wrongly blamed
A bloodline cursed until they clear the king’s name.
Here’s the blurb
Caught up in the desperate evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from France in the summer of 1940, photojournalist Kate Shaw witnesses death and destruction that trigger disturbing visions. She doesn’t believe in magic and tries to pass them off as survivor guilt or an overactive imagination, but the increasingly intense visions force her to accept that she is not only magically Gifted but a seer.
In Dover, she meets her distant cousin Sebastian Mainwaring, Earl of Hawkstowe and an officer in the British Army. He’s also a seer and is desperate to recruit her rare Gift for the war effort. The fall of France leaves Britain standing alone as the full weight of Nazi military might threatens. Kate’s untrained Gift flares out of control, forcing her to accept Sebastian’s help in conquering it as her ethics compel her to use her ability for the cause that is right.
As this fledgling wizard comes into her own, her visions warn of an impending German invasion, Operation Sealion, which British intelligence confirms. At the same time, desire to help Sebastian, who’s doomed by a family curse arising from a centuries-old murder, leads Kate to a shadowy afterworld between life and death and the trapped, fading souls who are the roots of her family’s story. From the bloody battlefields of France to the salons of London, Kate and Sebastian race against time to free his family’s cursed souls and to stop an invasion that could doom the Allied cause.
The King’s Champion concludes Nancy’s Northcott’s exciting Boar King’s Honor Trilogy.
Buy Links:
This series is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.
Universal Buy Links:
The Herald of Day
The Steel Rose
The King’s Champion
The Boar King’s Honor Trilogy Links:
Amazon US Amazon UK Amazon AU Amazon CA
Meet the author
Nancy Northcott’s childhood ambition was to grow up and become Wonder Woman. Around fourth grade, she realized it was too late to acquire Amazon genes, but she still loved comic books, science fiction, fantasy, history, and romance.
Nancy earned her undergraduate degree in history and particularly enjoyed a summer spent studying Tudor and Stuart England at the University of Oxford. She has given presentations on the Wars of the Roses and Richard III to university classes studying Shakespeare’s play about that king. In addition, she has taught college courses on science fiction, fantasy, and society.
The Boar King’s Honor historical fantasy trilogy combines Nancy’s love of history and magic with her interest in Richard III. She also writes traditional romantic suspense, romantic spy adventures, and two other speculative fiction series, the Light Mage Wars paranormal romances and, with Jeanne Adams, the Outcast Station space mystery series.
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MJ Porter 