Your historical WIP time & place

angeliz2k

never mind the shorty
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Have you read Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland's The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.? It has a cute take on witchcraft in the same time and place (among other times and places).

And to you and others who are relatively new to AW - please come hang out with us in the Historical Writing area of the Share Your Work forum (password vista).

Me - I am still stuck in NYC ca.1950. Even with the novel fairly stalled out, I'm working on a short story there. Truthfully can't imagine writing in a different historical era; the amount of research it takes to be comfortable writing in one era is staggering enough!

:e2coffee:

So true. My knowledge of the eras I write in are essentially a lifetime's worth of reading about these particular times, visiting sites, and seeing pictures. I've attended or watched dozens of talks about the Civil War, for instance, and read a score or so books on Lincoln alone, and visited, er, a dozen or so CW battlefields, not to mention visited tons of historic homes and towns. Oh, and I've read plenty of literature from the time, too. The point is, I just know things, and I don't necessarily know how I know them; I picked it up somewhere along the way. Sometimes it isn't even facts as much as a feeling--"no, a person would not do that or think that way in 1860".

I'm not quite as comfortable in the 1900s-1910s but have been interested in the period most my life, between the Titanic and the last Romanovs. So I'm familiar and settled there, but it isn't quite home like the Antebellum/CW period.
 

Thorberta

Not a squirrel, but close.
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My current WIP is set in 1796 and takes place mostly in a small fishing village in Nova Scotia.
 

ReflectiveAcuity

having patience...right now
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Current WIP:
1958-59, Cuba (with a chapter flashback to 1941-42, Naval Base at Guantanamo, Cuba)
1960s through early 1980s, Cuba and Miami, Florida
 

yoshinocho

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1970s American West (Idaho, Utah, Washington, Oregon, etc.). Pretty recent--am I allowed in here? ;)
 

gothicangel

Toughen up.
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1970s American West (Idaho, Utah, Washington, Oregon, etc.). Pretty recent--am I allowed in here? ;)

Sort of the same situation for me here. More of a psychological thriller, but it all revolves around the history of The Troubles in Northern Ireland between 1975 to 1990.
 

Sieglinde

Wälsung
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Sengoku era Japan (even if it's never named as such). The names are fictional but most of them are loosely based on actual historical characters.
 

insolentlad

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My most recent was set in Russia, Central Asia, and China in 1919-1920. The lead had appeared before (as a somewhat older man) in 1948 Florida, Cuba, and Central America. I need to decide now where to place him next (when I get some other projects out of the way).
 

quietwriter321

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Historical Fiction Writing

WIP 1: World War II
WIP 2: Civil War

Neither WIP has any full-blown battle scenes, except for a brief aerial battle in WIP 1 and skirmishes with hostage-taking in WIP 2. In both WIPs, there’s mostly drama and tension between characters and events.
 

Chris P

Likes metaphors mixed, not stirred
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1846, Washington, DC. I'm enjoying the research more than the writing at this point.
 

Autumn Leaves

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Circa 2000 BC, Byblos, Phoenicia (a sequel to a finished one that’s set in Knossos, Crete).
 

BlackMoth

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Circa 2000 BC, Byblos, Phoenicia (a sequel to a finished one that’s set in Knossos, Crete).

Another interesting one! Your one on Knossos doesn't have anything to do with Ariadne or Phaedra does it?
 

Autumn Leaves

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Another interesting one! Your one on Knossos doesn't have anything to do with Ariadne or Phaedra does it?
No, I based it — at least, tried to base — on what’s known about the actual Minoan civilisation. It’s a mystery novella about the local princess solving her stepmother’s murder with the help of the Phoenician envoy who got framed for it.
 
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BlackMoth

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No, I based it — at least, tried to base — on what’s known about the actual Minoan civilisation. It’s a mystery novella about the local princess solving her stepmother’s murder with the help of the Phoenician envoy who got framed for it.

Wow that sounds amazing!
 

llyralen

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1. A time traveler novel that will start in 1970’s New York and Appalachia or Ozarks but likely skip around quite a lot in both time and place, spending time in WW2 Berlin and Lenningrad when Stalin forced a huge portion of the population to starvation, it will also have snippets from Italian Renaissance and 1500’s England and Caribbean and 1600’s New England and 1800’s planes.

2. Greenlandic Norse and Inuit 1350’s Westsettlement or 1408-1412ish Eastsettlwment.
 

Autumn Leaves

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Stalin forced a huge portion of the population to starvation
I’m sorry, but as a resident of St.-Petersburg, I have to chime in a little. For all of his heinous deeds, the Siege of Leningrad was not something Stalin could change for the better. Currently, there are declassified Nazi documents that prove that Leningrad was to be annihilated, if it surrendered. There was simply a choice between the city getting wiped out and the city maybe surviving.

The early 1930s famine across the Soviet Union (known as the Holodomor in Ukraine, but it struck other regions of the USSR as well), for example, was a direct result of Stalin’s politics, but the Siege most definitely wasn’t. If anything, Leningrad in WW2 grew more unified where the government was concerned: Stalin started a truce with the Orthodox Church, for example.

(I hope the comment wasn’t too political — if it is, I’ll delete it. It’s just that if your MC, for instance, finds wild opposition to Stalin in WW2-Leningrad, it would be far from the historical truth. My grandmother is one of the Siege’s survivors, so I have heard first-hand accounts of what it was like).
 

llyralen

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I’m sorry, but as a resident of St.-Petersburg, I have to chime in a little. For all of his heinous deeds, the Siege of Leningrad was not something Stalin could change for the better. Currently, there are declassified Nazi documents that prove that Leningrad was to be annihilated, if it surrendered. There was simply a choice between the city getting wiped out and the city maybe surviving.

The early 1930s famine across the Soviet Union (known as the Holodomor in Ukraine, but it struck other regions of the USSR as well), for example, was a direct result of Stalin’s politics, but the Siege most definitely wasn’t. If anything, Leningrad in WW2 grew more unified where the government was concerned: Stalin started a truce with the Orthodox Church, for example.

(I hope the comment wasn’t too political — if it is, I’ll delete it. It’s just that if your MC, for instance, finds wild opposition to Stalin in WW2-Leningrad, it would be far from the historical truth. My grandmother is one of the Siege’s survivors, so I have heard first-hand accounts of what it was like).
I’m so glad you wrote this. When I wrote it how I did I knew I should have double checked where to say the famine happened. I knew I didn’t have it quite right, but I failed to look it up. I am referring to the famine from Stalin’s politics. I am glad to hear a term like Holodomer. Right now all I know is how bad it was. Obviously, I will need to do extensive research before I can start to write. I’m glad to know someone like you is here who I can check in with.