by Roseanna White | Mar 9, 2011 | Remember When Wednesdays, Uncategorized
It was about a hundred and fifty years ago. Society was still Victorian, complete with strict morals, expectations, and a rising influence of middle class prosperity and individualism. Younger sons of gentry were still expected to go into the church whether they felt a call or not, and scientists had made such amazing leaps and bounds in understanding the invisible forces of the world that in consequence, that world was changing.
People still cried out for faith in something. They still wanted to believe. But science told them they must have proof. Fashionable people were making a whole culture around questioning one’s faith. And the church . . . well, it was still more about lip-service in a lot of places. How can lip-service possibly fight against scientific evidence?
And so Spiritualism was born, along with two types of people involved in it–the spiritualists, who were masters at suspending their disbelief in the face of even the most outlandish claims, and the psychical researchers, who approached this new quasi-science-faith with what they told themselves were scientific principles, though often they thoroughly messed them up.
The goal of Spiritualism? To prove scientifically that there is life after death, and so a God. They wanted to prove faith. They wanted to communicate and ask questions of those who had gone before them. They wanted to question, and to find answers.
I’ve undoubtedly mentioned this movement on here before at some point, because I have a story idea that revolves around this bizarre, oh-so-popular Victorian trend. Strangely, I keep thinking of this story as something that exists–something I ought to be able to talk to people about. Yet all I’ve written in it is 10 pages, LOL.
So I broke out a rather intimidating tome I bought three years ago to research Spiritualism and figure I’ll do my homework on the story while finishing up a few other projects. I have a feeling I’m going to be coming across some really interesting things to share with y’all, and thought I’d first remind everyone of what in the world this strange movement was all about.
So brace yourself–the war between science and religion is underway in research world, and it spawned some truly bizarre little battles. Careful of flying shrapnel–in this particular war it was reputed to take the form of moving chairs and knocking on walls. 😉
by Roseanna White | Feb 23, 2011 | Remember When Wednesdays, Uncategorized
Okay, not really. But one of the interesting things from wars of centuries gone by is that officers captured in battle were often sent, not to a prisoner-of-war camp or any other detention center as we think of them, but to a parole town.
A what, you ask? (Or I did, anyway, when I first heard of them, LOL.) A parole town. A town authorized to hold these higher-ranking enemies in semi-freedom until such a time as they were brought to trial, traded for officers held by the other side, or released. Interesting, eh?
The prisoners in these parole towns would have enjoyed a far better life than ones kept in prisons or camps. They were men who were either very high profile, respected, wealthy, or otherwise trustworthy. (Keep in mind this was back in the day when war, on some levels at least, was gentlemanly.) But if they left the town . . . well, then things got bad for them, and they were sent straight to prison.
And what did the townspeople think of all this, you ask? Well, let’s just say that there are quite a number of tales of young folk putting pretty girls up to luring the prisoners to a meeting place just past the border they were supposed to honor, and then having the authorities waiting for them. Poor saps. Thought they were getting a kiss and instead got sent straight to jail without collecting their $200. 😉
Down near Annapolis, there’s a portion of town (once its own town) called Parole. I never understood it until some research I did for a college brochure explained the idea of a parole town and that Parole was formed for just this purpose during the Civil War.
It came up again when I was researching where to set a Regency idea I had, and I realized that the town I liked best was in fact a parole town during the war then going on with France. Pretty nifty. =) I fully intend to make my hero tell horror stories of the French soldiers to my heroine, just to make her jumpy. Oh yes. He’s that type, LOL.
Happy Wednesday, everyone!
by Roseanna White | Feb 16, 2011 | Remember When Wednesdays, Uncategorized
One of the best parts about writing my Annapolis story was the necessity to include one of my favorite historical landmarks from the town: the Liberty Tree.
Liberty Trees sprang up all over the country in the years before the Revolution as meeting places for the Sons of Liberty. Annapolis chose a huge Tulip Poplar to serve the role, the very one that Joseph Pilmoor had stood under when delivering the first Methodist sermon in Maryland. This is where the Annapolis chapter of the Sons of Liberty planned out the Annapolis Tea Party and the sinking of the Peggy Stewart.
The Liberty Trees were such a symbol to the patriots that they were marked for destruction by the British. Whenever they entered a city with a Liberty Tree, they chopped or burned it to the ground. But Annapolis was never under British control, and so those Redcoats never got near our Liberty Tree. At the end of the Revolution, it was the last one still standing.
But the British weren’t the only enemy to this tree. At one point it was struck by lightning and caught fire—and was saved by the quick-acting Annapolitans. But then disease struck. It was being eaten away from the inside out. Enter a couple of mischievous school boys, who thought it would be a good idea to set off fire crackers in a hole in the trunk. I can only imagine the trouble they got in for that one! But as it happens, it was a good idea. The blast killed the fungus and saved the tree.
The Annapolis Liberty Tree stood on the lawn of Bladen’s Folly, an abandoned governor’s mansion that was then turned into the primary building of St. John’s College–where I went to school. =) When I visited St. John’s as a junior scouting out colleges, I got to see the Liberty Tree, to put my hand on it and marvel at the history of this place (I was always a history geek, LOL).
My senior year of high school, a hurricane so injured the tree that it was deemed a safety risk, and they had to take it down. I just about cried when my English teacher brought in the newspaper that morning, where the Liberty Tree’s death was front page news.
So by the time I entered St. John’s as a Freshman, the Liberty Tree existed only in its clone across the green from it, in memories, and in some high-priced instruments and chairs. I was a tour guide for the school, so I was always keenly aware of its absence. And as I walked up to get my diploma at graduation, I did it knowing that six years earlier, it would have been under the shade of the Liberty Tree’s limbs.
Call me silly, but I loved being able to incorporate this piece of history into my book, to give it special significance to my characters. Because in so many ways, that old tree represented an entire nation, and the ideals that made us rise up and fight for freedom. And it was honor to give it life again.
by Roseanna White | Feb 2, 2011 | Remember When Wednesdays, Uncategorized
Weather. Always a bother, right? We’ve had a fair amount of the inclement variety lately, but frankly, it’s nothing like last year, when we didn’t see bare ground from Thanksgiving until March–and here in our part of Maryland, that’s unusual.
So when writing my story of 1783-84
Annapolis (which takes place in the months of November through March), I drew on my 6 years of experience in said city to come up with my weather. So, you know. Cold wind. Nasty cold wind, actually. The occasional just-above-freezing rain, a few days of ice. Snow once a year or so. Overcast aplenty, but some days of nice sunshine too.
Seems perfectly reasonable, and so far as I’d found in the sources I’d read on the months in question–and I had many sources–there was no reason to think my standard incorrect.
Until Sunday, that is. I was trying to find exactly which delegates signed to ratify the Treaty of Paris on January 14, 1784. And I came across an article that finally explained why they had such trouble getting enough of them there to begin with (something everyone mentioned, but no one gave the reasoning for). Wanna take a bet?
Yeah. The worst winter in recorded history. AAAAAGGGGGHHHH! What? What of all those mild days I’d mentioned? What about the fact that my characters travel to
Annapolis, yet the delegates couldn’t get there because the city was locked in snow? AAAAGGGHHHH! Needless to say, Monday morning was spent in revisions, and now my manuscript is covered in snow and ice (fictionally speaking).
But aside from the hour and a half of additions and deletions, this was a really fabulous fact to FINALLY come across. First, it explained the facts I’d wondered about. Second, it’s the kind of distinctive thing that really brings a story to life. Third, it’s just cool (no pun intended) because the writer of the article was quoting Jefferson and Franklin’s opinions on this “long winter of 1783-84” which the former called “severe beyond all memory.”
Yes, I’m geeky enough to find weather patterns cool, but here’s why it’s really neat. This winter not only ravaged the eastern seaboard of the U.S., but it also hit Europe just as severely. And Franklin, who was in Paris awaiting the return of the aforementioned Treaty that he and his compatriots had penned, hypothesized that this great winter was a result of a series of volcanic eruptions in Iceland. It was the first time anyone had thought to associate volcanic activity with weather patterns, but modern scientists are now very certain that he was right, and that Mt. Laki’s continuous eruptions had led to gases being trapped in the upper atmosphere, which in turn resulted in this awful, seemingly-endless winter. (There were also toxic fogs recorded in Northern Europe. Awful . . . but cool that I get to mention it, mwa ha ha ha.)
So while I sit here in my snowy, icy Maryland of today, it’s kind of nice to be able to commiserate with my characters of yesteryear, who are experiencing the worst winter in the memory of even the oldest man alive at the time. I can pity them . . . but you can bet I’m also reveling in it. =)
by Roseanna White | Jan 26, 2011 | Remember When Wednesdays, Uncategorized
This is actually a post I created for Inkwell Inspirations, which went up yesterday. I had fun chatting with the inkies about it, and though I’ve already done something very similar to this here one Wednesday . . . well, the snow’s coming down and the inspiration for the next chapter in my current story is stirring, so I’m cheating. 😉
~*~

I love history. For as long as I can remember, I would sink my teeth into each detail I learned, and usually gnaw on it until it turned into a story in my mind. One of the things I love most about the Old Testament is the history it brings to us. Better still? When third-party history and archaeological evidence backs up the Bible stories I’ve heard since I was a child.
One of my favorites was always Esther. Last winter I was thinking about how I’d love to write a novel about Esther—yet my style isn’t to use real people as my main character, it’s to explain real events through fictional characters. Now how, I wondered, could I do that with the story of Esther? I was standing in the shower when it came to me—Esther was one of many young women brought to the king. What about the other wives?
As the idea brewed, I got out my study Bible and got a few facts straight. Like, you know, which king of Persia this was. I found that historians can’t quite agree on this. Some insist it’s Xerxes, others Artaxerxes, some pose others altogether. I like the arguments put forth for it being Xerxes, so I ran with that one with quite a bit of excitement—see, I already knew something about Xerxes. In college we had to read Herodotus’s Histories, which details the Greco-Persian war and so the king who waged it.
Over the course of a few weeks, I reread Esther for the umpteenth time and reread the Histories, taking notes like crazy. Brought in some other historical data too, of course, and watched some documentaries on Persia. And you know what? The way it all clicked made me giddy.
In the book of Esther, the king is absent from the main story much of the time and seems fairly distant when he is there. We get only a few glimpses into his character—he had a temper on him, he was a fan of beautiful women (shocking, right?), and he was generous with those in his favor and impatient with those who weren’t. Can the same be said of every king? Er, no, not actually.
In Herodotus, we get to know Xerxes pretty well. He’s beloved by his people to the point of being revered as a god, though they were in a fact a monotheistic society. He was a man of passion and temper, who ordered people executed left and right when he was in a rage and offered them cities as rewards left and right when he was happy. And some of the things he’s most remembered for are his affairs, one of which led to the deaths of a few of his closest family members.
Sound familiar? Yeah, I thought so too.
A few other facts snapped into place so beautifully that I became really convinced it was Xerxes in Esther. First of all, the timing. If you line up the events of Esther with the events of Xerxes’ reign recorded by Herodotus and Persian historians, you get a few really cool clicks. First, that 180-day-long feast, where Vashti of the Bible refuses to come before his guests in her crown? That would have been when all the nobles were gathered to plan out the war. And the queen would have been about 8 months pregnant with her final child—pretty good excuse not to want to go before all the men in the empire and be judged for your beauty, eh?
There’s a three-year gap between when Vashti is dethroned and when new young women are brought to the palace. Did it really take the king that long to cool off and think, “Gee, I better name a new queen?” Well, sure—because that’s when he was at war! Pretty neat, huh? Herodotus has him arriving back in Susa (Shushan) within months of when the new virgins were scouted.
Maybe to some these things are small, but to the historical novelist, they’re like candy. I had so, so much fun combining two history sources into one story—and yes, explaining it all through a fictional character. See, in my version, Kasia is the real reason the queen is deposed (let it be noted that Esther never says she’s put to death, though that’s the common notion). She’s the reason for much of what happens during the war. And she’s the unifying force behind the scandalous affair mentioned above and the arrival of new potential queens at the House of Women.
Because, you see, she was the one who held Xerxes’ heart all along. And when a king with countless wives places his heart into the hands of a poor Jewish girl, trouble is bound to brew.
by Roseanna White | Jan 19, 2011 | Remember When Wednesdays, Uncategorized
It was bound to come up sooner or later. And as it happens, I seem prone toward them, including with my latest historical, so now seems as good as time as any.
Let’s talk love triangles. (See me rubbing my hands together with glee? Mwa ha ha ha.)
They can be overdone. Yes, I came right out and said it. I have been known to sigh and roll my eyes when I’m presented with a supposed love triangle, yet it’s obvious the other guy (or girl) is there only to provide conflict for the author, and really there’s nothing to endear him (or her) to the heroine (or hero). It rings fake, it’s annoying, and there’s never any real question who the heroine (or hero) will choose.
I know, I know. In a romance, we always know who ends up with who anyway. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t times along the way when you wonder if maybe–just maybe–the author will trick you. And it certainly doesn’t mean that if done really, really well, you might want the unexpected, yet still be satisfied with the happily-ever-after you knew you’d get from the get-go.
In this day and age, one can’t talk love triangles without mentioning Twilight. I mean, the fans are divided into “teams.” I’m Team Jacob. On the opposing side are the Team Edward girls. Now, am I unhappy that Bella ended up with Edward? No way. It was the way it had to be. But I still loved Jacob more. That takes skill. It takes talent.
And it takes one killer love triangle.
Now, when I use them, I try to bring something new or unexpected to the table. And always, if I intend to really make folks wonder, I give the third point of the triangle a POV (point of view). How are people ever going to take the triangle seriously if it’s lopsided toward the hero? 😉
So, give me your take. Which side of the love triangle do you come down on?