From My Fantasy Writing Desk
I’ve been teaching a class on Writing Historical Fiction. (It shifted to online—we’re all learning the ins and outs of Zoom, I suspect.) One of the assignments I gave was to use a primary source to determine an authentic mindset for a character. Then apply that understanding while writing a scene.
I enjoyed the range of primary sources the students found. There was a translation from Latin of an early description of pilgrimage on the Camino which mentioned “the pagan Navarrese and Basques would not only rob pilgrims to Santiago, but mount them like donkeys and then murder them.” I’m guessing there is some serious prejudice filtering that info. But that was, of course, the point of the assignment. Think like your character would have and then deal with the repercussions to create engaging, authentic historical fiction. We talked about how to maintain sympathy for characters who hold what we can loosely call “dated” ideas and lots of other issues.
In the process, I learned about past traditions of mourning among the Chiricahua tribe in Arizona (don’t talk about the dead, certainly not their name), an intriguing twist on King Minos of Crete and the Icarus myth (Daedalus and Icarus shown above), the priggish snobbery of some English aristocratic ladies on the subject of dance as an art form, among other topics. Historical fiction as a genre is such a rich well of ideas—as never-ending as human history. Cool. Fun class to teach.
Archaeology I Enjoyed
Touring a Tomb
There’s a beautiful website that allows you to digitally visit the elaborately painted tomb of Menna. This tomb is one of the most visited and best preserved of the small 18th Dynasty elite tombs in the Theban necropolis in Egypt. The site was deteriorating after excessive tourism. Now the tomb has undergone careful study, documentation and conservation. Take a safe, armchair journey to Egypt. Enjoy the scenes of daily life, gods and goddesses and decorative motifs. Click here for American Research Center in Egypt website “Tomb of Menna”
Amiens Art from 20,000 Years Ago
Extraordinary art—both for its moving beauty and its extreme age (more than 20,000 years old)—has come from 12 feet below in Amiens. The female figurines carved of chalk are less than 2 inches tall with remarkable attention to the details of the real female form. The example photographed in this article holds her head at a slight tilt as if interacting with someone—us? Her arms brought upward over her chest suggest clasped hands such as we associate with prayer or a beseeching gesture. The artist carved her hair into place around her face and down her back. From her long-ago time, she invites us to listen to her and share our secrets. Universal art for right now. Click here for Archaeology Magazine “Artifact”