Karen Charlton: Using Family History as a Framework for a Novel

Warning: The truth can be stranger than fiction! 

 If we are honest, most people who look into their family roots are not just hoping to discover where their ancestors came from but what they might have got up to. Nobody really believes that they will stumble across a forgotten "family pile" or an unclaimed inheritance, but the prospect of a bit of mystery or salacious gossip, and the odd skeleton in the cupboard does add spice to the search. And maybe, just maybe, somewhere amongst those generations of lost ancestors they may stumble across a story which is worth turning into a novel for a wider audience to enjoy.

My late husband and I shared a mutual interest in genealogy, and I was an aspiring historical novelist. I felt that I had won the jackpot when we shook our family tree and a convict fell out.
 
Back in 1810, hubby’s four x great-grandfather was convicted of Northumberland’s most notorious robbery:  £1,157 of rent money was stolen from the local manor house.  Our Jamie Charlton was found guilty of the crime and sentenced to transportation to New South Wales, Australia.  But Jamie was not just any old criminal.  According to the judge at his trial, the mystery of the burglary at Kirkley Hall had never been properly solved.   Even by Regency standards Jamie’s conviction was dodgy, and there was a public outcry amongst the influential and literate middle-classes following the trial.  A subscription was raised to pay for his appeal and the case became a local cause célèbre.

We had uncovered a potential Regency miscarriage of justice and the perfect plot for a historical novel had just landed in my lap. 

We spent years researching the facts and minute details behind this story.  We found newspaper reports, transcripts of the trial and an eighteen penny pamphlet written about the case which was sold to raise money for Jamie’s appeal and to support his wife and five young children. Bit by bit, the story came together.  By January 2009, I had enough information to start writing the novel – and then the real hard work began.

Originally, I began Catching the Eagle with a scene where our impoverished ancestor asks for credit in a local haberdashery.  He is refused by the owner and thrown out of the shop.  I then went on to show him in conflict with his nemesis (the evil steward, Michael Aynsley) and arguing with his wife about their dire financial situation. All these incidents were based on fact and the dialogue between the characters discussed events which we had meticulously researched.  I thought that they established the main characters, highlighted the poverty in rural England in 1809 and gave great background to the plot.

Fortunately I had a lot of honest, helpful and constructive criticism from friends, family and other authors. The feedback I received from my readers went along these lines:  "You’ve promised us the story of Northumberland’s most notorious Regency robbery and a miscarriage of justice - but you take ages to get there.  You need to move quicker towards these events – that’s your story, not Jamie’s credit rating."

Yes, it hurt.  Novelists need a thick skin.  But eventually I heeded their advice, dropped the first two chapters (10,000 words) and began the novel on the day of the robbery.  It worked; I got a publisher. 

Fiction readers (and fiction publishers) look for drama, tension, strong characterisation, a plot which enthralls them and reaches a satisfactory emotional conclusion.  A novelist needs to subtly blend the historical detail into the narrative and remember that in fiction, the plot must always come first. 

As I showed above with the tale of my first three chapters, minute historical detail or flying off on a tangent can slow down the pace of the narrative and damage any chances of publication. The family historian who aspires to become a historical novelist sometimes needs to distance themselves from their research, keep their head above the genealogy parapet and focus on the main event. This can lead to tough decisions about what to put into the book and what to leave out.

Who to leave in and who to leave out is another issue which also crops up.   They had big families back in the nineteenth century and most of them were called "John."  A cast of thousands may have worked well in the Bible but it rarely works in modern fiction.  The habit of naming children after other family members helps genealogists trace their relatives back through the centuries but if you have a mother, grandmother and a daughter all called "Ann" in the same book, it confuses the hell out of the reader. 

Fortunately, novelists can use artistic license.  In Catching the Eagle I changed names, killed off some characters early and brought forward a wedding by three years. I did this because I wanted the fun and the emotional high of the marriage celebrations to fit in with a chapter which was essentially "the calm before the storm."  Fiction – even a novel based on a true story - is for storytellers, not historical record keepers. 

Catching the Eagle was eventually published on 8th December 2011, by Knox Robinson Publishing.  They have also published my latest historical crime fiction novel, The Missing Heiress.

This second novel is pure fiction and was a joy to write. It flew off my keyboard like silk, and I completed it in ten months. It‘s a Regency whodunit revolving around the mystery of a beautiful heiress who vanishes from a locked bedchamber.  As far as I was concerned, there were only two policemen in England who could crack this mysterious case:  Detective Stephen Lavender and his sidekick Constable Woods.  Lavender was the real-life Bow Street policeman who had a minor part in my first book.  Ultimately, Stephen Lavender was the man who charged our ancestor with stealing the Kirkley Hall rent money and placed him in the dock - but I’ve never held that against him. I became really fond of these two characters. I particularly enjoyed the humorous banter they shared and I didn’t want to let them go after I had completed Catching the Eagle.  Lavender was the natural choice for the detective in my second novel. In my mind, he had grown from an interesting minor character to a fully-fledged and fascinating protagonist.

However, even with a purely fictional novel, I still found that I was influenced by the stories we had uncovered in our genealogical research.  Another one of our Charlton ancestors had written a rather startling Last Will & Testament two days before he died in 1770; this poor man didn’t trust his own offspring as far as he could throw them.  This document inspired me to create the dysfunctional Carnaby family of Linn Hagh who feature in The Missing Heiress.   I included this will - nearly word for word – in the novel.  Unfortunately, this was one of those times when the truth was definitely more idiosyncratic than fiction.  The editor at Knox Robinson did not appreciate the archaic legal terms or the erratic eighteenth century grammar and punctuation and she changed it.

Yes, using family history in novels can be a frustrating process at times!

© Karen Charlton

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Thank you so much for this fascinating look into your creative process, Karen!

I think most genealogists have "name problems." When my mother and grandmother were sleuthing our family history, their problem name was "James." The women tended to have the interesting names-- like "Mourning Sylvania Jane."

Don't forget to stop by tomorrow for my review of Karen's pageturning historical mystery, The Missing Heiress!  

My Guest Marva Dale Talks About the Roaring Twenties!

Life in the Roaring Twenties

 From The Great Gatsby to Mobsters to Flappers and Jazz... 

My character, Carney Brogan in Death of a Flapper experienced quite a bit of what life had to offer in the 1920s, the decade often referred to as the Roaring Twenties or the Jazz Age,  or sometimes the "Golden Age Twenties”  because of the economic boom following World War I.  The United States went through some pretty well-known and noteworthy changes in the 1920s, including Prohibition (ban on alcohol) and the Women’s Suffrage Movement which helped secure the vote for women.

Flappers were a "new breed" of young women in the 1920s who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior.  Flappers were seen as brash for wearing excessive makeup, drinking, treating sex in a casual manner, smoking, driving automobiles, and otherwise flouting social conventions and sexual norms.  Flappers had their origins in the liberal period of the Roaring Twenties where such dances as the “Charleston” had girls “flapping” their arms to the new jazz beat.

Flappers also began working outside the home and challenging women's traditional societal roles.  They were considered a significant challenge to traditional Victorian gender roles: devotion to plain-living, hard work, and religion.  Increasingly, women discarded old, rigid ideas about roles and embraced consumerism and personal choice, and were often described in terms of representing a "culture war" of old versus new.  Slang became prevalent amongst young people, and so did necking parties where a lot of hot and heavy kissing took place, particularly in the rumble seats of young men’s roadsters.  Flappers used the word "jazz" in the sense of anything exciting or fun. Their language sometimes reflected their feelings about dating, marriage and drinking habits: "I have to see a man about a dog" often meant going to buy whiskey; and a "handcuff" or "manacle" was an engagement or wedding ring.  Such phrases as “That's so Jake,” or "That's the bee's knees,” reflected approval and so too the popular "cat's meow" or "cat's pajamas.”

Thanks to the “boyish” look inspired by the French designer Coco Chanel, women’s dress became straight and loose, leaving the arms bare (sometimes no straps at all) and dropping the waistline to the hips.  Silk or rayon stockings were held up by garters.  Skirts rose to just below the knee by 1927, allowing flashes of leg to be seen when a girl danced or walked through a breeze.  To enhance the view, some flappers applied rouge to their knees.  High heels also came into vogue at the time, reaching 2–3 inches high.  Flappers did away with corsets and pantaloons in favor of "step-in" panties. Without the old restrictive corsets, flappers wore simple bust bodices to restrain their chest when dancing.  They also wore new, softer and suppler corsets that reached to their hips, smoothing the whole frame, and giving women a straight up and down appearance, as opposed to the old corsets which slenderized the waist and accented the hips and bust.  Adding an even more boyish look, the Symington Side Lacer was invented and became a popular essential as an every-day bra. This type of bra was made to pull in the back to flatten the chest, and flat chests soon became appealing to women.

Prohibition gave birth to speakeasies-- night clubs where booze was served clandestinely.  Bootleggers fought for territory as they sold “bathtub gin,” and this black market trade along with other illegal activities attracted a new breed of outlaw: the gangster and his mob.  In fact, mobsters like Al Capone were even idolized by the public.  And in the midst of all of this, you can bet that the way the people ate in the U.S. changed.  So when the 1920s came roaring in, food conservation was a little less of a concern and people began to indulge in the joys of life, including illegal alcohol and food that reflected this new prosperity.  Packaged, canned and frozen goods became time-savers in the kitchen.  (Advertisement for Gorton’s Cod Cakes – A delicious meal for 25¢. A new taste from the sea, and nothing to do but fry!)  Chinese food remained popular, and a dinner party menu might include canapés, crudités, soup, salad, three entrees and several desserts. 

Literature also played a significant role during this time, and such authors as Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck and F. Scott Fitzgerald were the literary “superstars” of the day.  In his book The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald brilliantly captured the pulse of the era-- beautiful people enjoying themselves at lawn parties and elegant soirees.  

Men wore tuxedos and women adorned their gowns with feathers, sequins and spangles.  Egyptian motifs became very popular after the discovery of King Tut’s tomb in 1923.

 

The Art Deco style influenced interior design and architecture, and the school of Dadaism—a movement that repudiated social conventions—became prevalent in the art, music and literary worlds.   Surrealism, an avant-garde style, also flourished.  

The 1920s became the era of mass production and assembly lines, and to market all these goods and services advertising agencies sprung up, particularly on Madison Avenue in New York City.  Unfortunately over-production became one of the major factors in the Stock Market Crash of 1929, resulting in the Great Depression that lasted through most of the 1930s.  Until then people could afford what had once been luxury items like cars (the popular Ford Model A) and major appliances, not to mention electricity and telephone service.  

For entertainment, they went to the movies (silent until 1929) where they could see such film stars as Rudolph Valentino, Clara Bow, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks.  And radio, a brand new medium, brought music, news and programs into homes across America.

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Thank you so much for this look at the Roaring Twenties, the time frame in which your book, Death of a Flapper, takes place. It's a fascinating era!

Keep Publicizing Your Books!

Today I'd like to welcome author and guest blogger, J.L. Greger, to Kittling: Books. She'll be telling us a bit about how an author tries to negotiate the labyrinthine world of marketing. In order for them to sell, readers have to be made aware of a writer's books, but it is there such a thing as too much publicizing?

After reading her informative post, you'll be able to learn more about Janet and the mysteries she writes!

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Blogs and websites, reviews of others’ books, and talks on book-related topics at libraries and meetings.


Are these activities advertisements?

I’m no marketing expert so I’ll quote an expert:

Advertising and publicity are two very different communication tools, even though both employ the mass media as a vehicle for reaching large audiences… Advertising buys its way into the media… Publicity is presented by the media because it's "newsworthy."  (Michael Turney in Online Readings in Public Relations)

I guess the answer is:  No, the activities listed at the start of this post are not advertisements. They are ways of gaining publicity for books. They all can increase name recognition and-- if done right and you’re lucky-- increase sales.

How do advertising and publicity influence our behavior?

Although publicity and advertising are different, I thought if I understood the psychology of advertising, I might do a better job at publicizing my novels. I’m guessing (if you’re still reading), you might think so, too.

Dempsey and Mitchell (Journal of Consumer Research [Dec 4, 2010] Vol. 37) found advertising sold products, not by providing factual information, but by surrounding the product with other things shoppers liked, thus creating positive attitudes about the product. At least that was true 70-80% of the time. I wondered if this ‘attitude adjustment' worked for more abstract products than toothpaste and cereal.

Could I sell more of my novels if I associated them with something pleasant in potential readers’ minds? 

Bug

That’s hard to do when you write realistic thrillers, like Coming Flu about a future deadly flu pandemic. Maybe I did a better job when I titled my second novel Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight. Most dieters would love to kill “diet doctors” who say weight loss is easy with their product.

However, this is one reason why I included Bug, my adorable Japanese Chin dog, in both novels and include his photos in my blog posts.



How much publicity is enough?

The effective frequency of advertisements (i.e. the number of times a person needs to be exposed to an ad before making a positive response) is controversial. One expert states there are three levels of response to ads: curiosity, recognition, and decision. That suggests to me that hitting an audience with publicity once about your book is usually not enough. On the other hand, bombarding groups with publicity on your book more than four or five times is probably wasteful.

Bottom line?

Many of us probably waste time on ineffective blog posts, websites, and talks, but we’ve generated more publicity for our books than those who don’t try. So keep publicizing your books!

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J.L. Greger, as a biologist and professor emerita of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, enjoys putting tidbits of science into her medical mystery/suspense novels. Her novels (paperback and Kindle formats) are available on Amazon.

In Coming Flu (published June 2012), epidemiologist Sara Almquist is trying to stop two killers:  the Philippine flu, which is rapidly wiping out everyone in a walled community in New Mexico, and a drug kingpin determined to break out of the quarantined enclave.

In Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight (published March 2013), physician Linda Almquist, Sara's sister, is investigating an ambitious "diet doctor" who may be eliminating anyone who thwarts his career plans.

In the third novel of the series, Sara will be investigating public health problems and murders in Bolivia.







Thank you so much, Janet! We really appreciate your informative post about an author's thought processes in trying to navigate the tricky world of marketing and advertising!