Hilary is the author of The Aetheling's Bride, an historical fiction set beginning 2 weeks after the Battle of Hastings in England, 1066, and in Oxford in 1987. It follows 2 women: Aislinn, a Saxon commoner swept up in William the Conqueror's victorious march to London, and the following 40 years under William; and Selma, an American graduate student at Oxford trying to locate and study the "Aethelinga" manuscript, which is Aislinn's story. Both women are trying to come to terms with violent acts in their lives. Despite being separated by 9 centuries, they have surprisingly similar lessons to learn.
"Where to start the story? In Oxford, of course. And how I planned for 3 years to get there and how I thought I had it all figured out when I did.
"So I joined the Wadham tutoring program (for underprivileged students), and it's off to Tower Hamlets (London) I go. To talk about the Normans, and to get the kids to tell stories. 'Harold tells you a secret. What is it?' or 'William gives you a gift. What is it?'
"The kids were not so into it. William would be surprised to know he bequeathed any number of plasma TVs. But they had fun.
"On the way back to Oxford, waiting in Victoria Station for the bus, the plot bunny sidles into my head. 'Hey,' it says, 'YOU like to write stories.' And then IT happens. 4 characters introduce themselves, right then. And one of them was William himself. That's the short version.
"NOW WHAT?
"Sit in the Oxford Tube. Heinous traffic (first time ever I was grateful for that). Have a good but rather vague idea of the first two parts by the time I concluded this bus ride. Go inside and write the first five pages. Nothing out of the ordinary happens. I even think it's safe to go back to this other project I've been working on.
"A few days later, however, I go back. That's the end of me. I've got this whopper of a story on my hands and a VERY insistent cast of characters.
"Permit a diversion on characters. One way to build them: by planning them out. I myself have done this before. You know, forms that ask you to think up how your character walks and what was that traumatic thing that happened to her with a bratwurst that is driving her psychological arc. It is a fine and perfectly acceptable way to do character, especially if you're the sort of person that needs outlines and organization. Nothing wrong with that.
"Or what you can do, once you've stepped on a live wire, is to meet them. Often it's not going to take very long. At all.
"If you've been writing for very long, you've probably had the experience of your characters coming alive, which makes every other non-writer tell you that you're crazy and it's actually just you. Which it's not, and they don't entirely get. So the problem was, ALL of mine did. It was like chasing a barrel of monkeys. Add lively (read 'real') characters, cross that with historical accuracy and research, and you have a steeplechase on your hands.
"Add into the hunt trying to figure out whose history to believe, especially when using primary sources. Medieval chroniclers were not big on objectivity: they wanted to establish their side of the story. Thus, who did what and who was promised what (did Edward the Confessor promise William the throne upon his death? Or Harold Godwinson? Or both? Or neither?) will vary considerably upon who you read. Norman chroniclers insist on William's legitimacy and say Harold was a turd. English ones were vice versa. Their personal opinions become the history they're recording. William of Malmesbury was fairly good, but very pro-Norman and had moments of ridiculousness, e.g. Henry (William's son) was a saint and very pure (ignoring the 20+ bastards he sired). Then again, he WAS a monk. And then some things go very far back, as in carping about taxes! Eadmer was also decent, but I had to remember that whatever they didn't know, they filled in. They wrote whole conversations! Gee, kinda like writing a novel!
"It does mean that if you're writing your own story, you have to make choices about what version you want to tell. I decided to take a middle ground. Both Harold and William were complicated, fascinating men. It was kind of criminal to cartoonize them and make them one-dimensional.
"For example, William. So intelligent, so brave, so gifted, but pretty much zero empathy and does a lot of things that by our standards are incredibly cruel and brutal. That doesn't mean he's a 'bad guy'. He has both sides (his childhood makes you see why he is how he is). You have to look at all the characters in whole, not just isolated actions.
"So then, we have the Norman Conquest. Whoof! Big change. I'm very resistant to the idea that the only people who existed are the ones who got written about. For that time period, it's monks doing all the writing. They write about powerful men, rarely about women. For example, Edith of Wessex was a queen, well educated, and powerful in her own right; but as soon as her husband the king died, she totally drops out of the chronicles. Also, the monks will kill your reputation if you piss them off, e.g. Rufus, who became king when William died. The church HATED him (and the chronicles reflect that).
So, who else is affected? The less powerful. My narrator is a Saxon, common-born woman. She doesn't stay there, but that's how she starts out. She would never have been mentioned in the chronicles. However, that doesn't mean someone like her didn't or couldn't have existed. I don't hesitate to use plausible fictional characters. Sometimes they will introduce themselves as forcibly as the historical ones. I figure they have a good reason to be there, too, and sign them up.
More coming on what it's like to be taken over by Talking Dead Guys!
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