Tag: historical fiction research
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Reconstruction Diary Meditations: Rapidly Evolving Quakerism
Sunday, June 10, 1866 Milton, Lizzie and I went to Walnut Ridge to meeting. Enos Prey was there and preached a pretty extensive sermon. E Osborn also preached. There was preaching outdoors. Also the new meeting house is quite commodious but would not contain more than half the people. Went to Joseph Butler’s for dinner.…
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Living Up to a Surprising Family Legacy
I have an impressive role model. Seven years ago today, I spent the day in New Castle, Indiana, paging through musty books, peering at microfilm newspaper articles, and digging through gigantic, bound court record books. My son Ted Shideler and I were just starting my second Lilly Teacher Creativity Fellowship Award project. For the past…
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Reconstruction Diary Meditations: Fashion Can Be A Quaker Passion
Because I’ve posted so many Sunday entries, today, I’m skipping ahead to the upcoming Wednesday in Mary Jane’s diary. For context, at the time of her writing, she and her sister Lizzie, my three-times great-grandmother, have been home in rural East Central Indiana for six weeks since returning from their first stint teaching freedmen in…
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Reconstruction Diary Meditations: Drawing Back a Veil
Sunday, May 27, 1866 Lizzie and I went to meeting to Elmgrove. Isaac Trueblood and his daughters Miriam & Mary were there. Meeting was small. In the afternoon Milton, Lizzie & Ella Hubbard went up to a spiritual meeting at Greensboro. The speaker was Mrs. Mitchell. They enjoyed it pretty well [and] stopped at Bales’s…
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Reconstruction Diary Meditations: Time Moves On, But Human Nature Stays the Same
From the 1866 diary that inspired my first novel: Sunday, May 20, 1866 Milton, Lizzie & I went to Elmgrove to meeting. Got there before the Sabbath school closed. I read the 46th Psalm at the close of school; several were at meeting, no preaching. After meeting we went to N Gause, took dinner, then…
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Where to Even Begin?
Hmm: A runaway mule team that nearly mows down two women? A quarrel between two sisters who claim to be pacifists? A public argument between a female Northerner and a male Confederate sympathizer? For several months, I debated about the best narrative hook for my novel based on the real family-heirloom diary of my ancestor,…
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The Biggest Mistake Historical Fiction Writers Make – And How to Avoid It
Writing historical fiction is the dream of so many aspiring authors – but it requires real research! Back when my high school juniors were writing stories related to the American Civil War, it was the little details that tripped them up. One student wrote about a doctor reaching into the medicine cabinet and pulling out…
