of smugglers and deserters

I love research.

I am - in the minutes and hours I can snatch here and there - working on becoming a better novelist. These young childhood years are the time to slowly work on my art, so that hopefully, when the kids are a bit older, I'll have put in the time I need to be a professional.

Anyway, one of the things I've discovered recently is how helpful research is to plotting. I write historical fiction, and I've learned that when I don't know exactly how to solve a plot hole, the thing to do is to go and read some history. Inevitably, I'll learn more about the the world my characters inhabit, and that will spark an idea about how they would react to their world. I couldn't, say, have a brave priest who celebrated mass despite official divestiture unless I knew the governement of Rouen had closed the churches during the early days of the Revolution. That sort of thing.

Most of my stories are set in England, but, to my dismay, I figured out that my latest one starts in France. I know very little about local culture on the coast of France in the early 1800's, and I knew that to write a good story, I needed to do some research. A friend recommended using our local university library, and even found me the perfect book, which is how I found myself, early this morning, reading Gavin Daly's dissertation: "Inside Napoleonic France: State and Society in Rouen, 1800-1815."

I know, sounds like a snoozer, right?

Nope, it's fascinating. I think specifics always are. Not a "generally, in these fifteen years, this happened", but a "this year, in this place, with these people, this happened."

Anyway, one of my plot holes was that though I knew my hero (an English scholar, who'd traveled to Paris in 1803, during the brief Peace) needed a way to escape French arrest (he gets caught there when hostilities resume), I had no idea how he was going to manage it. Poor fellow is a scholar, not a soldier. How would he get away, and even if he did, how would he make it back to England?

But Mr. Daly's book reminded me that most of the soldiers in the French army were conscripts, and didn't want to be there either. Is it inconcievable that my hero - who while no soldier, is a man of means - might be able to bribe a deserter to be his native guide? No, it's quite conceivable. And all of the sudden, I have a way to get my hero back to England, and write some harrowing escape scenes in the process!

I love research. I never would have thought of that solution if I wasn't sitting here reading someone else's dissertation.

It's just interesting to me that the best prompt for the fiction writer's constant question, "What if?" isn't speculation. The best prompt for "What if?" is fact.

In other words, the best lies are mostly truth.

And now that I have potentially insinuated that all we novelists are are excellent liars, I think I'll sign off.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell