Guest post by Amy Trueblood
Amy Trueblood grew up in Southern California only ten minutes from Disneyland which sparked an early interest in storytelling. Fueled by iced tea and a good Spotify playlist, you can often find Amy settled in a quiet corner at her local coffee shop plotting her next book. Her debut novel, Nothing But Sky, a Spring 2018 Junior Library Guild selection, is available now. Her next book, Across a Broken Shore (A Winter 2020 JLG selection) will hit shelves on November 5, 2019. For more information on Amy, check out her website or follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Ten books. A dozen documentaries. Hours spent with a historian. Notebooks full of time-specific facts. This is how writing a Young Adult Historical book starts—lots and lots of research.
For my first YA Historical book, Nothing But Sky, I spent over a year teaching myself the ins and outs of barnstorming and how the mechanics of a biplane worked. I watched countless videos, talked to pilots, and even did an interview with a modern day wingwalker to understand what it must feel like to stand out on the wings of a plane soaring 500 feet above ground.
In the early drafts of that book, there were pages and pages of exposition I knew I wanted to include. But when I went back to read those first chapters, I realised I had a problem. My book read more like non-fiction than fiction.
What I learned through the process of writing YA Historical is that there needs to be a blend of history and narrative in order for the book to work. While you can use historical facts to set the tone, your book needs to be more about character and plot—a lesson I had to learn early on when critiques came back that my book was more “tell than show”.
Reading those critiques was painful, but I knew they were right. So, what did I do? I made a plan to ensure I was getting the balance right between history and story. Here’s what it looked like:
- Write a complete synopsis of the narrative from beginning to end
- Look at setting in each chapter and include specific historical elements to set the scene
- Weave in small anecdotes from the time period that bring colour and context to the story but don’t detract from the pacing
- Walk the readers onto the page, and into that moment of history, by including as many visceral details as possible – (sight, sound, scent, touch)
Once I had this plan in place, I tore apart the manuscript for Nothing But Sky. The main focus was on story first. When I was sure the narrative was solid, I went back and added historical details that had relevance.
For instance, there is a scene in my next book, Across a Broken Shore where the main character, Willa, visits a historical site in San Francisco called Sutro Baths. Back in the 1930s, it was an indoor bathhouse with six salt water pools. I did hours of research about the attraction. It would have been easy to flood the pages with historical facts, but then I’d lose the flow of the story. Instead, I only incorporated senses and period details that added to the scenes. I wanted the reader to feel like they’d walked into the bathhouse. Experience how the humidity made the men in wool suits and matching fedoras uncomfortable. How the smell of salt from the pools tinged the air. I wrote and revised that chapter at least thirteen times before I got the scene, balanced with a hint of historical fact, paced correctly.
The main thing to remember when writing historical fiction is that no matter how many real-life elements you want to include, story must always come first. It takes patience but if you get the balance between history and narrative right, you’ll take the reader on a journey they’ll never forget.
