Blog #124; Notes on—Historical Fiction; the writing process; short v. long form; Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea;
“History is a nightmare from which I am struggling to wake from”—James Joyce
The above quote has the challenge implicit in every thoughtful historical fiction work: how to make old questions fresh for the present generation. As a high-level staff officer in Gen. Patton’s 3rd Army in 1945, Hyrum Fratelli (and we as readers) will be given a front row seat to the discoveries of the atrocities of Hitler and his death camps. As a novelist in media res creating A Contrite Spirit, I am still searching for guidance in how to proceed here. If only Willie appeared to me as the author. But no. Willie is Hyrum’s fictional spirit counselor and that is probably how I will go forward. What light can Willie shed on the situation, if any? How will Hyrum, and subsequently, the rest of the Fratellis react? Time will tell.
Short Fiction and Poems
The late award-winning short story writer and poet Philip Deaver (Silent Retreats, Forty Martyrs) once told me the short forms of the short story and poem and the making of them had much more in common with each other than the longer fictional works. As I get older, and ripen as I grow as a writer, I see this is true. And I think in the balance of these two (three?) forms, I have found my own solution to the potential for writer’s block.
Publication so far this year:
See the below list of links for poetry and short fiction I have published this year.
https://irreantum.
https://www.
https://militaryexperience.
New Reading Horizons
After the most recent Harlan Coben thriller (Think Twice) I think I will re-read one of my all-time favorites: Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea.
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