Category Archives: Readerly on Writing

Finding the Gap and using Outliers as models when writing Historical Fiction

This is part 2 of a series about writing compelling characters in Historical Fiction. You can find the first part here. According to James C. Scott’s Domination and the Arts of Resistance, part of the difficulty in dealing with the history of a subordinate group is that there is a public transcript of events andContinue reading “Finding the Gap and using Outliers as models when writing Historical Fiction”

Agent Sonya by Ben MacIntyre

Ben MacIntyre has written several books about World War II and Cold War spies.  They are all excellent and Agent Sonya does not disappoint.  MacIntyre has a talent for finding intriguing stories about real people in extraordinary situations.  Sonya, real name Ursula Kuczynski,  worked for the Soviets beginning in the 1920s in China and continuingContinue reading “Agent Sonya by Ben MacIntyre”

The “feisty female” in historical fiction

I have been reading Susanne Alleyn’s excellent book about writing historical fiction. Medieval Underpants and Other Blunders (2015) recently; though I find it helpful, interesting, and often quite humorous, there is one idea I would like to push back on just a bit–the feisty female.  Alleyn writes that too often authors give their historical charactersContinue reading “The “feisty female” in historical fiction”