Context and reference in historical fantasy

One of the things that sometimes bugs me about historical novels is that they do a lot of telling. There’s a reference to politics, pop culture, famous people, whatever and we get a quick info-drop about what it means. It doesn’t take me out of the story but I do notice it.

Reflecting on the feedback on Let No Man Put Asunder and Southern Discomfort (as I work on editing it, I’ve been reading a few chapters to my writing group), I’m wondering if I don’t go too far the other way. Sure, I try not to make it completely incomprehensible — I don’t want people breaking off reading to Google it — but I don’t explain things unless there’s a logical reason for someone to bring them up in conversation or think about what they mean.

Part of that may be that I lived through the 1970s. Even though I know, intellectually, that to a 30-year-old today, the mid-seventies are as far behind them as the 1930s were to me, I think I still assume they’ll know more than they do. Even if someone grasps the broad outlines, it’s easy to misunderstand the details, as this post about the 1920s discusses. Thinking back, I was a lot more “tell” when I was writing Questionable Minds because I know how much stuff people don’t know.Working on my Doc Savage history, Savage Adventures, I’ve been more aware of how strange the past gets after a few decades. As I discuss in Chapter Three, the 1930s were an era when the British Empire still dominated the world; the Depression dominated America; Jim Crow was the law of much of the land; radio was a dominant mass medium and still cutting edge tech; strong men performing on stage and barnstorming pilots were cool entertainment; nobody was certain space travel would ever be attainable; and antibiotics didn’t exist.

I’m testing out my thoughts by rewriting one chapter of Southern Discomfort I thought I’d finished satisfactorily. I’m spelling out relevant material the audience might not know, such as the FBI’s long history of trying to break the civil rights movement and the 1915 Leo Frank lynching. I think I’ve done it without bogging down in an info-dump; hopefully I can read it to the group soon and get feedback. If it works, I’ll keep doing the same to the other chapters.

I’ll also keep it in mind working on the rewrite of Let No Man Put Asunder. I think it’s more a matter there of overloading on the pop culture references but I did get feedback complaints some of them needed context. Not as much — a reference to Ingrid Bergman kissing Cary Grant in Notorious shouldn’t need to come with a plot synopsis (I hope).

Wish me luck. I’ll let you know how it goes.

#SFWApro. All rights to images remain with current holders. Cover by Samantha Collins.