"a treasure trove for writers"
rediscover Saturdays.

If you cannot see the buttons above, try the footer links below

see ad note

The Past is Now in Writing

Writing about the past is an activity for the present. The past is the here and now for the writer who must balance today’s values against the values of a time that has passed into history.

It would seem it would be easy to write on an incident in a different era; but it is almost more difficult than writing about the present.

Certainly, there is ample opportunity for slipping up on detail of place or the mores of people who were influenced by the values of their time.

Simply put, the public morality of people of some decades past would seem to be from a different planet to the laissez-fire acceptance of anything goes of today.

Consider the practiced manners of a courtship from a century ago with its hesitancies and rules and uncertainties and the slap bang fizzle of today’s celebrity marriage-and-divorce in a weekend. It would seem there is not much parallel.

But human beings remain essentially the same. Wider society changes. Some practices that were absolutely unacceptable once upon a time are now the stuff of everyday life.

So, when you come to recall a specific summertime childhood experience you need to be true to the times you write about, in the story.

It really doesn’t matter what your personal opinions may be. You must tell the story as it would have happened.

Apart from human morality and values, you must incorporate the sights and sounds and smells of the time.

Was the horse the predominant mode of transport at the time of your story?

What smells would that invoke? What was the summer smell of a sweating dray horse as it hauled a load up a steep hill? How did horse dung smell on the streets? What other aromas would arise from many, many horses milling about on a fair day?

Were their owners’ clean and sweet-smelling in all things? Many may not have been. It is for the writer to consider how best to include the smells and sights of your chosen era. But, be careful what you include and what you leave out. Too much research and evocation of other times can obfuscate.

It is all too easy to impose the attitudes of today on an earlier time and to make judgements based on that. Even to suggest the morality of yesteryear might be the appropriate way of living today, is an author’s personal judgement.

Unless you have created a character who is you in essence and would probably be an anachronism in the story in that case, you should leave it out.

That is not to say that you should agree with wrongdoings of the past; just to say that you should remember context. It is not for you as the writer to be the arbiter of all things.

You are the storyteller; not the bringer of the rules of life from the future to your character in the past.

© Brendan Nolan 2010
more articles here
-------------

Write your own book today with the help of an Askaboutwriting Academy writing course.
here

---------------------------------------------