The Facts of Fiction

Carolyn Schriber is a historian by training and profession. Here she discusses how her academic background helped her make the transition from classroom to novelist.

Six years ago, I retired from a career as a college history professor. I had a string of books and articles to my credit and some skills, like deciphering twelfth-century Latin handwriting, that were relatively useless in the real world. What surprised me was discovering that once I was free from the "publish or perish" rule of academia, I still wanted to publish. I knew I had always been a story-teller at heart. The stories behind the history were what fascinated me — not the dates or treaties or economic theories. But was I equipped to write fiction? That, I didn't know.

Making the switch from academic historian to historical fiction author required some fundamental changes in how I looked at writing. I had to re-think what was most important about the story I was trying to tell. I no longer had to document my research or prove a point. Believe me, giving up footnotes after a lifetime of teaching careful documentation was painful. But then I remembered a prescription one of my own advisors gave me in graduate school. "If your footnote contains information about your story, put it in the story," he said. "If it's simply a reference to your source, and if its an indisputable fact, leave it out. Only footnote those ideas or details that are likely to antagonize some important old goat looking for a reason to be cantankerous." Voila! My footnotes disappeared. And good riddance.