Michaela MacCall: Modern Historical Fiction

I write historical fiction. My first book comes out in October 2010. It’s not what I was trained to do. In school I studied history. In the real world I wrote legal briefs and designed software. Not until I began writing about stories that take place in the past did I find something that made me happy. Something that didn’t make me feel like I was faking it.

I have always been fascinated by the stories and personalities in history (I studied Tsarist Russia, so there were plenty of stories). My approach to history was multi-disciplinary. History, Anthropology, Art, Language, Literature, Economics, Political Science…. I loved circling my subject from all these angles – Never diving in so deeply that I couldn’t come back up for air. But the way I had to hedge every insight with footnotes and alternative theories drove me crazy.

When you write historical fiction, you get to play. You can shift dates (a little – so long as you explain in the author’s note). You find a tidbit, a rumor, and it becomes a whole sub-plot. You read two different versions of an event and your story drives a truck through the inconsistencies. Even a disproved theory, a controversial fact – all of it can be used. Bliss!

My first book is about a British Princess in 1837. My second tells the story of a girl who grows up in Colonial Africa and becomes an international phenomenon. My work in progress is about painters in Renaissance Italy. Sometimes I feel like a bird pecking at different kinds of breadcrumbs. Alas, I can’t use every tidbit I find. My critique group won’t let me. So I offer them up to you… along with musings about odd historical morsels found out it the wild.

So let the breadcrumbs fall where they may.