Through history’s lens

How many times have you wished you could go back, knowing what you know now?

In our episodic day-to-day lives we don’t get to see how the convergence of outside events influences our unfolding stories. We might have a pretty good idea where things are headed, but like a novel, we don’t get to know how it all turns out until the end.

I guess that’s why I love to write stories that allow me to look at things through an omniscient lens. I get to see how historical events—things beyond individual control—might shape lives in ways that can’t possibly be known at the time. It gives me an edge on empathy, because I can see where things are headed.

My characters aren’t the movers and shakers of history but instead those carried along its current. The trick for me, when writing these stories, is to let the narrative unfold as it might in life, so the reader is surprised by turns of events as they affect the characters just as we are, when we can’t see what’s coming around the corner.

And sometimes, as the writer, I’m surprised too. Because I do know what happened in history: I know that the stock market crashed in October 1929, I know what happened to Pierre Laporte during the FLQ crisis of 1970, and I remember how people prepared for the perceived threat of Y2K (and what didn’t happen in that case). But I don’t always know how my characters will behave, or what twists and turns their stories may take, and that’s where the magic comes in for me.

Writing Flying with Amelia involved a lot of research—the things I came to know—and a great deal of trust. I loved immersing myself in details of German PoW camps in Canada or learning about the climate and culture of Herschel Island. Research takes me places in time, space, and geography far beyond the writing studio, until I emerge, blinking, hours later with the fire out in the woodstove. Trust takes me into situations in the narrative where I have to believe in the characters I’ve created and have faith that they know best. It’s an alchemy that seems to work for me, and I admit I’ve become a little addicted to it all.

If I can pull it off, then my characters will be just the sorts of people who, at the end of the story, would love to go back—knowing what they know now.

This essay originally appeared as a Chapters/Indigo author blog