Day 22 & 23
Day 22
Inspired by this week’s writing prompt.
David started it. He didn’t mean to, really—he didn’t know what he was saying wasn’t true. But in October, he was the first to say that Little Mary Hemla was sneaking into the woods to gather potion ingredients at night. Who knows what he actually saw—David didn’t survive much longer to tell us.
Things quickly got out of hand.
From gathering ingredients in the woods, the story morphed until Mary was leading all the unmarried girls in the village into the woods at night to dance with the Devil.
“I heard they drink animal blood!”
“I heard they put a spell on Mister Jameson!”
“I heard they killed Annabelle’s baby!”
Before long, Little Mary Hemla became Evil Mary Hemlock, and then she became a corpse at the end of a rope. David got caught up in it, accused of channeling the Devil—how else could he have known the girls were going into the woods at night?
By February, an entire generation of the village’s girls were dead.
Day 23
I’ve never prepped to write a novel the way I’ve prepped for my NaNoWriMo project this year. I’ve been thinking about this story for about 5 years, and have been actively taking notes on it for about 2 years. Normally I just sit down and start writing and see where the story takes me.
But this novel is historical fiction—these were real people who really existed. I feel an obligation to tell their stories accurately. The timeline that’s been recorded is full of holes though, missing motivations like missing puzzle pieces. The outcomes of their decisions don’t always make logical sense, and so I’m left filling in the gaps, wondering how these people got from point A to point B. What did history forget to record?
I think this is supposed to be the fun part—no historical fiction writer has access to every thought in every character’s head. Exploring this is what historical fiction is all about.
Right now though, it just fills me with anxiety. What if I get them wrong?
Getting ready to write a novel for NaNoWriMo? Come to our virtual write-in this Sunday—the second of three for Preptober! Learn more about them here.
I started the Writer’s Notebook as a 28-day challenge to find joy in writing again. Traditionally, a writer’s notebook is a collection of observations, reactions, ideas, questions, memories, quotes, sketches, lists, snippets of moving language, or some combination of the above. (Sometimes they’re also called Commonplace Books!) Want to join in? Leave a comment below and I’ll check out your work!