Mike Hartner on How Not All Characters Can Be Heard at Once @MHartnerAuthor #AmWriting #HistFic

Inside the Mind of An Author

In the Darkness brought on by a closed room and narrow stairs, I slowly ascend to the top and push the attic floorboard to the side. This stairwell, conveniently hidden in a second floor wall, has been very dusty and full of cobwebs. I’m really not sure what to expect when I go into the attic. I have, however, heard strange noises.

Climbing up into the attic, into the mind of this author, I look around. The walls are cluttered with post it notes, and most of them had small symbols and some writing. There were papers that had fallen to the floor, and the whole area looked like an old bomb shelter.

I’m immediately dodging the many different children who are running around. The voices that each one uses to taunt the others are all different.

I stop one of them. His name is James.

“Are there any others around?”

“Oh, there are plenty.”

“Where are they?”

“Sitting in a corner of the filing room in the back. They’re waiting for their opportunity to come join the fun.”

“What are they waiting for?”

“Why, everyone knows that they’re waiting to be heard. Not all of us characters can be heard at the same time. Sometimes, he listens to three or four of us for a short time, and sometimes he listens to one of us for a long time. But, we’re all here. Waiting for our chance to be heard.”

“So why are you three out here running around?”

“We’ve already been heard. He’s concentrating on us right now, and it’s our chance to play and rest while he figures out what he wants us to do next.”

“How many are in the back room?”

“The last I checked, the room was crammed, and the waiting list was endless. Lots of voices like us want to be heard. We want to tell our stories.”

James escaped from my vision and went back to running around.

When I saw them return, I also saw them carrying long sticks, using them as play swords. I beat a hasty retreat from the mind of this author.

James Crofter was ripped from his family at age 11. 
Within a year the prince was a pauper in a foreign land. 
Is nature stronger than nurture? And even if it is, can James find the happiness he so richly desires? 

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Genre - Historical Fiction, Romance

Rating – PG

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LOCK READY #Excerpt by James Rada Jr. @JimRada #AmReading #HistFic

This excerpt provides a view of what life around the Cumberland Basin on the C&O Canal was like.

David stepped into the large warehouse at the southern end of the canal basin in Cumberland. The bay doors had been swung open to allow sunlight to shine on the work going on inside. However, it also meant that the warehouse stayed cold inside. It was nothing more than a very long barn. The difference was that this barn housed canal boats not livestock. The Lewis Boatworks was one of a handful of boat yards in Cumberland that built and repaired canal boats for canallers.

During the summer, some work could be done outdoors if the warehouse had a large enough yard, but there was a greater risk of sabotage from Confederate sympathizers, railroaders or simply hooligans against the exposed canal boats. Confederate raiders or sympathizers had burned the bridge from Cumberland to Ridgeley, West Virginia, and torn up the B&O Railroad track outside of Cumberland early in the war. Because of that, Amos Lewis preferred to construct his boats indoors and them roll them on logs out the warehouse doors that opened onto the Cumberland Basin.

David saw three men hammering boards that would become the roof of the family cabin onto the cabin frame. The boats on the C&O Canal were all roughly the same shape and length in order to fit into the seventy-four lift locks along the canal. The boats were each ninety-two feet long. Most were made of Georgia pine, though new boats being built were understandably made of trees harvested in the north. The largest area on a canal boat was the cargo holds, which made up about eighty percent of the space on a boat. The remaining space was taken up by three cabins; a family cabin and a mule shed sat on opposite ends of the canal boat, and a hay house was located in the middle of the boat.

David could smell creosote and wood and hear men talking and laughing as they worked on the canal boat. He had once been surprised that Cumberland, which was a city in the mountains, had a reputation for shipbuilding, but after working on the canal, he knew it was deserved. From here, the canal boats could be ordered by individual captains or the Consolidated Coal Company and launched at the canal basin to be filled with coal.

Cumberland was an important shipbuilding city because the C&O Canal was the lifeline for getting coal from the mountains of Western Maryland to Washington City. Access to coal was one of the reasons that the first destination for both the C&O Canal and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad had been to reach Cumberland.

The C&O Canal and the B&O Railroad both began construction on July 4, 1828; the canal from Washington and the railroad from Baltimore. In the following years, the canal was delayed by an extended legal battle at Point of Rocks, fighting for the right of way and by Mother Nature near Paw Paw, Virginia, to dig the Paw Paw Tunnel. By the time the canal reached Cumberland in 1850, the railroad had already been there and operating for eight years.

The need for coal had allowed both businesses to survive and grow. It was particularly important now because portions of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad kept changing hands between the Confederacy and the Union. Part of the railroad’s right-of-way ran through West Virginia, which still had strong Southern sympathies despite the fact the Unionists had gathered enough support to break West Virginia off from Virginia to form a new Union state. The C&O Canal had proven to be fairly reliable in getting much-needed coal to the capital city, despite the Confederacy’s efforts to stop boating on the canal.

The Civil War split the United States and now it has split the Fitzgerald Family. Although George Fitzgerald has returned from the war, his sister Elizabeth Fitzgerald has chosen to remain in Washington to volunteer as a nurse. The ex-Confederate spy, David Windover, has given up on his dream of being with Alice Fitzgerald and is trying to move on with his life in Cumberland, Md. Alice and her sons continue to haul coal along the 184.5-mile-long C&O Canal. It is dangerous work, though, during war time because the canal runs along the Potomac River and between the North and South. 

Having had to endured death and loss already, Alice wonders whether remaining on the canal is worth the cost. She wants her family reunited and safe, but she can’t reconcile her feelings between David and her dead husband. Her adopted son, Tony, has his own questions that he is trying to answer. He wants to know who he is and if his birth mother ever loved him. As he tries to find out more about his birth mother and father, he stumbles onto a plan by Confederate sympathizers to sabotage the canal and burn dozens of canal boats. 

He enlists David’s help to try and disrupt the plot before it endangers his new family, but first they will have find out who is behind the plot.

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Genre – Historical Fiction

Rating – PG-13

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Website jamesrada.com

J.D. Ferguson on His Main Character, Justin Thorne from Holderby's Landing #Fiction #AmReading

Can you tell us about your main character?

Justin Thorne is a young man of privilege in pre-Civil War Virginia.  He has grown up so insulated that his naiveté is a primary part of his personality.  Through circumstances beyond his control he is thrown into the frontier life along the western edge of Virginia, at that time the Ohio River, and through a series of adventures is forced to grow up, and quickly.  He is aided along the way by his Father’s good friend Osman Treat, a secondary but fundamental part of the story.

How did you develop your plot and characters?

The characters came naturally enough, once I understood the story I wanted to tell.  They are part and parcel of people I have known or experienced through personal contact, study, and imagination.  Initially, I directed their actions through the necessary plot twists to get the story going, but after I became comfortable with them the action developed on its own accord because of the characters and their individual traits.  I just followed the logic.

Who designed the cover?

The story set the template and was interpreted by the publisher, Black Rose Writing.  They did a great job, with which I am well pleased.

Who is your publisher?

Black Rose Writing, created by Reagan Rothe and located in Texas, is the publishing house.  They started out as a self-publisher but quickly changed to an independent.

Why did you choose to write this particular book?

All the experts involved in publishing, book sales, author management, etc. will tell you to know your audience and the buying public you are trying to attract and write accordingly.  That is probably smart advice for the commercial author.  They write to make the most sales with the least amount of effort.  Some of the most prolific and successful even buy manuscripts from the unknown and unpublished on which they put their names in order to access the available market with the most books of their genre while their iron is still hot and their work desired.  Sadly to say, I am not yet commercially successful, and even if I were, would not follow that course of action.  You see, I did not make the choice so much as I saw the story in my head and accepted the charge of writing it.  I liked what I imagined and wanted to see it on paper, regardless of commerciality.  Now that it has been written, I work to make it a success in the marketplace.  I just do things my own way, even if back-asswards.

How much of the book is realistic?

I think the whole of the book is realistic.  Though a work of fiction and driven by my imagination, no scenario or sequence of events or action really falls outside the possible and probable.  In order to be true to historical fiction, one must first and foremost make the characters and storyline follow logic.  I could have used the same location and environment yet used a female, teenage, nympho, vampire as my main character and placed her in a colony of religious, teenage, male, werewolves; called it historical fiction and hoped for the best, but there would be very little realism in the finished product.

How important do you think villains are in a story?

Depending on the type of book you choose to write, villains will drive the action and give you a moral compass from which to place your hero or heroine at the opposite pole.  Those functions alone are almost indispensable in action stories.  But to paraphrase the thoughts of a great mind, “All things are relative”.  So your villain need not be Jack the Ripper in order to make a contribution.  A perfect example is the character Scott Farkus in Christmas Story.  He was just a bully, but gave Ralphie a scene in which to shine all the brighter.

What books have most influenced your life?

I cannot say.  I cannot even begin to imagine an answer.  Life is a dynamic proposition in which changes occur constantly, the impacts of which may not be realized until much, much later.  I have never experienced an epiphany while reading a book.  No storyline has led me to yell “Eureka!” and charge out to change my world.  No, changes have occurred because of what I have encountered in print, some profound, but the effects have been gradual and cumulative, and not attributable to any one book or publication.

How do you work through self- doubt and fear?

Some avocations require dedication to duty, stringent regimen, or even sterling work-ethics.  This occupation requires faith.  You must believe in yourself and what you can accomplish, even above all criticisms from others.  I do not mean to be deaf to critique or constructive criticism.  You are victim to the consequences if you do.  Belief in what you do and how you do it must be secure in your heart.  Its strength must guide your efforts.   Without it, you might never get to the end of your work, and if you do, will not be satisfied with the results.

What scares you the most?

It is hard to decide.  I guess; death or speaking in front of an audience, whichever comes first.

What makes you happiest?

I expect that living forever or never having to address an audience would make me ecstatic.

When Justin Thorne, coddled student and heir apparent to Sylvan Springs Plantation, is forced to find his heritage, his manhood, and his destiny, in the space of one brief spring, all hell breaks loose on the banks of the Ohio River. His Virginia of 1836 is a time of transition and enormous growth. Northern industrial might and southern aristocracy, abolitionist movements and slave cultures, collide in turmoil and lay bare the raw needs and desires of those intrepid spirits confronting the frontiers of the antebellum South. Coming of age is an expected result of time and circumstance. It happens to all who live so long, but to each within the dictates of their own lives. 

The process is on-going and ever dynamic. Every person is a precious product resulting from the effects of nature and nurture. One's ancestry, culture, and environment collude in myriad ways to make us; all as different as each life's story, and as singular as snowflakes. This theme is played out over-and-over throughout the world and throughout history, in millions of places like Holderby's Landing; as similar and as different as each human is to the other. 

Holderby's Landing is a single glimpse in time at the coming of age of a land, a community, and a few determined souls thrown together in love, strife and chance. What they make of the time, the opportunities and themselves is the story told and the living breath of this book.

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Genre – Historical Fiction

Rating – PG-13

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Website www.jdferguson.net

Constantinopolis by James Shipman @jshipman_author #Historical #Fiction #Excerpt

His father! Mehmet stewed when he thought of him. His father had never shown him any real affection or spent significant time with him. He was not, after all, originally the heir to the Sultanate.

He was a second son and only became heir when his older brother died. Mehmet had been forced from then on to endure a frantic and often harsh tutoring process. He was just beginning to grasp his responsibilities when at the age of 12 his father had retired and named him Sultan. He had done the best he could to govern, but in short order Grand Vizier Halil had called his father back to take over the throne. The Sultan felt Halil should have helped him, should have supported him. Instead he had watched and reported Mehmet’s shortcomings to his father, betraying him and leading to his humiliation.

From then on Mehmet had bided his time. He had learned to keep his thoughts and emotions to himself, to trust no one. He had studied everything: military art, languages, administration, and the arts. He had worked tirelessly so that when he next ruled he would not only equal his father but also exceed him. He would be the greatest Sultan in the history of his people, Allah willing.

His chance came when Murad finally died only two years before, as Mehmet turned 19. Mehmet quickly took power, ordering his baby half brother strangled to assure there would be no succession disputes, and set to organizing his empire. He had learned to be cautious and measured, leaving his father’s counselors and even Halil in power to assist him. From there he had slowly built up a group of supporters. They were young and exclusively Christian converts to Islam. These followers, many of whom now held council positions, were not nearly as powerful as the old guard, but they were gaining ground. They were the future, if Halil did not interfere.

Halil. His father’s Grand Vizier and now his own. He had always treated Mehmet with condescending politeness. He was powerful, so powerful that Mehmet could not easily remove him. So powerful it was possible he could remove Mehmet in favor of a cousin or other relative. Mehmet hated him above all people in the world, but he could not simply replace him. He needed Halil, at least for now, and Halil knew it.

This dilemma was the primary reason for Mehmet’s nighttime wanderings. He needed time away from the palace. Time to think and work out a solution to the problem. How could he free himself from Halil without losing power in the process? He could simply order Halil executed, but would the order be followed or would it be his own head sitting on a pole? The elders and religious leaders all respected and listened to Halil. Only the young renegades, the Christian converts who owed their positions to Mehmet were loyal to him. If Halil was able to rally the old guard to him, Mehmet had no doubt that the result would be a life or death dispute.

Mehmet needed to find a cause that could rally the people to him. The conversations he had heard night after night told him this same thing. The people felt that his father was a great leader, and that he was not. If he could gain the people’s confidence, then he would not need Halil, and the other elders would follow his lead.

Mehmet knew the solution. He knew exactly what would bring the people to his side, and what would indeed make him the greatest Sultan in the history of the Ottoman people.

The solution however was a great gamble. His father and father’s fathers had conquered huge tracts of territory in Anatolia and then in Europe, primarily at the expense of the Greeks. Mehmet intended to propose something even more audacious, to conquer the one place that his ancestors had failed to take. If he succeeded he would win the adoration of his people and would be able to deal with Halil and any others who might oppose him. If he failed . . .

The Sultan eventually made his way back near the palace, to the home of his closest friend, Zaganos Pasha. Zaganos, the youngest brother of Mehmet’s father in law, had converted to Islam at age 13, and was Mehmet’s trusted general and friend. He was the most prominent member of the upstart Christian converts that made up the Sultan’s support base.

Zaganos was up, even at this late hour, and embraced his friend, showing him in and ordering apple tea from his servants. Zaganos was shorter and stockier than Mehmet, a powerful middle-aged man in the prime of his life. He had receding dark brown hair. A long scar cut across his forehead and down over his left eye. He looked on Mehmet with smiling eyes extending in to crow’s feet. He smiled like a proud uncle or father.

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Genre – Historical Fiction

Rating – PG

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Website http://james-shipman.com

Jesse James and the Secret Legend of Captain Coytus by @AlexMueck #Humor #Historical

Excerpt from Chapter 64

“Do I get a pay raise?” asked the Captain.

“Huh?” said Aberdeen as he lay in bed.

Jimmy spoon-fed him spotted dick, which seemed all the more funny with the picture the Captain took of Aberdeen, Jimmy, and Miss Mosley.

“You told me you never sold more than fifty papers in a week. The paper came out yesterday. We sold all forty original copies, printed one hundred more, and they’re all gone. Your circulation is up like an erection.”

Aberdeen jerked his side to side and moaned. “How? Most of this town is so broke they can’t even afford a deformed slave.”

The Captain leaned against the wall. “The credit goes to you, sir. At first I was mad you changed my questions and found your revisions to be silly with all due respect, but you insisted.”

Aberdeen’s head levitated from the pillow. “This better be one of your jokes.”

He waved the charge away with his hand. “Sir, you sold more papers on Saturday than any newspaper in the state. I am attributing the success to you. If you want me to take all the credit, then yes, you should give me a raise.”

“What questions?”

He pulled a sheet from his pocket. “Ninety-eight percent of the voters said Moses was right to lead his people from slavery.”

“Why would I even care to ask something so ridiculous?”

“Beats me. My question was, ‘Holy Moses, did you know God threatened to kill Moses’s son because the boy hadn’t yet been circumcised?’ I always wondered why a bit of skin mattered so much to God and wanted to know if others did as well. You took my idea and went on a different tangent.”

“What else did I ask?”

“Fifty-eight percent of voters believe there was no difference between black or white chess pieces.”

“Of course there’s no difference, despite what 42 percent of the mental midgets say.”

“I originally asked about the difference between white and black women’s chests, but you refined the question to the game of chess.”

Aberdeen frowned and waved him to continue.

“The public was evenly split on whether a white wolf was better than a black wolf.”

Aberdeen rolled his eyes. “Please tell me this is a joke. The question is doggone dumb.”

“My original question asked men if they liked a blonde girl with black fur—a wolf in sheep’s clothing?”

Jimmy suppressed a grin and fumbled the spoon, and spotted dick spilled onto the bed sheet.

The Captain said, “Sixty-seven percent believe blonde-haired people are superior to those with dark hair. The original was, ‘Do men prefer blondes?’”

Aberdeen wagged a finger. “I warned you about pulling my leg.”

He pushed off the wall and playfully tugged at Aberdeen’s leg. “That’s pulling your leg, but all joshing aside, these questions were yours, sir. Right, Jimmy?”

Aberdeen fixed his gaze upon Jimmy, who tried to look busy and oblivious to the conversation.

“Jimmy, you know how I feel about liars. Well?”

“Master, I will do every chore you ask, but you know better than to ask my opinion.”

“Of course I don’t want your opinion, boy,” scolded Aberdeen. “I want verification, not a viewpoint.”

“Master, please do not sell me to a less gracious master than you, but what this man says is true. You said lots of things that did not make sense.”

Aberdeen gazed at his slave crossly, but the larger man didn’t flinch. Then he looked back to the Captain. “What else did we ask?”

“You loved the next question and did not change it at all. Fifty-one percent said they liked the French better than the Negroes.”

Aberdeen’s lips curled, and he tapped his chin. “That is a good question.”

“The next question, a conundrum you claimed to ponder. Forty percent said the raped, mixed-race baby should be a slave. Seven percent said the child should be a free citizen, however 53 percent liked your idea about part-time slavery.”

“I have never pondered such nonsense in my life,” declared Aberdeen with disdain.

The Captain folded his hands in prayer. “My honor stands on General Stonewall Jackson’s grave.”

The injured man coughed like he’d inhaled bad tobacco. “At this rate, the general’s grave must have rolled halfway to China.”

“Yeah, maybe the Stonewall name is apropos, and he’s resting against the Great Wall.” His grin did not lessen Aberdeen’s frown. “The next question was also an original. Eighty-four residents answered that the dumbest white man is smarter than the smartest black man.”

This brightened the dimwit. “There’s hope for this town, yet. It all comes down to education. All white men are inherently more intelligent than Negroes. You can train a dog to do a few tricks, but it’s still a canine.”

Jimmy let more of the spotted dick drip.

“The final question was only a light alteration. Since most blacks worship the same God as white folk, I asked if both races are equal in God’s eyes. You simplified that to, ‘Would Jesus be proslavery?’ Eighty-six percent envision Jesus as the sky’s plantation owner, with Negro slaves picking cotton from the clouds.”

Aberdeen nodded. “Like the gentleman I am, Jesus would be a civilized master.”

The spotted dick dribbled downward, again. Plop, plop, plop.

“Speaking of Jesus, your idea about offering a reward to those who expose whites who engage in the sin of interracial sex was a stroke of genius.”

Aberdeen’s right eye dropped. “Doctor Tristan is a quack. He likely drugged me with a toxic tonic.”

“You seemed so keen on this idea, sir. In fact, you insisted.”

“Now that I think about, it is a lovely idea. We’ll publically humiliate the traitors who trespass on decency with perverse bestial acts.”

The rest of the spotted dick came down like a waterfall. “Oh, my God,” Jimmy said. “Sorry, Master. Let me clean this mess up.”

“You bungling buffoon! These sheets were imported from Egypt.”

“Perhaps I’m to blame, sir. With the increased demand for your newspaper, Jimmy had to work overtime to print all the extra copies. So I made your meal today. My apologies; the spotted dick is more flaccid than usual. You like it nice and firm.”

“True. Anything else you want to tell me?”

The Captain stuck his finger in the crease of a dimple. “Oh, yeah. I hope the vase on the mantel was not worth much.”

Aberdeen’s eyes bulged like a wet binding. “What? My grandfather bought that in Florence! The true worth is immeasurable when the sentimental value is calculated. What happened?”

The Captain shrugged with a sheepish grin. “In celebration of our newspaper’s success, I drank a little too much. I became nauseous and panicked with thoughts of fouling the furniture. So—”

“You vomited in my vase? That’s disgusting. Alas, surely Jimmy can wash it out.”

“Yeah, well, it gets worse.”

“Worse?”

“I went to clean the vase myself, when I was suddenly overcome by an emergency urine call.”

“You washed out my grandfather’s vase with piss?”

“I suppose I did. But tragedy struck when my penis got stuck. The fluted top allowed easier entry than exit. When I finally freed willy, I dropped the vase, and it shattered in pieces.”

Aberdeen’s hands found the top of his head as though he held his brain back from shooting like a cannon ball.

“Wait a minute. I’ve dabbled with pottery before and did my best to fix your vase.” He dashed from the room. He heard Aberdeen muttering as he returned with the vase over his head as he entered the bedroom. “See?”

The ceramic was crudely glazed together. Extra clay bonded various fracture points like mountain chains on a topographical map. Candlelight could be seen through small holes left by missing pieces. “I can improve upon this,” he boasted. “When I’m done, it will appear as a work of great antiquity. No one quibbles over the cracks in Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam.”

Aberdeen banged his head up and down on his pillow but stopped to look at the vase again and thrashed about more. He pulled the sheet over his head. “Leave!”

The Captain and Jimmy shared a smile.

“Okay, you need your rest,” the Captain said. “We can discuss my pay raise later.”

The bed sheet rustled furiously like a cadaver returned to life.

"“A historical fiction comedy that packs
as much heart as humor.”
—Michael Dadich, award-winning author of The Silver Sphere

When a Harvard history professor receives a thesis paper titled Jesse James and the Secret Legend of Captain Coytus, from Ulysses Hercules Baxter—an underwhelming student—he assumes the paper must be a prank. He has never read such maniacal balderdash in his life. But after he calls a meeting with the student, Professor Gladstone is dismayed when Baxter declares the work is his own. As he takes a very unwilling Professor Gladstone back in time via his thesis, Baxter’s grade hangs in the balance as he attempts to prove his theory.

It is 1864 as philanderer and crusader Captain Coytus embarks on a mission to avenge his father’s death and infiltrates the Confederate Bushwacker posse looking for the man responsible, Jesse Woodson James. Accompanied by the woman of his dreams, Coytus soon finds himself temporarily appointed to be the sheriff of Booneville and commissions his less-than-loyal deputy to help him carry out his plan.

But when tragedy strikes, the Captain is forced to change his immature ways and redefine his lofty mission—more or less."

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Genre - Humor, Historical Fiction

Rating – R

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