Close But Oh So Far:
Writing Recent History
By CMTH
To explore the unique advantages or challenges that affect writing recent history, we visited The Romanovs: One Last Dance and A Scent of Mystery, two of the History Genre’s novels that have set their action within recent history. One Last Dance explores the lives of Nicholas and Alexandra and their children in an alternate history where the last royal family of Russia was not murdered. A Scent of Mystery, set primarily in post-war London, presents an alternate history where the Nazis won World War II and rule England through their puppets, Edward and Wallis.
At first glance, it would seem that recent history novels enjoy an advantage due to the accessibility and familiarity of their subjects. Marie Nikolaevna and Olga Nikolaevna, MOB of One Last Dance do concur that recruitment can be easier because the protagonists of their novel are so well known, in large part due to the popularity of Robert Massie’s book Nicholas and Alexandra. However, they point out, once the major roles are taken, it can be difficult to get writers. Olga observes, “If we put out an ad for, say, Anastasia, we’d get so many applicants, but if we need people for minor family roles, it’s difficult.” Bella Donna, one of the MOB of A Scent of Mystery adds that location is an important factor, too. “It depends on where you base the novel as much as the period. Most people have an idea of what London is, and where, and if the history is recent, then writers seem quite comfortable with that.”
The large amount of information known about recent history characters can be a drawback as well. Marie notes, “It can be difficult for people who are used to writing original characters to conform to trying to portray a specific individual. Because this history is so recent there is a lot less freedom to tailor a character to the writer’s specific strengths.” She finishes by noting the similarity between portraying a well-known historical figure and portraying an established character in fan-fiction. This is one of the reasons that she suggests taking on less well-known figures from the period, “It’s a shame [about recruitment], because some of the supporting cast are really fascinating – and [the writers] have more freedom, in that they aren’t quite as well documented.”
Documentation is a big part of both novels. Both One Last Dance and A Scent of Mystery have extensive reference material on their story boards. Bella notes, “Recent history is very accessible and there is a wealth of information in books and the Internet. Alexei Nikolaevich, MOB of A Scent of Mystery concurs, “The internet can be a fantastic research tool if you are armed with the right questions.” Alexei also notes that “once upon a time in college I took a course in how to use a good old fashioned library to best advantage, which gave me some good basic tools” for doing research.
Coincidentally, Marie of One Last Dance is studying to be a librarian. She comments, “I can’t tell you how much money I’ve spent on rare memoirs, how many inter-library loan requests I’ve put in, how much time I’ve spent looking thorugh newspaper archives. Regarding the Romanovs themselves…there’s so much out there – letters and diaries and memoirs, and most libraries carry a lot of that. The same goes for British royalty – that material is readily available in most libraries. When it comes to the Greeks and Belgians, however, information is a lot more scarce. I knew next to nothing about them before they were introduced to the story and I really had to dig to find anything about them.” Olga, who is pursuing a history degree, confesses a similar love of research.
Both novels' dedication to extensive and well-organized reference material for their writers suggests the effort is a labor of love. Marie enthuses, “It’s so much fun for me, and I love to share what I find with the novel. It delights me when someone uses in a post some detail I dug up – nothing makes me happier.” Olga concurs, “It helps people really get into the spirit of what’s going on and understanding why.” Alexei, whose course of study was classical music, has provided much of the musical flavor to A Scent of Mystery. He notes, “Wish I could embed instrumental passages in posts as easily as I can quote words to songs…What ‘Scents’ really needs is a soundtrack!”
Both novels chose to explore an alternate history story-line. Is there something about staging the novel in an era of living memory that suggests an alternate treatment? Bella thinks 'yes'. She says, “It’s a tantalizing idea that our history could have been so different. I live in the UK and we were taught in history classes how close the country came to being invaded by Germany during the last war.” Marie and Olga note that the alternate history approach was more popular with their writers. At one time, One Last Dance had a real history thread as well. Marie observes, “The historical storyline had been dying a slow death – the interest was obviously in the alternate history. I think it took off like it did because it added so much more freedom. With recent history, people are so familiar with the people and so familiar with the event that you are kind of stuck if you follow history to the letter…It’s not a slow, grim march to a small cellar in Ekaterinburg.” Olga agrees, “Considering how Nicholas, Alexandra and their family met such a sad ending in real life…I think that’s mostly why {the alternate storyline] is so popular.”
Even with an alternate history, delving into recent history can bring to surface still-unhealed wounds, particularly with a controversial subject such as Nazi occupation. Bella states that A Scent of Mystery is rated R so that the violence of the era can be mentioned, but not in detail. Bella notes, “It leaves scope for including the downside of being an occupied country and writing about the day-to-day problem.” Alexei gives an example of an incident from real history recast into the ‘Scents” world, “I recently delved into the history of the Cossacks in the twentieth century, which certainly was not black and white. Pavel Balashenko (a character in the novel) spoke of some White Russians enlisting with the Nazis with the sole aim of defeating the Stalinists (rather than the other Allies). The real story ends with the tragic irony of those Cossacks being sent to Communist Russia after their surrender…As of 1941 in our novel, though, the outcome of the Occupation still lies ahead, as does that of the gamble those Russian souls have taken.”
One Last Dance is also exploring alternate politics. All of the Tsar’s daughters have married, three for political alliances. Olga has become the Princess of Wales, an option that was actually explored by Nicholas and Alexandra in their time. Olga notes, “Alexandra, grand-daughter of Queen Victoria, raised her girls in the prim and proper British princess model…It’s recorded that Alexandra did want one of her daughters to marry into the English royal family.” Tatiana is married to Prince Chrisopher of Greece, which gave rise to a favorite character. Marie says, “Prince Christopher’s memoirs are a hoot and really inform him as a character in the novel. We knew nothing about him other than his name, age and religion when we chose him for Tatiana, but as we slowly learned about his personality we realized what a strangely compelling marriage of opposites they were!” And Anastasia has been married into the Belgium royal family.
But other than the royal marriages, One Last Dance has tackled some thorny political issues as well. Recently, the Tsar changed the line of succession to include his daughters making Marie second in line to the throne after her brother Alexei. Olga observes that this choice also had its roots in real history, “We do know that in 1905, wary of Alexei’s health, Nicholas proposed the idea of allowing women to rule; Alexandra shot it down, not wanting Olga to be in line but wanting her beloved new son to be able to be the Emperor in due time. It would have changed the landscape for the country, as well as going ahead with the more liberal politics and ideas post World War I.”
In coming up with alternate history, Olga notes that the challenge is in figuring out what makes sense to change and how that change should be manifested. “We look at source material and talk to each other, saying, ‘Okay, in real life, this happened. How would it be diferent? WOULD it be different?...How will these countires relate to each other, with the Romanov girls marrying into other families to keep alliances stable. We have to consider a lot more than one would in a regular novel.”
Marie would like to stress that ideas don’t just come from her and Olga. She cites one member in particular, Tsar Nicholas, for pursuing the line-of-succession plot, but wants to express her appreciation to all the novel writers for their ideas, enthusiasm and contributions. Bella and Alexei similarly note the contributions of their writers.
At various stages in A Scent of Mystery, the novel has opened its doors for other writers to join the novel for a short time to participate in a particular storyline. There was a Garden Party thread, Bella and Alexei’s wedding, and currently a staging of ‘Faust’. Bella describes the thought behind the concept, “We thought that it would encourage writers to join in without feeling any pressure if they wanted to stop after a short period. We try to pick ideas that let writers join in any way they feel comfortable with.” The staging of ‘Faust’ allows for those attending the show and even members of the perfoming cast. Alexei adds, “There are plenty of good seats at the Newgate Theatre even as we speak – we welcome new writers at any time.”
One of the endearing features of A Scent of Mystery is the colorful set of one-time or short-term NPCs created to flesh out a scene. Examples include, a member of the orchestra at the Garden Party or a waiter at a restaurant. Casual observers that comment not only on their own activities but often make pithy observations about the main players or circumstances. Bella states, “Oh, that was Alexei’s idea in total…It gives great flexibility and the chance to use another perspective.” She also points out that other writers have adopted the approach. Alexei adds, “I love to set a scene and fill in the details. If all you need to move the plot along one day is someone to buy a string of pearls from, and a place where they are sold, why not just go ahead and describe the person and shop? It gives me a chance to wallow in the time period, too, and get a feel for it.”
As a final note, the MOBs were asked to add any additional comments. Bella and Alexei both wondered about why there were not more novels exploring recent history. Bella cites the Cold War period (1950s and 1960s) that has been the basis of many films and books. She also thinks a good novel could be made from the story of immigration to the USA or Australia. Alexei, ever with a mind towards the music, thinks the 1960s would make a great novel: “Am I right that the 1960s had a great soundtrack? The Beach Boys; the Beatles; Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; Nash’s Hollies; Van Morrison; Jefferson Airplane; the Rolling Stones; Cliff Richard; Smokey Robinson and the Miracles; the Temptations…haven’t I forgotten a lot of others? Perhaps we are far enough away in time now to see the forest and the trees. There may have been turbulence, but tension drives a good story, doesn’t it? Now remember: JFK, Twiggy, Bobby Seale, Joni Mitchell, David Frost, Walter Cronkite, Nikita Kruschev, Alexei Kosygin, Fidel Castro and other celebrities should be NPCs”
Marie has this final word, “Olga and I are always pushing for people to think of the big picture and not just this or that ball or luncheon. Politics are so important and we have a few more political sotrylines planned to shake things up. We really want to explore how these peple whould adapt to the changing world. It’s only been a few years since WWI ended and Europe is still rebuilding and finding itself in this strange new era, which this time around does not include the Soviet Union. That changes a lot on the world stage! We really are fascinated by that and use the royals to explore the larger theme. For example, the current Christening is really just a set-up for a very exciting storyline that is going to reveal itself any day now!
