“The lesson for me is to recognise when I’m in over my head and ask for help.”
People like offering their expertise and assistance, so it’s worth asking questions says historical fiction author Kate Murdoch.
I write historical fiction and usually I love the research. I spend time absorbing facts from different sources and then weave them, sometimes with intention and sometimes without, into my stories. Some places and times are easier than others. For example, there’s a lot of material available on early 18th century France, the time and place of my most recent novel.
Lately, I’ve been working on a story set partially in World War Two Croatia. Little did I know, this subject is fraught with contradictions and complications. The facts weren’t always easy to find or understand. I learnt there were many factions, such as the Chetniks and partisans, who intermingled and sometimes didn’t have a clear goal of what they were fighting for. This information, where people’s loyalties were fluid, made writing a clear narrative difficult. Hour after hour, day after day and month after month I trawled academic papers, read fiction and non-fiction books, and watched documentaries. Yet there was so much I was unable to pinpoint.
One day I found myself dazed and confused on a strange Croatian message board, translated into English, wondering what I was doing. I spoke to my husband about my frustrations and, for the first time in six months, wondered if I should shelve the project.
Tenacity won, and I decided to push on. I formulated a post detailing the holes in my knowledge and posted on a couple of historical novel Facebook pages. Within a day, a heroine of a historian had emailed me a four-page document with most of the information I needed. It was a miracle and my gratitude was enormous. In terms of future projects, the lesson for me is to recognise when I’m in over my head and ask for help. People like offering their expertise and assistance, so it’s worth asking questions. My tendency is to be completely self-reliant and reluctant to reach out, which works against me in situations like this.
I’ve also honed my instinct for deciphering which rabbit holes are likely to be worthwhile, and which to jettison before I waste too much time. Obviously this skill wasn’t in operation when I was on the Croatian message board, but usually it is.
If you have a bigger picture idea of what you’re trying to achieve with a project, along with a strong instinct it’s something you need to write, it’s important to power through inevitable problems—to have faith that one day it will be a complete and coherent story.
Kate Murdoch exhibited widely as a painter both in Australia and internationally before turning her hand to writing. Her short-form fiction has been published in various literary journals in Australia, UK, US and Canada. Her debut novel, Stone Circle, a historical fantasy novel set in Renaissance Italy, was released by Fireship Press in December 2017. Stone Circle was a First in Category winner in the Chaucer Awards 2018 for pre-1750’s historical fiction. Kate was awarded a KSP Fellowship at the KSP Writers’ Centre in 2019 to develop her third novel, The Glasshouse. Her novel, The Orange Grove, about the passions and intrigues of court mistresses in 18th century France, was published by Regal House Publishing in October 2019. Find Kate at Katemurdochauthor.com www.facebook.com/katemurdochauthor/ and twitter.com/KateMurdoch3
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How to become Unstoppable: author Kate Murdoch