“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” I used to think this oft-quoted idea was coined by an historian, as it rings so true about the past, but it’s actually the first line of a novel, The Go-Between, published by L.P. Hartley in 1953. The story looks back on the hopeful dawn of the twentieth century, and one of its themes is the ways in which the past affects the present; paradoxically, we have no choice but to stand remote from history, yet are unable to escape it altogether. Perhaps it is this contradiction that evokes the urge to recreate the places of the past with (often painstaking) attention to detail.
For a writer of historical fiction, part of the work of creating a convincing setting that engages the reader with its authenticity is working out what has changed and what has stayed the same. When researching for The Leviathan, I was lucky enough to be able to visit some of the locations that provide the backdrop for the novel. I could drive to John Milton’s cottage in Chalfont St Giles, where he wrote his epic Paradise Lost. The cottage is still there, now functioning as a museum. Due to the pandemic, I did not have the chance to go inside, but could imagine what it might have been like to sleep in its rooms or walk in its garden, and picture the poet writing quietly at home.
Once having seen a setting and thought about what is still there – often a physical building or ruins, but also its topography, its landscape, its prospects – I move on to thinking about what might have changed: in the case of a cottage, what plants would have been grown there in the seventeenth century? What names would they have gone by? How else might the building have been used? A lot of that is old-fashioned book research, but the internet can be – if you’re selective – just as useful.
Then there is use of the writer’s licence, or, to put it less politely, the prerogative to make things up. One eagle-eyed reader of The Leviathan spotted, quite correctly, that although my character, Thomas, makes a mad dash across the country to find his old tutor at the cottage, he would not actually have been there, as Milton didn’t live there until 1665. So, for me, creating a setting is about balancing accuracy with the needs of your story. Accuracy is important, but I don’t worship it.
With that said, there are times when you need to get further into the detail – the layout of a street, if that has changed in the meantime (and it probably will have done), or whether the towering church spire you intend to use in your story would have been there at all. During my research trip, I discovered that the tower of St Nicholas’s, North Walsham collapsed in 1724 after a day of high wind and a particularly vigorous bell-ringing session. That sort of thing matters. If you get it wrong, readers might think you didn’t care for the legwork.
I didn’t visit all of my locations. I had been to Norwich before, and used Google Street View to see what it looks like today. There have been nearly four hundred years of busy city life since the English Civil War, so looking at modern Norwich (although it’s one of the most historically evocative cities in the country) couldn’t give me an accurate picture of what a ride through the city gates and across Tombland would have looked like in 1643. I needed a textbook. Luckily, I was able to get my hands on one, and a detailed street map of the city in the early seventeenth century, and begin (but only begin) to close the gap between me and the past.
Part of my novel takes place in a more distant location, the Kattegat, which is a shallow stretch of sea between Denmark and Sweden. Although the location was important, it wasn’t justifiable to fly out to Sweden for a first-hand look. This was where etymology and history became important – intriguingly, the name appeared to be derived from the Dutch for ‘cat’s’ and ‘passage’. I discovered that many sailors regarded these shallow waters as nearly impassable, especially in the winter months, and there was a history of shipwrecks that proved useful for my story. So it isn’t always necessary to visit a place, but familiarising yourself with its background will often prove essential in unexpected ways, and I try not to take too many shortcuts.
The climax of The Leviathan takes place at Happisburgh, a fairly remote village on the north-east coast of Norfolk. In this case, I did visit, and found there was no substitute for standing on the sand and imagining the events I intended to locate there. The first thing that happens, however, when any local picks up my novel, is that they ask me how I pronounce the name of the place. Language can be a trap with tight jaws – I had to ask people how to say it: it’s HAYS-BOROUGH, not HAPP-IS-BOROUGH, and again, unless you are local, that is often the sort of thing you can only learn with a genuine engagement with the place and the people.
Then, last but not least, I try to remember, always, that I’m writing a story, not an entry for an auctioneering catalogue. It’s easy to become fixated on architecture, items you believe would have been in a room, what someone would have worn to church, or a thousand similar details. Those details help to construct your setting, but are no substitute for understanding attitudes, beliefs or preoccupations, and the reader can get bored if they are deployed too often. Research is always vital when creating your fictional world, but I believe it is used best when used lightly.
(c) Rosie Andrews
About The Leviathan by Rosie Andrews:
A beguiling, highly atmospheric tale of superstition, myth and murder, perfect for reading as the nights draw in.
SHE IS AWAKE…
Norfolk, 1643. With civil war tearing England apart, reluctant soldier Thomas Treadwater is summoned home by his sister, who accuses a new servant of improper conduct with their widowed father. By the time Thomas returns home, his father is insensible, felled by a stroke, and their new servant is in prison, facing charges of witchcraft.
Thomas prides himself on being a rational, modern man, but as he unravels the mystery of what has happened, he uncovers not a tale of superstition but something dark and ancient, linked to a shipwreck years before.
Something has awoken, and now it will not rest.
Richly researched, incredibly atmospheric, and deliciously unsettling, The Leviathan is a tale of family and loyalty, superstition and sacrifice, but most of all it is a spellbinding mystery and a story of impossible things…
Order your copy of The Leviathan online here.
