Member-only story
Writing the Historical Novel
Your curiosity will guide you
By Tom Hanratty
June 9, 2019
When I was young, I was curious about what it must have felt like to be a farmer in or near Lexington, Massachusetts, on April 19, 1775.
What went through your mind when you were awakened by the clanging of the alarm bells from the meeting house? What did you feel, dragged from your warm featherbed, your bare feet hitting the cold, plank floor, and you struggling into your clothes?
Did you remember to put a flint in your musket before you ran out the door to face eight hundred trained soldiers, the rising sun gleaming off their seventeen inch bayonets?
“The historians tell you what happened,” E.L. Doctorow said, “The novelist will tell you how it felt.”
My curiosity took me to research the battle that pretty much started the American Revolution, and I wrote a short story from the point of view of one of the farmers. I attempted to put a face and heart into the bare-boned historical record.
I had the same inquisitiveness for my own family. My paternal grandmother immigrated to this country from Ireland when she was about twelve years old.
There’s a novel waiting to be written, I mused. How did she feel saying goodbye to her friends the…
