Sir Thomas More by Hals Holbein (Accessed via Wikipedia ) During lockdown, we had Time. Remember that? I was in my probationary year of teaching: almost certainly among the most exhausting years for any profession. All my time had been taken up with school work, and I regularly stayed at school until after 6pm, having arrived there at eight in the morning. Now, children, this is not sustainable and, very soon, I decided I didn’t like working where I was. Then I realised that I didn’t like teaching at all. But, in fact, neither was particularly true: I just needed to be true to myself and to say no, which would give me the ability to manage my work/life balance in a more appropriate way. What does this have to do with historical fiction, I hear you say? Well, during March 2020, we went into lockdown and suddenly I went from working ten-hour-days to ten-hour-weeks. I met up with my class on Google Meet, I put work up for them on a meticulously designed Google Classroom, but I just h...
Being on this side of the pond, Thanksgiving Day was something which marked the start of the American Christmas in books and films. It wasn't until much later that I found out the background and, even now, I'm pretty sure I don't know it half as well as my Stateside friends.
The history of Thanksgiving, from a writer's point of view, is an absolute gift. Why? Because it encapsulates all the human emotions which combine to turn humans into people - or, in writer-speak: words into characters. It's one of those situations into which you can drop any one of your characters and use it to solidify your knowledge of them. Would they have been a native or an immigrant? Would they have been afraid, excited, or angry? According to the song, the immigrants shot at the natives to frighten them off, but did they do that because of a fear or an arrogance? Would they have survived in that environment?
And then, the best thing of all: the discovery that, just because a character started in one camp, it doesn't mean they will remain there. Just like the immigrants in 1620/21, they can come to better understand other people and situations, advancing and growing into three-dimensional people. This is what is called a character arc, and it is what we all do in real life, so our characters should do the same.
The story of Thanksgiving is really a redemption story. Two populations realising that they can demonstrate true humanity in working together rather than against one another. In this respect, it doesn't matter what genre you write. There is an example here in historical fiction, but in today's world people still create frictions between groups of people and, sadly, I suspect this will go on into the future.
But what the history of Thanksgiving really shows is that humanity has the ability to reach out to one another with fraternal love. So don't listen if people say your story or characters are far-fetched just because the heroes demonstrate this level of compassion and care. Because, the history of Thanksgiving shows us it in action. I love building my stories on the premise of Φιλαδελφία - brotherly love - which translates into the Latin alphabet as Philadelphia...
...that name sounds familiar!
[Although Philadelphia was founded 60 years later, so a few generations down the line.]
Happy Thanksgiving!
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