by Sarah Winn

Basically, there are two types of historical fiction. In the first, the author seeks to fictionalize historical facts, for example, she tells what went on behind closed doors between Josephine and Napoleon. In the second type, history serves as a setting for a completely fictionalized story. The hero and heroine may attend a ball and see Josephine and Napoleon. To make the first type of historical believable, the fiction must be carefully interwoven with the facts. In other words, Jo and Nappy can't get it on in Paris when he's supposed to be on the Russian front. While the authors of the second type of historical have more freedom in creating stories, they too must consider the facts.

Readers of historical fiction may have a stronger desire to escape the pressures of the modern world than the readers of contemporary fiction, but they also very likely enjoy history, and therefore, are more knowledgeable about it than the average reader. The author of historical fiction must win the reader's respect by not making those blunders that will jar the reader out of the story and onto the writer's case.

When history is used as the setting of the story, it must be treated with the same care as any other part of the setting. I once wrote a marvelous description of the shadows of saguaros cactus in a moonlit desert, but as a contest judge pointed out, my story was set in New Mexico and these cacti primarily grow in Arizona. In another book, I mentioned water moccasins in Kansas. Fortunately, a critique partner suggested I look up the snake's habitat, and I discovered they never made it west of the Mississippi River. Granted, many readers would not have caught these flubs, but any who did would have had their trust in my abilities shaken.

As someone once said, "The devil's in the details." Simple things like matches or aspirins may trip up the heedless writer. Good old-fashioned encyclopedias often reveal the dates of origin for everyday items we now take for granted. (Aspirins – 1899; matches have a more complicated history, but the first strike matches became available in England in 1827, from The World Book Encyclopedia.)

One of the most common mistakes I see in historicals is the writer ignoring the influence real events would have had on their fictional story.  For example, if the story is set in the United States in 1870, even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the Civil War, the war would have had an influence on the characters' lives and cannot be totally ignored. Not all real events must be included, however, or you'd never finish the book. It would be possible to set a story 1873, and ignore the Wall Street panic that occurred that year, as long as your hero is not an investment banker. Refer to chonologies that give you an overview of historical events so you can quickly see if some important event would have impacted your characters' lives. (See references.)

In The Silver Heiress, my novel set in New Mexico, I picked 1886 as the year my story occurred because the story had no room in it for the Indian wars that were so prevalent in New Mexico until 1886.  Then I read about the Haymarket Square Riot that happened in 1886 and was blown away by the fact the Indians Wars were just ending in New Mexico while police in Chicago were shooting rioters in order to protect strikebreakers.  But as fascinating as this historical incongruity is, there was no place for it in my story.

I have another story with an English setting that I planned to make into a Regency, but as I read about that period I realized the changes I wanted my aristocratic hero to undergo were unlikely.  I read a little farther into English history and found the Victorian era was a veritable cornucopia of change—perfect for my purposes.  I started writing my first draft even as I continued to search for the exact placement of my story.

General histories discussed the political events of the Victorian era and gave the names of the most important people involved.  A book about election reform in the nineteenth century included lots of statistics about the changes brought about by the reforms, but little information about how the reforms were brought about. I tried reading novels written in this era and discovered Anthony Trollope, a thoroughly delightful interpreter of his times—only old Anthony fictionalized actual events, changing names and dates and often discussing customs that I didn’t understand.

Then I picked up a biography of Sir Robert Peel, a prime minister in the 18 40’s.  This book explained a great deal about English party politics and led up to the crowning achievement of Sir Robert’s career, the repeal of the Corn Laws, an act that required him to change long-held convictions—just like my hero. 

Most importantly, biographer Norman Gash gave specific dates.  We all know that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, but during what months? The crisis that lead to the parliamentary action that assured Sir Robert’s place in history and caused his resignation as prime minister, started just before Christmas in 1845 and was resolved in the early months of 1846.  In the first draft of my novel, the relationship of my hero and heroine go through important changes during the winter recess of Parliament. Is that kismet, or what?

So I had a time frame in which actual historical events coincided with and enhanced the events in my story.  I know in which month of which year my protagonists must meet, how long various stages of their relationship must take, and a whole lot about the mind-set of the people of their era.  And I got most of it from one biography.  So after reading the general histories and getting some prominent names from the period you're interested in, you might look for biographies about some of these people. 

Here's a word of caution about the common practice of giving the exact date at the beginning of your story. This is an easy way to set your story and does give verisimilitude if you then carefully attend to the historical facts associated with that date. If you don't want to be that historically accurate, don't give a precise date. You can mention a carriage or a hoop skirt early on in the body of the work that will quickly introduce the reader to a general time period without giving them enough information to hang you for some historical faux pas.

Finally, I need to address that gray area that all writers of historical fiction must tiptoe through, how to balance historical accuracy and reader enjoyment. The colonial miss who acts like a founding member of NOW is ridiculous, but a heroine with all the typical submissive characteristics of a woman of that period would bore, if not irritate, modern readers. Letting modern slang slip into a sixteenth-century character's speech is a definite no-no, but writing dialogue filled with authentic expressions and dialect of the period can confuse the reader. While we must consider the reader's sensitivity to historical facts, we must also remember they are citizens of the twenty-first century and use characters they can identify with and language they will understand.

Useful References:

Chronicle of America. 1989. Clifton Daniel, editorial director. Chronicle Publications. (Starts with earliest explorers and runs up to modern times. Includes some cultural events as well as historical.)

Cooke, Jean, Ann Kramer and Theodore Rowland-Entwistle. 1981. History's Timeline. Crescent Books. (A chronology covering the world from early civilizations to the 1900's.)

Martin, Rhona. 1988. Writing Historical Fiction.  St. Martin's Press. (Information on all aspects of writing historicals.)

The Almanac of American History.  1983. Arthur M Schlesinger, Jr., general editor.  G.P. Putnam's Sons. (A chronology of American history through 1981.)

Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. 1983. Merriam-Webster Inc. (Starting with this edition, these dictionaries contain the date words came into common usage.)

by Sarah Winn

If you write historical fiction that takes place any time between the middle of the 17^th to middle of the 19^th century, and you plan to make any mention of firearms, you’ll need to know about flintlocks. Here's a summary of what I have learned from my research.

The history of guns is closely associated with the development of gunpowder and gunlocks. The Chinese are generally given credit for inventing gunpowder (black powder) in the 11^th century, using it mainly for pyrotechnics. Their knowledge slowly drifted westward. The first written account of gunpowder in Europe appeared in the writings of English monk Francis Bacon in 1242.

The first guns were metal tubes with one end opened and the other closed, and with a small fuse or touch hole bored into the closed end. This hole was packed with either additional powder or a match-fuse to which fire had to be applied in order to detonate the main charge in the tube. It was difficult to hold a weapon in one hand, light the fuse with the other, and aim all at the same time. The varying qualities of early metal and gunpowder also made this a dangerous procedure, so the next step was to develop a mechanical device to light the charge—the lock.

The matchlock first appeared in the mid-1400's. It was a moveable arm to which a match (a chemically prepared wick or cord) was attached. After the match was lit, pulling the trigger would drop the match down to ignite the powder. The user of such a weapon had to have a source of open-fire readily available and could not use the gun in rainy weather.

In the early 1500's the wheel lock was invented. Pulling the trigger in this mechanism caused a metal wheel to turn against a small piece of pyrite. This created a spark that ignited the fuse powder, making it no longer necessary to have open fire handy in order to fire the weapon. The wheel lock was a sophisticated mechanism for the time and therefore expensive and somewhat unreliable. Guns equipped with this lock were used mostly by the wealthy, who usually carried matchlock weapons as a backup.

Flint was first used in the snaphance lock in Holland around 1570. Rather than a spring driven wheel turning against pyrite, this mechanism used a spring-loaded arm (hammer or cock) with jaws that held a shaped piece of flint. In front of the hammer was a small pan adjacent to a vent leading into the barrel. The pan held priming powder and had a cover that prevented the powder from falling out or being ruined by rain. Above the pan was another hinged arm, part of which formed the steel or frizzen. When the frizzen was swung out of the way, the gun could not be fired.

When ready to fire, the frizzen was placed over the pan, the cover of the pan pushed away, and the trigger pulled. The trigger action caused the hammer to fall, strike against the frizzen, and send sparks into the powder pan. This lock was simpler and less expensive to produce than the wheel lock and flint did not crumble like pyrite. I have seen estimates of the number of strikes possible with one piece of flint that ranged from 20 to 50.

The true flintlock was invented about 1610 by a Frenchman, Marin le Bourgeouys, and was originally called the French lock. It differed from the snaphance in that the frizzen and the flash pan cover were in one piece and retained in position by a strong spring. The arm or cock that held the flint was attached to a notched tumbler, which could be locked into place. This gave the flintlock three positions: uncocked, half-cocked, and cocked. In the half-cocked position the tumbler was locked in the first notch of the tumbler, holding the cock upright and freezing the trigger. The gun could be safely loaded while half-cocked. To fully cock the lock, the cock had to be pulled back so the tumbler was caught in the second notch. Pulling the trigger while in this position would release the tumbler, send the cock flying forward to strike the frizzen and create the sparks necessary to ignite the powder. The flint striking against the steel also knocked the cover from the pan to expose the powder there. After firing, the lock was said to be uncocked.

The safety feature of the half-cocked position made the French lock preferable to previous locks, although it must have failed on occasion, hence the cliché about going off half-cocked. Nevertheless flintlocks became the most popular types of locks and were in use for at least two hundred years.

The above dates should not be used as an exact time-line for a particular gunlock coming unto general usage. Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary shows that the word "flintlock" did not come into common English usage until 1683. Technology did not spread as quickly then as it does today, and gunsmiths maintained a certain loyalty to the locks developed in their localities. The expense of re-equipping armies also played a role, so if you want to be historically accurate for a particular time and place, you'll have to do more involved research.

But the flintlock eventually became the lock of choice in all types of handheld firearms and even in artillery. It was used extensively in the American Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. By 1800, every army in Europe was equipped with flintlock muskets. Some of the soldiers in the early days of the American Civil War had flintlocks, especially among the Confederates who were armed with their personal hunting weapons.

During the 1800's, the invention of the percussion cap, breech-loading guns, and metal-jacketed bullets brought about a swift decline in the use of flintlocks, although flintlock equipped rifles continued to be favored by some hunters through most of the century.

by Sarah Winn

Whether firing a pistol, musket, rifle or even a flintlock-equipped cannon, the following steps had to be accomplished:

1. Half-cock the hammer.
2. Pour a measure of gunpowder down the barrel.*
3. Wrap a lead ball (the bullet) in a piece of cloth or paper and ram it down the barrel on top of the gunpowder with a ramrod.**
4. Remove the ramrod from the barrel.***
5. Place a small amount of gunpowder in the flintlock's pan. Sometimes a finer grade of gunpowder was used in the pan to insure an even and quick burn.
6. Snap the frizzen in place over the pan.
7. Pull the hammer back to the cocked position.
8. Aim.
9. Pull the trigger.

* Early on this was done from a powder horn. The development of paper cartridges in the 1630’s simplified the procedure. They contained uniform amounts of powder and the ball. The shooter tore the paper cartridge open with his teeth, poured a small amount into the pan, the rest into the barrel, and used the paper as wadding for the ball. The paper made step 3 un-necessary. It also reversed the order of steps 2 and 5. Soldiers on the battlefield, who used paper cartridges, got gunpowder in their mouths. The saltpeter made them extremely thirsty. Even after the development of the paper cartridge, however, many hunters continued to use the powder horn so they could vary the charge according to the type of game they were hunting.

** The bullet/cloth combination was used so the bullet would fit tightly and thereby keep the gases produced by the explosion of the gunpowder from escaping around the bullet rather than expelling it from the barrel. Early on, there was so much variation in the internal diameters of barrels that individuals preferred to cast their own bullets. Even soldiers carried small molds into which they could pour molten lead and this was a common activity around the nighttime campfires.

*** In the heat of battle, especially with inexperienced troops, it was not uncommon for a soldier to forget this step and send his ramrod out of the barrel along with the bullet. Of course, this mistake made it impossible for him to reload his weapon.

Once a standardized paper cartridge had been established, it became possible to develop a drill for training soldiers to load flintlock-equipped weapons. Here’s a version used by the British Army:

“Prime and load”: make a quarter turn to the right, bringing firelock down to the priming position and open the pan.

“Handle cartridge”:  draw the cartridge from the pouch. Bring it to the mouth, holding it between the forefinger and the thumb, and bite off the top of the cartridge.

“Prime”: Shake out some powder into the pan and place the last three fingers on the hammer. Close the pan.

“About”: turn the piece to the loading position, placing the butt upon the ground. Raise the elbow square with the shoulder and shake the powder into the barrel. Place the bullet and paper into the muzzle.

“Draw ramrods”: force the ramrod half out of its holder and seize it backhanded exactly in the middle. Then draw it entirely out, turning it at the same time to the front and place one inch into the barrel.

“Ram down the cartridge”: push the bullet well down to the bottom of the barrel and give it two very quick strokes with the ramrod.

When recruits had become proficient at the above drill the commands “Present” and “Fire” were added. There was no command of “aim” since muskets had a maximum range of 100 yards and under battlefield conditions were usually fired at 50 or less yards. The soldier merely had to point in the direction of the approaching enemy line and look across the top of the weapon to see that it was roughly lined up with the target.

Amazingly, a well-trained British infantryman could fire a flintlock-equipped musket 5 times in a minute. This is why the musket continued to be the weapon of choice for many armies long after the more accurate rifle had been developed. Rifling, spiral grooves cut into the inside of a barrel, cause bullets to spin, making them travel further and more accurately, but the bullets have to fit tightly in these grooves in order to do this. Early on, the fit was accomplished by wrapping the bullet in small patches of greased leather and later by specially shaped bullets with metal flanges that could be forced into the grooves. Both of these methods required laborious hammering, which made muzzle-loading the rifle a much slower procedure. While the ramrod was used to load rifles, riflemen often carried small hammers to pound against the ramrods.

A tightly grouped squadron of musketeers, forming a square, and taking turns shooting, could reload quickly enough to keep cavalry from over-riding them while they reloaded. Riflemen could not. Therefore, they were used primarily as snipers and often accompanied by musketeers for protection. Whether they used muskets or rifles, all soldiers had to stand to reload their weapons.

Another problem for the battlefield soldier was fouling. Exploding gunpowder and burning wadding left ash and other residue in the barrel that needed to be frequently cleaned out. In larger weapons, such as cannons, the barrel was swapped out after each firing to removed residue and cool the barrel to reduce the danger of powder exploding prematurely during reloading. This necessitated a water source. In the navy, buckets of water could easily be dipped from the sea and set beside each cannon. In India during the British colonial period, sepoys were employed to carry water to both artillery and infantrymen during long battles. When no other source was available, it was not uncommon for infantrymen to use their own urine to clean out their weapons, giving added meaning to the phrase “the stench of the battlefield.”

Until the smokeless variety was developed in 1884, gunpowder produced a good deal of smoke when it exploded. Targets on battlefields soon disappeared in gray clouds, making close-range firing a necessity. Snipers could take only one shot before smoke revealed their positions. Bits of ash produced by the exploding gunpowder often blackened the soldiers’ faces, and could be hot enough to cause small burns.

When the trigger was pulled on a flintlock-equipped weapon, the sparks falling on the powder in the pan produced a small explosion a second or so before the main powder charge exploded (the well-know “flash in the pan”). This was a problem for hunters because the flash set game to flight and the hunter’s success was often based on how well he anticipated which way the game would go. It was also a possibility for the explosion of the powder in the pan to fail to cause the charge in the barrel to explode, leaving the shooter with the ticklish problem of what to do next. He could reload the pan and try again only after making sure no burning residue might cause a delayed explosion in the barrel. If the explosion failed because the main charge had become wet, he was then faced with having to remove the wedged in bullet before he could replace the damaged powder. It’s no wonder, “Keep your powder dry,” became a common admonition.

Reference: Hogg, Ian V. The Story of the Gun. St. Martin’s Press. 1996.