Behind the book and the feisty heroine who almost wasn't
About a year ago, I grabbed the opportunity to submit a short story for a historical fiction anthology about feisty women doing historical deeds. Naive, rookie writer me thought, “Cool! I can become a published author before my novel comes out!”
It feels like yesterday.
My strategy is smart. By becoming a published author prior to my novel’s launch, I can learn a few How-to Author things: set up author pages, pilot promos, beef up my author bio, restart my rusty first drafting skills.
Plus, I know the five-member editorial committee. They are each accomplished, smart, generous, creative, and talented friends from the same historical fiction affinity group I’m in. Quickly, word-of-mouth ricochets. Several histfic sisters plan to submit!
FOMO rears her pretty head—don’t miss out!— and I sign up quickly.
Since my author brand tag line is “I am a novelist who brings to light brilliant women’s courageous deeds in history” — an anthology about scrappy women fits perfectly.
Besides what better speedy way to earn Author Street Cred than to write a short story? Three thousand words. Easy-peasy. I mean, my novel is over 85,000.
Holding this facile outlook, I decide I can take a few more short cuts. For instance, I choose the same time period and country as my novel. After spending years immersed in finding facts about Paris (and the Netherlands) in the early 20c, it feels ridiculous to start researching a new historical time period from scratch.
I reason that it would be a world for readers to become immersed in, and even to recognize, should they read my novel about Jo van Gogh.
Strategy Me is excitedly rubbing her hands together.
First, the story will take place in 1898. Right on the cusp of the new twentieth century with its thrilling prospects for a brand new age.
The innovation! The first escalator, a giant Ferris wheel, the recently-built Eiffel Tower.
The power! European countries are in a dead heat for ugly world dominance by colonizing unsuspecting civilizations.
The greed! Though the French monarchy was overthrown in the French Revolution, a power vacuum is attracting grubby control-freak ambition.
It’s a treasure trove to work with here. Next I need to identify my main character and her motivation.
The anthology’s theme gives me broad latitude: “feisty deeds, historical fictions of daring women.” So, I pick the gutsy age of seventeen for my feisty female protagonist. I want an age where a girl might still be under a protective parental roof, eyes just beginning to open to the world outside her home, leaning into her own future and sense of self.
And I decide to give her money. Let her be a part of the aristocracy so she’ll have a cushy life and be naive to the harsh conditions and struggle of the Parisian poor.
Finally, in a database of French female surnames, I find my heroine’s name: Nadine. The pretty name originated in France and means “hope.”
(I had my novel’s heroine, Jo, start out as being naive too. I love this internal journey of questioning what authority figures and society have taught, and then gradually transitioning into the maturity and assurance of trusting one’s own internal voice.)
With a heroine and time period in hand, the next step is actual research. My goal is to find nuggets of factual info from around 1898 to use to push Nadine out of her comfort zone into a struggle that will ultimately give way to truth.
All in three thousand words.
Research away!
Turns out there’s a lot going on in late 19c. Here’s a smattering of what I find:
Haute couture: High fashion haute couture is taking off in great couturier houses. The fashion press, Vogue, is a new popular publication. A quartet of entrepreneurial sisters open their own successful fashion design house called the Callot Sisters. The SINGER brand is the largest international brand of sewing machines sold internationally.
OK, so Nadine’s gotta interact with fashion.
Women’s nascent rights: In 1881, France grants women the right to own bank accounts; five years later, the right is extended to married women, who are allowed to open accounts without their husbands’ permission.
Oh. . . Nadine’s money will belong to her!
Bicycling. Cycling is all the rage and American Annie Londonderry grabs European headlines by riding around the world via bicycle. It takes her three years. Scandalously, her husband takes care of the three kids while she’s gone (ages five, three and two!)
Will Nadine wear bloomers?
Abandoned kids. Destitute children are called “enfants orphelins pauvres.” At the tender age of six, they are placed in families as workers. “Enfants secourus” means rescued children, or children raised by their mother and receiving temporary help. Charitable groups run ouvroirs, or workshops, where girls are employed as seamstresses.
Perhaps kids can wring Nadine’s heart?
Ugly eugenics movement. Founded in 1896 the Alliance nationale pour l’accroissement de la population française (National alliance for French population growth) aims to raise public awareness around the demographic deficit caused by deaths in the Franco-Prussian War. In short, they need people to make more babies. But the eugenics movement scares the public with the lie that the ‘unfit’ poor are multiplying while the ‘fit’ middle- and upper-classes are dying out — and so draws support for selective breeding.
Fighting eugenics? Now that is a big feisty deed for Nadine.
All in three thousand words.
The aftermath feels good
I’ve posted about my struggles to write the short story previously. Lots of rewrites, mistakes, culling back, simplification.
In hindsight, my egoistic inexperience on what it takes to write “only” three thousand words kicked my tush. In fact, at one point, I gave up. But the editorial group opened their generous hearts (and editing smarts) to help me limp to the finish line. I’m grateful.
Today, months later, I’m proud of my short story “The Parisian Daughter.” The logline or single line summary of my story is: A socialite struggles to please her influential father in the face of ugly truths.
I’m honored that my story is in Feisty Deeds, Historical Fictions of Daring Women. Since the anthology is composed of stories from twenty-three authors, we all agreed to donate the proceeds from book sales to a scholarship fund for emerging writers offered by the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. I added a few buy links at the foot of Feisty Deeds’ book review footer below, if you’d like to support it. The Kindle version is only a few dollars.
For more inside scoop, sister author Patty W Warren is posting interviews with many of the Feisty Deedsauthors on her Substack. I recommend subscribing to Patty’s Pages.
It was all about the growing edge
I like to think that I have a Growth Mindset.
Welcome new challenges, go for broke, be the Bold Joan I am when I’m at my best with creative gears spinning all a gusto, waking up each morning feeling like a million bucks.
But the truth is that the messiness and annoyance and insecurity of it is a part of life too. Sometimes the next steps are really hard. So, I try to remember they’re supposed to be. Having a Growth Mindset means pushing myself right up to the razor-thin boundary of my growing edge. The next lesson in my life curriculum.
In the grand scheme of things, my short story experience is a blip, but it did reveal one of my biggest bugaboo’s: Not asking for help.
I’m trying to do better.
That’s actually what this whole writing gig is all about.
Done right I will not be the same person who began my novel in 2018 when it publishes next spring in 2025.
What’s your growing edge?
Warmly,
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