Marginalia (5), or, Maybe dam the swamp, pet the alligators?

[netpositive]

A historian who would convey the truth must lie.
Often he must enlarge the truth by diameters, otherwise
his reader would not be able to see it.
-Mark Twain

1 out of 1 authorities disagrees with himself.

I've been joking lately that I hate Stephen Sears
because two of his books have been an inspiration for
this alternate CW history idea that's been eating up
free time and brainwaves recently.

I now hate Stephen Sears because he has a date wrong.

I found this out because my main instigator and I were
on the phone, discussing timing of a certain event, and
were consulting the book closest at hand to each of us.

"Ok, I have it here as March 8th."
"No, it's March 7th."
"You sure? This is Sears, and he's usually good on dates."
"I'm looking in Sears too, right now."
*pause* "Wait. Which Sears?"

I was looking in _George McClellan: The Young Napoleon_,
c1988. Three thousand miles away (hurray for cell phones,
night and weekend minutes, and no long distance), he was
consulting _To The Gates of Richmond_, c1992.

Yikes.

Wheeler's _Sword of Richmond_, normally my backup text on
the first half of 1862, is great on details and quotes --
but is thin on dates and completely lacking in footnotes,
so it was no real help in resolving the question.

Rooting around in Sears' gorgeously dense footnotes, think
we figured out the problem (love it when "primary sources"
conflict! Grr). Fort, the exact date isn't as important as
getting it in the right sequence with other key events. :/

And I am trying so hard to remember that no one is perfect...
But if I can't even trust Sears, who can I trust? *rolls eyes*

Sigh, sob, shrug. See "To make bodily motions so as to convey
an idea or complement speech." Maim, mangle, mutilate..

I don't want to get involved in historical reinterpretation
or the minutiae of scholarly arguments, dammit. I just want
to write this crazy thing and get it out of my head already.

This will be *fiction*. Based on history, but still fiction.
Must keep on with the outline of main scenes. Go from there.

[So, Newt Gingrich's _Gettysburg_: has 4 errors in its first
50ish pages -- and makes Meade sound like Edward G. Robinson.
Can you tell where I stopped reading and started skimming? ;)
Sure, some people may have similar reactions to my literary
search-and-seizure of certain CW characters... but that's why
it's called fiction. Me, I just hope I have fewer errors. And
that I never write lines for a character named Robert E. Lee.]

You have a limited amount of creative energy.
Even when it feels like a bottomless supply, it isn't.
It's finite, if only because there are only so many hours
in a day.

Value that creative energy. Because if you don't,
no one else will.
-Mark Evanier

Comments

[candyguru.livejournal.com]

Okay, here comes the big "process" question:

Is the outline necessary?

I mean yes, I know some authors work that way and some don't. I never have myself, not successfully. I find not outlining allows my characters to go where they will, be who they are going to be, etc. But is there a middle ground in your case?

[netpositive.livejournal.com]

First things first: *big hug*. :)

The basic problem I've run into at this point -- I have some scattered parts of chapters already done -- is that I'm trying to work within a whole host of more-or-less known historical events, at least until my "what if..." happens.

In fact, the CW era is the proverbial embarassment of riches as far as crazy stuff happening. I'm trying to pare _down_ to the most important elements to help tell the particular story I want to tell. I've been half-joking that I have at least 4 books' worth of plot but 6 books' worth of characters.

However, I've already had to do a major rewrite on one very early chapter in light of discovering deeper historical record. I write bloody slowly enough as it is; I don't want to constantly be going back and "fixing" things like that, esp if it's likely to drastically affect any later scenes. Thus this current spurt of effort trying to nail down any elements I know I absolutely need to cover.

I know that there's a point where I have to just move on from the outline. I am really hoping that another week or two of annotating from my "most major" sources will get me close enough to where I don't feel like I'm going to go seriously off in a wrong direction (until I do it deliberately). And if this outline ever does end up getting in the way of a key event or scene I want to tell, well, I have a couple of ideas how to get around that. ;)