Blog Using History In Your Stories
By Jake R. Wilson | Guest Blog
In Sar
Wylda and the Legendary Goldbreaker, one sport dominates all entertainment:
DINOBEAST RACING. To compete is to court certain death but for those brave few
nothing is more thrilling than seeing the chequered flag drop at Goldbreaker
Superspeedway.
Sar Wylda lives
in a prehistoric world and the land of Pangeum is fraught with danger at every
turn. Savage sabrecats lurk on the edges of civilisation ready to attack while
racing dinobeasts thunder across the desert flats. After Sar loses her eyesight
she has had to pursue a different life than racing. Will she have the courage
to follow in the footsteps of the greatest dinobeast racers of all time?
I wrote Sar
Wylda and the Legendary Goldbreaker as a fantasy, but I still wanted realism in
the story. I think we connect more with characters who share the same
aspirations as us. A big part of that connection for me is the material culture
that we once used. A lot of the tools the characters use day-to-day are based
on real artefacts that I have discovered. Arrowheads, flint daggers and even
quern stones for grinding wheat into flour feature. These are just a few of the
interesting things that ancient humans used to survive. I work as an
archaeologist and it’s my job to dig up the past, so I get to examine these
objects almost every day. I find myself so inspired by real-life artefacts.
Something I dig up always makes it into what I am writing, especially if it
reveals something about the people who left it behind.
I LOVE to use historical
figures or facts or characters in my stories. If you’re thinking about doing
the same or want to add some real-life artefacts in your writing here are some
tips and tricks that I use:
What is the
setting for your story? Is it similar to a place now or in the past? If you
have deserts with rolling sand dunes and sparkling oasis maybe looking at
Ancient Egypt will give you inspiration. How about dense rainforests with
creeping vines and poisonous lizards? You could use the ancient Maya or Aztecs
for ideas.
Do your
characters have any artefacts? Maybe an ancient sword or ship’s compass?
Looking at real life examples like the razor-sharp katana of the Japanese
samurai or the Roman gladius can help you visualise exactly what you want to
write. I will often look online at museums to see what they have in their
galleries to inspire me. The British Museum is filled with a number of weird
and unusual items that can help bring your world to life. Crystal skulls? Cat
mummies? Very strange but perfect for story writing.
The final piece
of advice I can give is to think about adding real people from history into
your story. Perhaps Mary Anning, the
famous fossil hunter and scientist, has passed on her journal to your character.
Maybe Leonardo da Vinci’s secret manuscripts have gone missing and need to be
found. Imagine what these people would be like, how they might talk and think.
The world was very different in the past, so you have to put yourself in their
shoes if you want to be authentic.
What I like to
do when I’m writing is use one real piece of history and then add something
magical to it! So, in Sar Wylda and the legendary Goldbreaker there are
dinobeasts which are all based on actual fossil discoveries but when they eat a
magical fruit called the accelberry they become incredibly fast! Mixing two
things together makes for some wonderful combinations.
There are no
rules when thinking up ideas so be as creative as you want. Take inspiration
from the thousands of years of human history and create your own story using
the past as a guide.
Happy writing!
Jake R. Wilson