How to Spin History into a Good Family Yarn

Aug. 23, 2023. I’d been blogging about my grandmother and her family for more than fifteen years. And believe me, I patted myself on the back plenty of times for spinning the raw fiber of facts into a good family yarn.

But when I decided to weave all those yarns into a big family biography, I had to make a crucial decision: what was the book’s point of view (POV)? 

Was I an omniscient narrator telling the story from my 21st-century perspective? No, I didn’t want to be the narrator. I was not omniscient. I did not want to tell you their story, but to have them tell me their story. I wanted a subjective perspective, but not mine. I wanted an experience that deepened the facts. I’d already done the tiny compilations. Now for a shimmering revelation.

So should I tell everything from my grandmother’s limited point of view? She herself didn’t witness many of the significant family turning points. I didn’t want KITTY’S PEOPLE to be her telling second-hand stories. Wasn’t the project tricky enough already? I wanted a straightforward narrative with a minimum of flashbacks. The chronology–what came first, what followed–was important to me. I wanted to see my ancestors living their lives, not reflecting upon them.

Somehow, I began writing the story in present tense. Present tense is now. It allows the action to unreel before your eyes like a movie.

Writing in the present tense led me to what I now know as “deep third-person” POV.

In KITTY’S PEOPLE the POV moves from character to character–largely Maggie and Moses at the outset, then mostly Kitty’s. They know only their personal experience, what their contemporaries tell them, and what they read in the newspaper. Walking in their footsteps became the experience I longed for. It demanded more research: How did a person reach a doctor before telephones? How was diabetes or epilepsy managed in the early twentieth century? How did someone learn about a looming pandemic? How did an urban grocery store operate in 1915?

“How the hell?” became my daily question.

Not knowing “deep third-person” was a thing, I didn’t see all the tip sheets and implemented it imperfectly.

I love nonfiction books that tell a story, but break up the action with more thorough reporting on key details (see The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean or the book I’m reading now The Unfit Heiress by Audrey Clare Farley).

But KITTY’S PEOPLE is immersive. I never leave the relentless steel tracks of the chronology for a ramble about, say, the rise of Irish gangs in St. Louis politics or the role of midwives in the illegal abortion business. All the exposition comes from chatty characters or the discussion of contemporary newspaper stories.

Here’s a passage from the opening chapter, told from the POV of Moses Flanagan, a cable car conductor and nineteenth-century techno-optimist. It is one of the first conversations with his future wife Maggie Keville.

You can see I had fun seeing the world through 1885 eyes. As a booklover, what are your thoughts on POV? Do you like immersive history or do you prefer to pull the camera back here and there for a modern perspective on the subject?

Till next time

 

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