Keira Morgan discovered the Renaissance when her grandmother gave her a book about England’s queens when she was five. At university, she studied Renaissance and Reformation history to the doctoral level. The Importance of Pawns is her first novel and you won’t be surprised to know that it’s set in her favourite time period. Today, Keira provides insights into the interplay between setting and character.
~~~
When anyone asks about The Importance of Pawns, the first thing I say is, “It takes place in the 16th Century French court.”
In other words, I situate the person in time and place. With this information about the setting, I announce that mine is an historical novel and I promise implicitly that the details will be authentic to the period.
So, what is setting and how important is it?
According to Masterclass, the setting is the most important part of a historical fiction novel. It should take place during an authentic period in history and be set in a real historical place. For example, New York City during the Great Depression or Paris, France during World War II.
M. K. Tod has added to that description from her research. Setting includes:
- atmosphere,
- landscape,
- landscape of the person and
- internal landscape.
Simply put, it is the place where the scene occurs. It includes details such as timing (day, hour, year), mood invoked, historical aspect, details that reveal personality, and the actions that preceded it. Each scene must do this.
To illustrate, here is the setting from early in the first chapter of my novel. My readers need to be situated right away and I use a simple, often used device; I state the time, place, and principal character. If I want my reader to keep on, I must engage their emotions and intrigue them from the start. By showing Countess Louise as she engages with her physical and interpersonal landscape, I hope to capture these responses.
***
4 January 1514, Early afternoon
Château de Blois
Countess Louise d’Angoulême
When would that Agnez arrive? It was unsuitable that a woman of her rank should be kept waiting by a servant girl. She [Countess Louise] paced once more around the perimeter of her suite’s presence chamber, running her fingers over the thick Flemish tapestries that absorbed the chill from the stone walls. She reminded herself that she had done very well to parlay King Louis’s favor into this suite of three rooms, despite the overcrowding at the Christmas court. It had taken some effort on her part, but despite Queen Anne’s enmity, she had even charmed the king into furnishing the rooms. When she arrived early in December, she had come accompanied only by her bed and clothes chests.
Louise threw herself into a folding leather chair in front of the hissing fire. The crowned L & A for Louis and Anne emblazoned on the fireplace hood drew her eyes. How the emblem irritated her! When her son was king, she would order those initials replaced immediately.
***
Since I came from an academic and bureaucratic background, learning to write fiction did not come easily to me. It will not surprise you that finalizing these two paragraphs took many rewrites. Finally, I realized that I must show Louise’s presence chamber through her eyes and voice when she was impatient and irritated. Only then could I create the atmosphere and choose the details that captured the scene without the dreaded telling.
It required a lot of stripping away. I removed almost all the furnishings. At first, only the tapestries, expensive Flemish tapestries, and a leather chair remained. More than that, Louise had to do something with them. So, she ran her fingers over the Flemish tapestry (though now I wish she had ‘stroked the Flemish tapestry,’ but I defy any writer ever to be satisfied.)
Later, I remembered that even for the richest, no-one travelled without a bed. Beds were hugely expensive, bulky items passed from generation to generation. When the court moved from one place to the next, it took its furniture with it and left the unused rooms in the Château empty. Even if the king could supply his heir’s mother with a few chairs and tapestries, he would not have beds or chests to spare. I wanted to add these details — without another of those dreaded flaws, the info dump.
By presenting everything from Louise’s perspective and introducing the enmity between her and the queen, I could show their conflict through implication and carefully chosen detail. For example, she feels satisfaction at having brought only the essentials — her bed and clothing chests. Her reasons aren’t made explicit, but over time her obsession with money will become clear. But this hint suggests something about her character. Another example is her reaction to the crowned L & A emblems on the fireplace hood. The reader learns something about the depth of her resentment by her intention to remove it ‘immediately’ when her son became king.
Louise reveals her own sense of her importance because her son is heir to the throne. Moreover, she expects to be so influential that she will have the power to give such an order and have it obeyed.
In these details of setting, I present past actions (both the fact that François is heir and the embellishment of the fireplace hood occurred well in the past) that create the present and will significantly affect the future.
Did I have all this consciously in mind when I wrote these two paragraphs? I admit I did not. I had not then read the observations on setting I’ve referred to at the opening of this post. But by then I’d learned about the importance of the apropos detail.
Louise was as real to me (or I knew her even better) than most people around me by then. So was Blois. So was the moment I was writing about. Those were the elements that made it possible to recognize what needed revising. For the future, I am now `consciously aware of the elements of setting that inform effective historical fiction writing.
Many thanks, Keira, for illuminating the role of setting. This brief scene tantalizes the reader to want more!
The Importance of Pawns by Keira Morgan ~~ Danger lurks beneath the glitter of the sixteenth century French court. The queen lies dying; the king has but months to live. Their two daughters, Claude and young Renée are heiresses to the rich duchy of Brittany. Countess Louise, their guardian, schemes to steal their inheritance.
For years she has envied the dying Queen Anne, the girls’ mother. She plots to marry wealthy Claude to her son. Her unexpected guardianship presents a golden opportunity, but only if she can remove their protectress Baronne Michelle, who loves the princesses and safeguards their interests.
As political tensions rise, the futures of Princess Renée and the Baronne hang in the balance, threatened by Countess Louise’s designs. Will timid Claude untangle the treacherous intrigues Countess Louise is weaving? Can she outflank the wily countess to protect young Princess Renée? And can she find the courage to defend those she loves?
Based on historical events and characters, this timeless story will rivet you until the last page. It is a tale of envy, power and intrigue pitted against loyalty and the strength of women’s friendships.
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M.K. Tod writes historical fiction. Her latest novel, PARIS IN RUINS, is available for pre-order on Amazon US, Amazon Canada, Kobo, and Barnes&Noble. An earlier novel, TIME AND REGRET was published by Lake Union. Mary’s other novels, LIES TOLD IN SILENCE and UNRAVELLED are available from Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Google Play and iTunes. She can be contacted on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads or on her website www.mktod.com.
