Dreading Ethel...writing woes

One of the reviewers of Murder in Paris, pointed out that the 14th century cleric was not likeable. Of course he wasn't. He was an uptight Cistercian brother (who although I never mentioned it ended up as a Pope during the Avignon captivity). He wasn't meant to be likeable. It is historically accurate that Jacques Fournier studied in Paris, but the rest is my imagination.

A writing magazine had an article on historical accuracy. One reader was said to be disturbed when a film type appeared in a novel two years before it was invented. Not many people would pick that up, but there is always one. I was told that in Chickpea I had TWA flying to Paris out of Miami. TWA never flew to Paris from Miami.

They concluded that it is a juggling act between accuracy and readable fiction. There are some great historical novels, but except for a few quotes handed down from the ages, no one really knows what Anne Boleyn really said to Henry when they were in bed together yet more than one novel has them talking under the sheets.

I'm still tweaking Murder in Ely. I had trouble deciding on my historical character. Oliver Cromwell, an obvious choice for the region has been done to death. The story of the Fens had many incidents that might have worked, but for some masochistic reason, I couldn't get an 8th century saint out of my head--The Dreaded Ethel or Etheldreda.

The review of unlikeable character Fournier kept pounding on me and if I were to stay true to the woman who refused to sleep with two husbands yet still give her some likeability I needed to cut her some slack. After all standards were different in the days when there were pagans, Roman Catholics and Celtic Catholics and a war a minute (hmm maybe times don't change that much).

I made her caring about the local peasants. Okay, that helped a little, but it wasn't enough.

Another round on the manuscript and I correlated my main character Annie's frustration with unchosen celibacy with Etheldreda's.

Better but not good enough...

Then I had a brainstorm. Annie is supposed to be writing a novel based on Etheldreda's life. She doesn't like the woman. What if, I thought, I added Annie's feelings, doubts, frustrations into the chapters that were Etheldreda's.

I think it's working. If it isn't my Grumpy Editor (who I really adore, but wouldn't tell him) will slap me down.