All historical fiction travels back in time, but matching the story to an exact time can be tricky. The overland routes to the California gold fields changed quickly as more and more people followed them. Furthermore, no two routes were exactly the same since pioneers and prospectors explored different cutoffs in their attempts to reach California as quickly as possible.
So how much can I rely on personal
experience stories from several years before or after the one I am
writing or that take slightly different routes? Then there is the additional
problem of how the writer views the world. One of the most helpful memoirs I
have is A Frontier Lady by Sarah Royce, but that tells the story from
the perspective of a young mother. The diary of fourteen-year-old Sallie Hester
is a closer fit, but she is still a female. My twelve-year-old male protagonist
just isn’t going to think the same way as either Sallie or Sarah.
Having several journals and memoirs to rely
on gives me a fuller perspective. Besides, some things don’t change. The sight
of Chimney Rock had the same effect on travelers in 1865 as it did in 1844, and
it’s easy to assign the same reaction to my protagonist.
Still, if I want to be as historically accurate
as possible (and I do), I must be sensitive to the author's status as well as to the year and the route in each journal
and memoir. Dealing with the inconsistencies. required me to make some judgments, but that’s a necessary part of the process.
Because time changes travel.
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