Victoria who?

Back in 1872, when Victoria Woodhull became the first woman to run for President of the United States, nobody would have asked that question. Considered a visionary by some, a “she-devil” by others, Victoria had acquired quite a reputation by the time she was nominated by the Equal Rights Party. She’d been born poor in rural Ohio, the daughter of a con artist and a fanatic spiritualist, and she lived exactly the sort of peripatetic life those beginnings imply. Social activist, stockbroker, newspaper editor, suffragette, spiritualist (many would add prostitute, con artist, and fraud), Victoria got around.

Victoria Woodhull

It would take more than one blog post to do justice to Victoria and her vivid existence. Her relevance to me, however, is more easily defined: my novel, Newport, was inspired by an incident in her life that took place during her spiritualist phase.

Victoria and her younger sister Tennessee had spent much of their childhoods traveling in the Claflin family medicine show, promoted by their father as fortune-tellers and psychic healers. Victoria grew into adulthood claiming an ability to communicate with the dead. This communication grew particularly lucrative in 1866 when, at the insistence of her “spirit guide (the Greek statesman Demosthenes),” Victoria relocated to New York City to join her sister, who was already there. It was in New York that Victoria and Tennessee caught the biggest fish of their spiritualist careers: Cornelius Vanderbilt, one of the richest men in the country.

Cornelius Vanderbilt

The sisters met Commodore Vanderbilt at just the right time. Still mourning the loss of his wife, Vanderbilt was between spiritualists. His old one had made so much money getting rid of the two spirits the old man feared were haunting him that she could retire to Vermont, leaving the path free and clear for a new medium. Victoria and Tennie began hosting seances to ease Vanderbilt’s pains, both psychic and physical. Victoria channeled not only messages from Vanderbilt’s other-world mother and children, but stock tips from the great beyond. (Never mind that “the great beyond” was probably her friend Josie Mansfield, who was the mistress of one of Vanderbilt’s business rivals.) The tips worked so well that when Vanderbilt was asked about his stock market success, he replied, “Do as I do, consult the spirits.”

In the long run, the arrangement proved fortuitous for all parties involved. The sisters got the financial backing they needed to open the first female-run brokerage on Wall Street; Cornelius’s broken heart (and many other ailments) were soothed not only by Victoria’s seances, but by Tennie, with whom he had an affair.

Reading about this a few years ago made me think. At what point do people who grieve become so desperate that they’ll believe anything? What besides greed motivates the medium? Or …what if the medium is legit, and the messages delivered from “beyond” are real? Once the questions began flowing, characters, setting, and plot fell into place, and Newport was up and running.

Of course, Newport has many other plot points. But those who have read the book will recognize how this chapter from Victoria’s life impacted the story.

Who’s to say what will trigger inspiration for a book? Almost any tidbit or event will do, and once ignited, the writing process takes on a life of its own. Sometimes, the flow of ideas can feel like a gift from another realm. So, maybe I should add “muse” to Victoria Woodhull’s long list of professions.

Rumor had it that after Cornelius Vanderbilt’s death, his heirs paid Victoria and Tennessee to go away. If so, the money came at a good time. Recently divorced and exhausted, Victoria left for England, where she became a lecturer and magazine publisher. She married again and lived fairly respectably until her death in 1927 at the age of 88.

Victoria Woodhull was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2001. You can read a little more about her here.

Woodhull for President

I have a manuscript box like that. Stashed in a dark part of the basement, it’s filled with stories that, through no fault of their own, just … well … stink. Yeah, I wrote them. At one time, I even thought they were good.

Thank goodness we all get a chance to evolve.

Looking back, my writing has always been character-driven, especially if you consider a character sufficiently developed when he/she can be summed up in a word or two, as in “the sassy one”; “the troubled one”; “the one who surprises even herself.” (My earlier work is more accessible if you like stereotypes.)

You could always tell exactly how my characters were feeling, because the adverbs attached to the dialogue tags told you so. Readers were subjected to a lot of stuff like “she said questioningly,” and “he said evocatively.” If it still wasn’t obvious enough, there were many different ways to “say” things. Characters purred, chirped, and grunted. It was a regular zoo in each chapter. And, to make sure there was no doubt whatsoever, sometimes the dialogue tags were double-barreled, a fun reading experience for everyone: “she whimpered miserably,” “he snarled angrily,” “she commented pertly.” Dialogue tags, meant to be unobtrusive, were prominent enough to become their very own characters.

Plots were linear. Sure, there were stories to tell, but they lacked depth. Sometimes there was no hook, no compelling reason for anyone to want to turn the page to discover what happened next. Basically, I was writing for myself. Self-indulgent? You bet. Awful? Right again. And, yet, those stories still have a special place in my heart. Those characters and I were friends.

There are some manuscripts a writer puts away knowing that they’ll be back. The plot, although in need of editing, is compelling enough to revisit. The characters have something to say. When the time is right, that manuscript will be revisited and edited into something sharp and readable.

The manuscripts in the box downstairs are not those stories. There’s a reason they live deep in the basement, out of sight.

If I remember my Rudolph correctly, the inhabitants of the Island of Misfit Toys are eventually picked up by Santa and delivered to children who will appreciate them. While nothing quite as heartwarming happens on the Island of Misfit Manuscripts, those early drafts do serve a purpose. Every once in a while, almost by mistake, I wrote a description or phrase back then that was actually good. There was effective use of imagery. There was a character who does not inspire cringing and/or eye-rolls. Like old cars that have outlasted their use, these old manuscripts can be mined for “parts” to use in newer stories.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling frustrated with my current manuscript, I re-read one of my oldies-but-baddies. It never fails to make me feel better.

I’ve been thinking about my love affair with historical fiction. It goes way back to my childhood, when burying myself in the pages of a book meant a trip to other times and places.

Books were better than movies for me. A book provided the set, characters, and plot but allowed my imagination to fill in some details. My very favorite books inspired me to write my own version of fan fiction before fan fiction was cool. Some authors might have been surprised to learn that a character they’d never created had hijacked their plot and now starred in a whole new version of the storyline.

My preferred historical “vacations” changed as I got older. My favorite era in middle school was colonial America, which made sense since I grew up in 18th century Annapolis. But then I started sliding backward. I slipped through the Jacobite risings in the Scottish Highlands, down past Charles II and the English Restoration, and straight into Tudor England.

By the time I hit college, I was a history major with an emphasis in medieval studies. But after I’d written a few novels, I changed course again and found myself drawn to the late 19th century, an era that had never enticed me before. From there it’s been a continued upward drift. Newport takes place in 1921; the novel I’m currently working on is set in the early 1930s.

It’s even more fun to write historical fiction than it was to read it. Once again, I get to immerse myself in a time period different from the one I inhabit on a daily basis. I get the opportunity to research random events and inconsequential details to my heart’s content. And this time my characters aren’t photo-bombing somebody else’s story. The setting and plot details are my own.

I worry that despite all of my best efforts to accurately re-create the texture of an era, some pesky anachronisms might creep in. But even with that pressure, I believe that authors of contemporary fiction have a much tougher time telling their stories than I do. Why? Because technical advances have made it difficult to build tension in any story set in modern day.

I offer the following examples:

Your protagonist, an amateur sleuth with a nose for solving crime, has a hunch the popular new guy in town isn’t on the up-and-up. But how to prove it? (Well, what do you think Google is for?)

The gorgeous woman who just introduced herself to the protagonist stirs faint memories; he knows he knows her, and he knows she knows he knows her. But, how? (Check Facebook first. If that fails, back to Google.)

The protagonist has information that could change the course of humanity. He must find a way to share this information immediately! (All right, then. Let’s just try a few cell phone numbers, because just about everybody is accessible all of the time these days.)

So, it’s pretty clear I lack the imagination to write a contemporary novel at the moment. We’re all better off if I stick with historical fiction.

And that’s just fine with me.