In my BWL author blog this month, I asked What is Near History?

When my son was at university, he took a course in Canadian History. His final essay explored the 1968 federal election, which catapulted Pierre Trudeau to prime minister. I thought, this is history? It’s my life. I was a teenager at the time and vividly recall myself and much of country getting swept away by the charming, sexy intellectual who breathed fresh air into the political establishment.

Trudeaumania

Recently, I heard the term Near History, for events that happened during your own, your parents’ or your grandparents’ lifetime, depending on your age. Many loosely define the period to mid-twentieth century, but the time frame seems to be creeping closer to the present day. At a writing event I attended this spring, an author noted that his novels set in the 1970s were borderline historical. He joked this was good for sales, since historical fiction is a popular genre. A few weeks later, I saw a call for submissions for historical stories. The magazine defined this as anything happening before 1996.

Why 1996? I wondered, although this was an important year for me. I moved from Montreal to Calgary that year and my family got dial-up Internet. And the Net is probably why the magazine chose that cut-off year. The Internet changed the world. Even those of us who spent our younger years in pre-cyberspace can hardly imagine life without it.

What are the benefits and challenges for writers working in the relatively recent past? While most of my writing is contemporary, I’ve written a short story set in 1976 and attempted one set in the 1930s.

An obvious benefit of writing history you’ve lived or heard about from older relatives is that it requires less research. Many facts and emotions of the time are part of your consciousness. You’re more likely to get them right. Near history might even be easier to write than contemporary stories, since your heightened memories have had decades to gel and assume meaning. You’ll attract older readers looking for nostalgia and insight into the pivotal time of their youths. Younger readers might be interested to learn more about their parents’ and grandparents’ lives.

The challenge is to make the story fresh and relevant to readers today. There’s also a real risk that a reader who lived through the time will spot a mistake that will ruin their belief in your whole story. True, a historian or other expert might notice your error about Ancient Rome, but no living Roman will catch a detail or way of thinking or feeling that has been lost to time.

Although the benefits seem to outweigh the challenges, I’ll probably stick with writing contemporary fiction, for the most part. One the other hand, I’m writing my current novel-in-progress with chapters alternating between 2020 and 1990. By some people’s reckoning, 1990 is history.

Pierre Trudeau slides down a bannister @1968

Here’s my blog post from earlier this month, published this month on the BWL website.

How to Get Rich from Writing

1. Write a book series in a popular genre, with appealing characters and plot.

2. Set the books in a place people love to visit.

3. Sell the series to a TV producer with a budget to film exteriors at your story locations.

When my husband Will and I travelled to Scotland last year, we were amazed by the number of ‘Outlander’ bus tours. These  3, 7 and 10 day bus excursions focused on sights associated with the time travel book series by Diana Gabaldon, set during the Jacobite risings in the 17th and 18 centuries. History, romance, mystery, adventure, science fiction, Outlander has it all. The tours stop at locations mentioned in the books or used for filming. I don’t know if Gabaldon makes money directly from the tours, but they help fuel her fans’ enthusiasm for the novels and the television programs that earn her royalties and gain her new readers. In Scotland we met a man taking an Outlander tour solely for the history. We teased him about being stuck in a bus with obsessive fans, most of them women in love with stories’ elusive hero, Jamie Fraser.

Eilean Donan castle, at the bridge to the Isle of Skye, played a role in the highlanders’ rebellion

Will and I opted for a less expensive tour through the highlands to the island of Skye. Our guide occasionally referred to the Outlander books and commented that they did a good job of portraying the feelings of the Scottish people of the time. This spring Will and I travelled farther south in Europe, to Sicily. While planning the trip, we searched the Calgary library for movies featuring Sicily and stumbled upon the Montalbano mystery series, based on the books by Sicilian author Andrea Camilleri. We started watching the DVDs and enjoyed the stories, their glimpses into Sicilian life, the scenery, and the characters — loyal Fazio, Mimi the womanizer, comical Caterella and chief detective Salvo Montalbano, an intelligent, honest, determined man with commitment issues and a love of good local food.

Will playing Montalbano in Scicli

When we arrived in the Sicilian city of Siracusa in April, we were surprised to find tour companies offering day trips to Montalbano film sites a couple of hours away. Since we were later renting a car and planned to drive through this part of the island we thought, let’s visit them if we have the time. Brochures for Montalbano tours in subsequent cities made us more eager to fit the sites into our schedule.

Our first ‘Montalbano’ stop was Porto Empedocle, birthplace of author Andrea Camilleri and inspiration for Vigata, the fictional town in his detective series. In 2003 the city officially changed its name to Porto Empedocle Vigata to attract tourists, but reversed the decision a few years later, perhaps because the ploy didn’t work or residents objected to the commercialism.

Porto Empedocle

Montalbano’s house in Punta Secca

The next day, we drove to the seaside village of Punta Secca, the location of the fictional detective’s home. This was May 1st, a sunny, warm Labour Day holiday in Italy, and it was hard to find parking. We followed the lighthouse landmark that appears in all the TV shows to Montalbano’s house, in real life a bed and breakfast hotel. Crowds gathered in the adjacent square, everyone taking photos of themselves in front of Salvo’s home. We walked along the beach, where he swims each morning, alone, except when he comes across a dead body or a crime being committed.

Montalbano’s beach, with his home and the landmark lighthouse in the distance

The Vigata police station scenes are filmed in nearby Scicli. Will and I arrived at the town’s main square to find a notice for tours of the ‘Vigata’ police station. Since we were the only English speakers interested at the time, we got a private tour. The guide told us this was Scicli’s actual police station until 2013, when the TV producers bought the locale for a permanent set to avoid having to rearrange items each time they filmed. No doubt everyone involved in the Montalbano series gets a share of the money collected from the tours that pass through the fictional station each day.

Me and Will behind Montalbano’s desk in the ‘Vigata’ police station

We spent the night in Ragusa Ibla. This hilly city and region is the location for all the other Montalbano show exteriors. On the main street, we passed a seafood restaurant announcing that ‘Salvo Montalbano’ eats here. That is, they claimed that Luca Zingaretti, the actor who plays the character, enjoys the food. The street’s bookstore was full of items related to series: DVDs, guidebooks to the Montalbano film sites, all of Andrea Camilleri’s novels plus other books written by him, including children’s books (souvenirs for the grandchildren) and cookbooks of Montalbano’s favourite recipes. A tip for writers: when your novel series goes big-time, make sure you write a non-fiction book about your protagonist’s special interest. Camilleri could almost make a living from sales by this Ragusa Ibla store alone.

Poster in Ragusa: Montalbano actor Luca Zingaretti endorses this local restaurant

Andrea Camilleri is far from the only person getting rich from Montalbano. Luca Zingaretti’s career has taken off. Residents of Punta Secca, Scicli and Ragusa Ibla reap the multiple economic benefits of increased tourism. Sicily has always been a place tourists love to visit, for the beaches, the history, the food and more. Montalbano tourism gives the island a little more boost. Riches aside, this must be enormously satisfying for an author.

Ragusa’s stunning hillside landscape is worth a visit even without Montalbano

For my July post on the BWL website, I wrote about a book I read during my spring holiday in Malta.

Holiday Reading

When I travel, I like to read books set in the place I’m visiting. Before my trip to Malta this April, I took out an e-book from my local library. The Information Officer by Mark Mills helped me appreciate many of the sights I saw in this island nation in the Mediterranean Sea. The novel takes place in the summer of 1942, when Malta was a British colony. Its strategic location 50 miles south of Italy made Malta a target for Hitler in WWII. During the novel, the Maltese are enduring daily bombings by Axis planes launched from Sicily.

In the capital city of Valletta, Malta, we visited the Lascaris War Rooms, underground headquarters for the Allies’ defense of Malta. This strategy map shows little Malta below the bigger island of Sicily. Italy was under Mussolini’s fascist rule in 1942 and part of the German Axis.

The Information Officer is a detective novel. Our hero, Max, is, essentially, the British officer in charge of propaganda. His job is to boost the spirits of the Maltese civilians under continuous attack. Max investigates the murder of several women, whose deaths are being ignored by his superiors. Is there a cover-up? Are the murders an attempt to undermine Malta’s resolve to sacrifice for the war? In addition to bombing the cities, Axis planes are sinking cargo ships bringing food and supplies and the residents of Malta are close to starvation.

Malta at War museum displays a Maltese citizen’s daily rations for a fifteen day period during the siege.

In the Malta at War Museum, my husband Will and I put on hardhats to explore an air raid shelter built during the siege. A character in The Information Officer commented that the Maltese had become creatures who lived half their lives underground. The tunnels included hospital and birth rooms for those who needed those services after the air raid whistle blew.

Birth room in the air raid shelter

The siege effectively ended in November 1942, after the Allies sent Malta 163 Spitfires for its defense. King George VI awarded the George Cross for bravery to the citizens of Malta. Each April, Malta commemorates the deaths of the 7,000 soldiers and civilians who died during the siege. Other countries, including Canada, still send flowers.

The novel also mentioned other aspects of Malta, which we encountered on our visit. The Dingli cliffs, the island’s highest point, were used for signals during the war.

Hiking on the Dingli Cliffs

Maltese balconies, a characteristic style of  architecture, appear on houses across the island.

Many residents paint their Maltese balconies bright colours

And our hero, Max, took a short recreational break on Malta’s smaller, more rural island of Gozo, as Will and I did with the mass of local tourists on Good Friday.

Sipping a cappuccino in the main square of Victoria (Ir-Rabat), the capital of Gozo

If you’re travelling this year, check out Books We Love’s selection of novels set in lands around the world. BWL authors offer a variety of historical and contemporary stories set in the United States, Europe, Australia, every region of Canada and more.