The Historical Novel Project(TM) is creating a number of writing challenges that are above my pay grade, but it’s not the believable characterization, compression/abbreviation of real historical events or the need for creating an accurate world that intimidates me.
I think the hardest thing I’m going to have to describe is the mental state of a character who is slowly developing visual/auditory hallucinations through a combination of stress and overwork. I need to sell his slow decline to a modern reading audience while:
- limiting myself to 16th century vernacular, as they didn’t have a vocabulary for mental illness the way we do
- convincing the reader that the character does not realize he’s going mad – he thinks these visions are real
- making it clear that there is no “voice of sanity” – everyone around him believes his visions are real too, and some actively encourage them
- that in the context of the time/place this assumption makes sense.
This requires a huge amount of research. Not that I mind, but it’s hard to find sources for exactly the situation I’m trying to convey.
At the suggestion of my new historian acquaintance, I got a copy of highlights from The Anatomy of Melancholy, to get some idea of what language 16th/17th century people used to describe mental/emotional distress. I’ve also picked up Carl Jung’s Red Book, because though he does use modern psychiatric language it’s the only documentation I can find by someone who realized he was having a psychotic break but chose to interact with his hallucinations.
It’s also revealing the need for a lot of context about the mindset of the late Renaissance, when the scientific method was just being developed and a lot of superstition (such as the belief that it was possible and expected to talk to spirits) was still accepted as fact.
I’ve got my narrative work cut out for me.
