Talkshow Thursday:
Welcome Donna Wichelman!
I'm thrilled to be hosting fellow Heroes, Heroines, and History blogger, Donna Wichelman. Have you read her books? They're fantastic! Draw up a chair and hear about her inspiration and research.
How Staying True to History and Culture Gives Authenticity to Your Novel
My appreciation for history developed in childhood, because my parents traveled across the United States and Canada almost every summer to visit family. Even then, our travels sparked my imagination. As an adult, I’ve continued to find fascination in developing stories from learning about a place’s history and culture.
I conceived
A Song of Deliverance while standing on a crest overlooking the Atlantic Ocean near Dingle, Ireland and envisioning a poor woman in nineteenth-century Ireland destined to emigrate to America. This inkling of a story birthed a full-length novel that I needed to flesh out when I returned to Colorado, because only through research would history make the story come alive on the page.
Research is the backbone of historical fiction and lends authenticity to the story. An author may have developed a lovely romance between two people or an exceptional plot line during the Victorian era. But the story falls apart if the language doesn’t ring true to the people of that time or if the mining technology, as in
A Song of Deliverance, is too sophisticated for the period.
It’s essential to ensure the details of place, setting, people, and culture stay as true to the period as possible. I spend several weeks sifting through source materials and continue researching throughout the writing phase. If a reader looked at my first draft of
A Song of Deliverance and compared it to the book as it appears today after its release, she would notice the differences in language, cultural norms, and the historical people who populated the town in 1870s Georgetown, Colorado.
Several years ago, I realized that every story concept I developed had some component of history in it.
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| Courtesy Colorado Women's Hall of Fame |
Even the two romantic suspense novels in my Waldenisian series, indie-published in 2015 and 2018, contain a mega dose of history about the pre-reformation Christian sect. But I didn’t want my stories to be dull and dry textbooks. I wanted them to weave history and faith into stories of intrigue and redemption to give substance to the story. The real-life story of Clara Brown stands out as bringing such a character to life.
As a formerly enslaved woman, Clara Brown’s owner released her at his death before the Civil War. She came to Colorado in 1859, saved the earnings from cooking, laundering, and birthing babies, and invested in local mines. People knew her as “Aunt” Clara for her Christian charity. Clara was inducted into the Colorado Business Hall of Fame on January 27, 2022, for being the first black woman entrepreneur in Colorado. Her character influenced the woman I created in my book, Cecelia Richards, whose wisdom and faith shone a bright light on my protagonist Anna Sullivan’s life.
I set out to make
A Song of Deliverance more than a story about one poor Irish woman’s road from rags to riches. Anna’s story is about finding the faith and courage to persevere despite the most tragic circumstances and discovering God has never been farther than a hair’s breadth away. As Anna’s formerly enslaved friend Cecelia says at one point in the book, “I reckon we all got shackles we need to get freed from to get by in this world.” This essence is what author and theologian Jerry Sittser calls the “spirit of the story.”
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| Pixabay/congerdesign |
Recently, I’ve become fascinated by a genre called slip-time, where two timelines with two protagonists weave together through a common thread. Many of the books I’m currently reading are slip-time, because I have a World War Two slip-time project in the development stages.
Books I’m reading include
The Legacy of Longdale Manor, a Carol award winner by Carrie Turansky;
Catching the Wind, a Christy finalist by Melanie Dobson; and
Whispers From Yesterday, winner of the 2000 Christy Award by Robin Lee Hatcher. I’ve also read Book Four in Amanda Cabot’s historical romance Sweetwater Crossing series,
One Special Christmas, and Crystal Caudill’s recent Christy award-winning novella,
Star of Wonder.
About Donna:
Weaving history and faith into stories of intrigue and redemption grew out of Donna’s love of travel, history, and literature as a young adult while attending the United World College of the Atlantic—an international college in Wales, U.K. She enjoys developing plots that show how God’s love abounds even in the profoundly difficult circumstances of our lives. Her stories reflect the hunger in all of us for love, belonging, and forgiveness in a world that often withholds second chances.
Donna received her master’s degree in mass communications/journalism from San Jose State University and became a communications professional before writing full-time. Her short stories and articles have appeared in inspirational publications. She has two indie-published Christian romantic suspense novels in her Waldensian Series, Light Out of Darkness, Book One, and
Undaunted Valor, Book Two. Her Gilded Age historical romance,
A Song of Deliverance, just released on December 3, 2024
Donna and her husband of forty years participate in ministry at their local church in Colorado. They love spending time with their grandchildren and bike, kayak and travel whenever possible.
About A Song of Deliverance
Born into the Irish system of land-holding that favors the moneyed class, Anna Sullivan has no dowry and no chance of marrying the man she loves. Poor and heartbroken, she flees Ireland to tend to Uncle Liam’s house in Colorado and take on her deceased aunt’s sewing business.
But when Anna arrives in Georgetown, she discovers a mine disaster at the Singing Silver Mine has killed her uncle. Orphaned and destitute again, she gathers her faith, courage, and ingenuity to establish a life in the community. Only one person stands in her way—the mine’s owner.
A wealthy, grief-stricken widower of European nobility, Stefan Maier threw his energies into making his mark as a silver mining baron in Colorado when his wife and child died at sea, emigrating to America. Now, everyone blames him for the mine disaster that killed nine men. But how does he convince the lovely and opinionated Irish woman of his innocence?
Will Anna’s heart soften towards Stefan? Will Stefan prove himself worthy of Anna’s affections? Each will have to risk everything to attain what they want and need most—love.
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