In a guest post on the A Writer of History blog, Mike Kanner talks about worldbuilding for historical novels.
Kanner says his worldbuilding focuses on the people who lived in the past. One of the ways he connects with them is through diaries. For example, one of his recent short stories was inspired by Ambulancing on the French Front by Edward Coyle. “Coyle was an American who, in 1917, decided to join the American Red Cross in France. In 1918, he published his diaries so Americans could know about the ‘true conditions’ in the war,” Kenner explains. While official records described how an evacuation was supposed to be done, Kenner got the real story from Coyle’s diaries.
The diaries and his collection of vintage postcards gave Kenner inspiration for the story’s visual elements. Other accounts helped Kenner imagine the sounds and smell of World War I trench warfare. Unsurprisingly, the personal accounts of frontline troops were more helpful than those of officers, who were likely not as near the front.
