Writing Historical Fiction

I'm writing the second book of a trilogy set in France during World War 2. As LP Hatley says in The Go Between, 'The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.'

Not only did I need to become a virtual back-packer and learn the cultural differences of another country, but I also had to become a time traveller, re-setting and familiarising my world to the early 1940's. A writer of historical fiction must be accurate because the reader will not be fooled by guesswork. It only takes one inaccurate fact for the reader to close the book with a tut (or worse) and never buy another novel by that writer again. The first book of my trilogy, The Midday Moon, is set in rural France and tells the story of a farmer's daughter during the five years of WW2. My protagonist, Arlette Blaise, takes her grandmother back home to Oradour-sur-Glane on the day of the massacre. So apart from imagination, how do I strive to write exact historical fiction?

1. I couldn’t have placed Arlette in such a traumatic situation without visiting the martyred village first hand. I have walked the roads of this once quaint village and absorbed the atmosphere. I’ve seen the aftermath of brutality. As a writer, I feel a weight of responsibility in telling a story about a fictional character living through what was an actual genocide. I’ve endeavoured to honour the villagers' last hours with respect and accuracy, to choose the right words and not to glamourize this horrendous crime. Charles de Gaulle declared that the ruins must stay as a permanent national monument to the townspeople’s suffering, so I found Oradour-sur-Glane just as it had been left on the day of the massacre; frozen in time. What better way to write about factual surroundings and infrastructure.

2. I've read numerous novels set in the era. This is a great starting point for cultural immersion. I attuned myself to the writers' rhythm, nuances and the tone of the language used back then. Picking up a few extra details is always a bonus - which of course must be placed in my novel in my own way. For example, I learned through reading one book that the French folded their Metro tickets into V shapes, for Victory during the war. It was a small way to show contempt towards the invading Germans.

3. Non-fiction books are also invaluable. Pages and pages of facts and photographs build up a past world to write about.

4. Speaking to people who lived during the war highlights some rare treasures of information. Obviously this is only possible if your story is set during the past seventy-eighty years, but the older generation are full of stories they love to share.

5. The Internet! What did we do before the Internet? There are archives, interviews, photographs, paintings, stories and newspaper articles out there, all waiting to be discovered.

6. Magazines are also a hive of information. One which has been an enormous help to me is World War 2 Magazine. The description of tanks and writing about accurate weaponry is vital to make a scene sound authentic.

7. Television films and documentaries pull you into the screen making it easy to absorb the atmosphere, the fear, the horror and the bravery of many ordinary people. Here are just a few I've watched with notepad and pen in hand!
'Colditz,' 'Thunderbolt,' 'World War Two - The Lost Colour Archives,' 'The War' by Ken Burns, 'World of War: The Complete set,' narrated by Sir Lawrence Olivier, 'Band of Brothers,' 'Holocaust,' mini series and 'The Architects of Doom,' documentary.

Here is my blog post about my visit to the devastated remains of Oradour-sur-Glane and a excerpt from that particular chapter of The Midday Moon. Arlette and her grandmother have been ordered to the village green by the Nazis. Blogspot doesn't allow me to indent speech or change the layout but I hope it sounds authentic to you and thank you for reading this post.

Although there wasn’t any panic among the gathering, Arlette could feel a mounting anxiety. The air was heavy with anticipation and a low murmuring of conversation spread between the villagers. How long would they be delayed? She didn’t need this hold up if she was going to make it back home today. Perhaps she would be staying overnight after all.
Lines of people continued to scurry along the main road towards them. Mademoiselle Petit, a schoolteacher, ushered a group of children in front of her and joined the congregation of villagers. The click-clacking of their small wooden clogs was silenced by the grass.
‘It’s Saturday. Why are the children at school today?’ asked Arlette.
The schoolteacher sounded impatient. ‘They’re attending an immunisation programme and this nonsense is very disruptive.’ She shook her head with irritation and turned to count her pupils.
Arlette looked into the sky hoping to see white clouds that might give them respite from the relentless intensity of the sun’s rays. The sky was cloudless but a single buzzard soared in a wide circular pattern, its wings outstretched and static.
Grandma Blaise held her lower back and spoke to Berthe, an acquaintance who had worked in the hairdresser’s for more than twenty years. ‘Goodness, I do ache.’
‘Hopefully they won’t be too much longer,’ said Berthe. ‘I’m dying of thirst.’
‘I hope they’re being careful with my ornaments.’
‘Look, grandma.’ Arlette pointed to a lorry convoy that had parked in the lower part of Oradour. Soldiers wearing flecked waterproof clothing in yellow and green, swarmed out of the back of the trucks and through the streets.
‘Why are there so many Germans?’ asked Grandma Blaise. She slipped her arm through her granddaughter’s. ‘The village is already swarming with them.’
Arlette shook her head. She didn’t have an answer.
Everyone was watching and waiting in a dignified silence. Soldiers continued to empty surrounding houses and shops of their occupants. They were being herded in groups towards the green. The crowd was now so large that it was spreading out towards a covered well. A woman stumbled towards them with her hair in curlers. A half-dressed child was held in his mother’s arms. Still with his jaw covered in shaving foam, a man had been ordered out of the barber’s. Worried mothers clutched the tiny fingers of their children or pushed prams towards the assembly point, its numbers growing by the minute. Next the grocer and another teacher arrived, accompanied by a larger group of children. The priest arrived, followed by a man carrying an elderly woman on his back.
The throng began to move. Arlette looked around in confusion. ‘What’s happening?’
A voice in the crowd answered. ‘They’re separating the women and children from the menfolk.’
‘Why?’
The question went unanswered. Arlette took hold of her grandmother’s hand and moved closer to the front of the crowd.
From where they were now standing, Arlette could see and hear the SS officer more clearly. He was a solid man whose uniform was decorated with emblems and badges. The letters SS were zig-zagged like two lightning strikes on his collar. He demanded that the elders of the village reveal the hiding place of the ammunition. Arlette heard the mayor respond by denying any knowledge of the presence of arms. The officer turned to another German soldier and spoke out of earshot, no doubt translating.
‘The mayor’s just offered to be held hostage with his sons so the elderly and children can get out of the sun,’ said Arlette.
‘How brave,’ said Grandma Blaise.
Arlette felt a trickle of sweat run down her spine. The sun was sweltering. Her mouth was dry and she was worried for her grandmother. Why had they decided to come here today? If only they had made the journey the following day.
She immediately became more alert. Commands were being shouted to the gathered men. They were ordered to walk away from the fairground en masse. At gunpoint.
‘Where are they taking them?’ asked Berthe. ‘My son is with them.’
‘We don’t know,’ Arlette shrugged. ‘Try not to worry. They won’t hurt them because they haven’t done anything wrong.’ She realised how naïve she sounded. Hadn’t little Maurice only been trying to keep warm? Hadn’t the Jewish people only been trying to work hard and settle into a community?
Arlette watched several men turn to look back at the women. She recognised them: the ticket-seller at the tram station from when she used to travel to sell her silk cocoons, the owner of her favourite café, her grandmother’s elderly neighbour, Jean-Philippe. The men’s eyes searched for glimpses of their wives and children. They were led away. Their faces drawn with fear. They looked confused, many trying to dodge the pushing and shoving of Germans fists. Next the SS officer turned his attention to the remaining women and children.
‘What’s he saying?’ asked Grandma Blaise. ‘I do wish he would speak up.’
‘We’ve got to go to the church,’ said Arlette. ‘Maybe they realise that we need to sit down in some shade.’ She patted her grandmother’s hand for reassurance and helped her along the main street towards the village’s place of worship at the southern end of town. In front of the church grew a tall tree in full leaf. They walked beneath its dappled shade. Several women close by sighed audibly at the momentary respite from the sun’s rays as they were shepherded towards Oradour’s church entrance.
German voices grew more frenzied. Women and children were hurried along and pushed inside. An old lady fell at the doorway. Arlette recognised her as her grandmother’s friend, Jeanne. She didn’t mention it to her grandmother who was anxious enough. There was momentary turmoil when the women behind helped her to stand. People behind were bumping into each other. Arlette stumbled but she steadied herself and her eyes began to adjust to the dim light inside the church. Looking down, she saw flowers being trampled underfoot. They looked like the same flowers that Jeanne had been carrying. She reached for a pew for balance, smelling the familiar aroma of incense and candle smoke. It comforted her a little. She grasped Grandma Blaise’s hand and pushed to the back of the church. In seconds they were next to the altar.
Arlette didn’t let go of her grandmother’s hand despite the bumping and jostling from others. They were ordered deeper inside. The cool interior was a welcome relief from the fierce heat outside and many women and children settled themselves on the wooden benches. She helped her grandmother to sit on a stool beside the altar but as more women were herded inside, the crowd pushed Arlette a short way from the old lady. Helpless to stop the momentum, she was thrust to the opposite side of the altar.
A cough. A baby’s whimper. A child’s voice calling for maman. But still the women remained calm, their ears straining for any communication or sign of what was going to happen next.
Then it came.
Distant machine gun fire could be heard through the open church door. It continued for a long minute until it slowed. Then just occasional short bursts.
‘What are they firing at?’ someone whispered.
‘Perhaps they’re destroying something.’
‘The men…you don’t think…’
The woman didn’t finish her sentence and no one answered. Arlette sought out her grandmother’s face. They exchanged worried glances. A commotion at the entrance of the church made everyone turn and look. Two German soldiers were carrying a large chest into the building. They struggled under its weight.
‘Perhaps they’ve brought us water,’ someone suggested.
A soldier attached a thin rope to the chest and laid it on the ground. He walked backwards out of the door. An orange glow could be seen in his hand. He bent to the ground. The doors were slammed shut.

Massacre At Oradour-sur-Glane

Human beings are capable of wondrous achievements and extraordinary kindness. We care. We love. We cure. We share. We protect. The vast majority of mankind possess a conscience; a voice inside each of us that tells us what’s right and what’s wrong. Occasionally however, either through weak self-preservation, fear or mental instability, people perpetrate such violence that it leaves the rest of us breathless at the magnitude of malevolence humans are capable of inflicting on others. One of these occasions was the atrocity committed by the Germans in the small French town of Oradour-sur-Glane on a sunny afternoon on 10th June 1944.

What visceral imaginings went through the Germans’ minds while on their way to the Oradour, we’ll never know. We can only speculate as to whether they noticed the abundance of flowers growing along the hedgerows or valued the beauty of the River Glane and the surrounding countryside. Sadly, speculation isn’t necessary for what happened when they arrived.

I've visited Oradour-sur-Glane twice to walk the roads of the once quaint town, to absorb the atmosphere and to witness first-hand the place that I’m writing about in my latest novel, A Hill In France. My story places a young farm girl called Arlette, in Oradour-sur-Glane on the day of the massacre. I couldn’t possibly write about such horror without visiting the martyred village myself. Charles de Gaulle declared that the ruins must stay as a permanent national monument to the townspeople’s suffering, so I found Oradour just as it had been left on the day of the genocide; frozen in time.

As you can imagine, I feel a weight of responsibility in writing about a fictional character living through a real atrocity; and rightly so. I want to honour the villagers' last hours with respect and honesty and it’s essential that I choose the right words and don't glamourize this horrendous crime. Below are photographs taken on my visits and a summarized account of what followed the Germans’ arrival. The facts are true and from first-hand accounts, as miraculously several villagers managed to escape that day.

At 2pm on Saturday 10th June 1944, German SS soldiers from 2nd Panzer Tank Division, drove into Oradour-sur-Glane. Being a Saturday, the village was busy with many visitors from outlying areas who were either shopping, visiting family and friends, keeping an appointment at the hairdressers or stopping for a drink after cycling the peaceful lanes. Fatefully, all the school children were attending school as a vaccination programme was taking place. Due to war rationing, it was also the day of tobacco distribution meaning that men from outlying villages had come to collect their rations.

The people of Oradour-sur-Glane felt safe from the horrors of the war and despite the obvious food and fuel restrictions they enjoyed a comfortable seclusion. They were therefore surprised to see lorries carrying 150-200 German soldiers enter the village. Soon people began to assemble in the main square from all directions as they were ordered at gun point to congregate in an area the locals called the fairground, due to an annual fair being held there. The elderly were hauled out of their homes, clients pushed out of the hairdressers with wet hair, men with half-shaved faces forced from the barbers and mothers pushing prams were directed towards the growing crowd in the centre of the town. The baker joined them - still covered in flour, school teachers holding children’s hands, the local priest and diners at restaurants. The carpenter was forced to leave his shop, also the cobbler, the village cart-wright, the blacksmith, the butcher and the confectioner. A sick school teacher was forced to join them still wearing her pyjamas.

The fairground

Standing in the fierce summer sunshine, hundreds of people packed the village square. Several women fainted overcome by heat and fear. The doctor arrived in his car having finished his morning rounds, was forced from his car and ordered to join the others. The Germans even scoured nearby fields for farmers working the land. A couple of cyclists enjoying a day out on the outskirts of Oradour were forced from their bikes – those same bikes are left rusting where they dismounted, to this day.

The women and children were separated from the men. The men were ordered at gun point towards several barns before the SS mounted machine guns at the barns’ entrances. A signal was given and the executioners in front of each barn, opened fire at the same time. To add to this horrific image, the Germans strafed their guns at the legs of the men, meaning that escape was impossible and death would be more gruesome. The Germans clambered over the injured men and boys, covering them with ladders, straw and cart slats which were then set alight.

One of the barns where the men were murdered

Meanwhile the women and children were being shepherded towards the church. Once crammed inside, the SS placed a device inside attached to a fuse. The Germans lit the fuse and ran to safety, bolting the doors behind them. The explosion killed many. Those who survived and tried to escape, some in flames, were shot. The Nazis re-entered the church, machine gun fire strafing back and forth. Soon the fire took hold and thick black smoke filled the main church and two side chapels. We know what happened inside this holy place because one woman survived by climbing out of a broken window behind the altar. A burnt out pram still lies in front of the altar, left as a memorial.

Oradour's church where the women and children died

The Germans finished their genocide by visiting each house individually to search for people hiding in terror. Bodies were found throughout the village still inside buildings and having been shot in the head. A mother, father and two children were found charred inside the baker’s oven. It defies belief that lives could end in this way. Hours later the soldiers left, having failed to destroy all the evidence. Save for the bodies that have been buried, Oradour-sur-Glane is left today as it was found.

My Visit

Walking into Oradour-sur-Glane, I was shocked by its unembellished rawness; as if I was entering a sacred place where everyone spoke in hushed whispers. The ruins have been left untouched because future generations would be incapable of absorbing the magnitude of what happened here on 10th June 1944 should it have been razed to the ground. Typescript alone isn’t enough to tell of the atrocity. Over the years the words would surely fade and corrode the story of Oradour as surely as the metal work left behind is rusting and crumbling today. Some things need to be seen and touched in order to truly feel the horror.

Nature now invades the ruins of the buildings and the everyday items left behind. Tiny purple flowers weave their way through rusting Singer sewing machines and cooking pots from the families' last meals are left next to fireplaces. Birds peck amongst old machinery and the grills of decaying log burners. I walked beneath telegraph poles and tram lines. Where once rattled tram carriages carrying chattering townspeople to and from Limoges, the wires now hang limply swaying in the breeze.

I followed the main road. Houses were charred black from fire. Modern plaques informed visitors what the buildings used to be. A café. A hairdressers. The post office. The doctor's surgery. A school.

The post office

Front gardens and pathways lead to shattered homes. Half demolished inner walls exposed the layout of rooms that had once been adorned with pictures and ornaments. Rubble was strewn everywhere and even decorative tiles still lay where they had fallen seventy years earlier. Weeds, grasses and flowers were interlaced between rusting bed frames that had fallen to ground level when the bedroom floors collapsed in the fires.

When I reached the village square and saw the doctor’s car parked close-by, the sight made me catch my breath. I’d read so much about what had happened that day and here I was, looking inside the doctor’s car parked on the edge of the fairground. It must have been a strange sight to see hundreds of his patients huddled together. The rusting shell of his Peugeot lists to one side, its tyres long since perished, its thin circular steering wheel in the position the doctor had parked it for the last time.

The doctor's car where he left it on the day of the massacre

The doctor's car

Homes surrounding the village green still show hints of their beauty. Ornate railings, carved window shutters and elaborate mirror surrounds now twisted and bent in the inferno. A mature tree stood in the centre of the green, its canopy offering a circle of shade to visitors. Some houses were less destroyed than others, giving more clues to their previous inhabitants. The metal skeletons of tables, chairs and bed frames, ornaments, Singer sewing machines, cooking implements, bicycles, mirror frames and cooking scales. Cars parked in garages.

I followed the old tram lines along more roads where upper floors of houses were castellated with jagged charred beams, tiles and exposed bricks. I could almost sense the horrifying randomness of suffering inflicted on these streets. I passed the bakers and gazed in silence at the rusting oven where a family was discovered. The butchers shop still had the skeletal remains of its awnings that protected its produce from the sunshine. Weighing scales were decaying next to decorated tiles, their colour still vibrant after seventy hot summers and bitter winters.

The butcher's shop

The butcher's weighing scales

Next I visited the barns where the men had been taken, their grey stone shells now overgrown with plants and flowers. Other visitors stood close by, everyone of us silent in thought.

I turned a corner and standing in a small dusty square, stood Oradour's church. A tall mature tree stood sentinel in front of it and I wondered as I walked beneath it, if the women sighed with momentary relief as they passed through its shade on that hot June day in 1944.



I needed to stop and wait beneath a rusting figure of Christ on the cross before walking up the steps into this holy place. The horrific images I’d read about had taken place a few feet in front of me. Here where I stood, mothers had pushed their babies in prams or guided their small children by their hands; generations of strong women taking their last footsteps. They’d stumbled over these steps as Germans aimed their guns.



I stepped inside. It was smaller than I’d imagined. My footsteps echoed in the silence only broken by birdsong due to the roof having long since been destroyed. My overall feeling was naturally a weight of intense sadness, but also a deep sense that I was intruding. So many final excruciating breaths were taken here; so much pain.

I was drawn inexorably towards the altar. A small mass of rusting tangled metal lay before it. As I got closer, I saw that it was the remains of a baby’s pram.



A marble memorial with the names of the local men who’d fought and died in WW1 hung on a wall, now peppered with bullets; their monument defiled in WW2.



The church bell lay on the floor having fallen from the tower in the inferno. It laid twisted and unrecognisable, testament to the intense heat.



The confessional box miraculously stood unscathed. The bodies of two suffocated small children had been discovered here wrapped in an embrace.



Oradour reminded me of a visit I made to Pompeii. Although the aftermath is similar to look at, what is most difficult to understand is that mankind's violence destroyed the village of Oradour, not nature's. But how do you end a blog post which tells of such human cruelty? I don't want to offer platitudes or repeat rhetoric from past articles. Like most traumatic events, people cope and pray in their own way. I've found a poem called, Chanson de la Caravane d'Oradour, by Louis Aragon dated 1949. Here's one verse. (apologies for lack of accents in appropriate places - blogspot didn't enable me to make them.)

Que nos caravanes s'avancent
Vers ce lieu marque par le sang
Une plaie au coeur de la France
Y rappelle a l'indifference
Le massacre des innocents

Translated as best I can
As our caravans advance
Towards this blood-stained place
A wound in the heart of France
Remember the indifference shown
As the innocents were massacred.

Louis Aragon