Dear Dr Darwin, People in my writing forum keeping telling me “Show, don’t Tell,” but I don’t understand what they mean. How can I not Tell, if I’m telling a story? And while I think I get what Showing means, I get desperately bored putting in all the details – so I’m sure a reader […]
How much should I explain? And how?
Dear Dr Darwin, As a reader of historical fiction I want to be in a place which may resonate in my world, but is not my world. That’s not only about politics and clothes, and how the people think and feel and believe, but in how they talk and write, and what they talk and […]
Review: 1917
With its immersive cinematic techniques, the film 1917 conveys the relentless horror of war in a manner that is “profoundly moving”, author Elizabeth Fremantle tells Historia. Sam Mendes’s film 1917, inspired by the stories told by his grandfather of fighting in the First World War, has divided both critics and viewers. Some have deemed it […]
TV review: The Windermere Children
The Windermere Children (BBC 2, 27 January, 2020) follows the true story of a group of children, recently freed from concentration camps who, in 1945, were brought to Windermere for four months of rehabilitation under the auspices of child psychologist Oscar Friedmann (Thomas Kretschmann) and philanthropist Leonard Montefiore (Tim McInnerny). Made to be transmitted on […]
TV review: The Crown, season 3
The timing couldn’t be better. The Crown(season 3)returns to TV screens in a week when the Royal Family is back in the headlines and the role of its members is once again being questioned. And with Olivia Colman in the title role, playing a very different kind of queen from the one she gave us […]
My writer’s circle friend keeps getting his facts wrong
Our resident agony aunt, Dr Darwin, answers a common question: how can we make sure our historical details are accurate – and believable? Dear Dr Darwin, Someone in my writers’ circle keeps getting facts wrong: things like calling a 17th-century character Tiffany, and giving her mother a vote in elections. He makes both of them keen […]
Review: The Name of the Rose: TV series
John Turturro’s TV adaptation of The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco’s dark murder mystery set in a Benedictine abbey in 14th-century Italy, began screening on BBC2 in October, 2019. Author Jean Goodhind has read the book and seen the film; how will this version compare? The moment I saw this in my TV schedule […]
Review: Downton Abbey: the film
Does Downton Abbey work as a film? Should you take your non-DA-addict friend or partner to see it? Will there be posh frocks and implausible plots? These and many other important questions are answered in LJ Trafford’s Historia review. The world is neatly divided into those who have never seen Downton Abbey and those who […]