Write What You Know -- A Note about "Notes"

I’ve never heard the thunder of battle, and God forbid, I’ve never robbed a corpse. But when the guns fell still on the field of Acosta Ñu in Paraguay one August night in 1869, I kept watch on three men from the parapet of an earthworks.

“Ai, caramba! Meninos . . .meninos . . . meninos!” Tipoana complained. Boys! Just boys! No commanders-in-chief with gold crosses and silver spurs; no select pickings for Urubu, king of corpse robbers! He prowled down there all the same, rolling over small, mutilated bodies, poking into pockets, exclaiming hopefully when he came to an old man who had come to battle in a shabby frock coat. But the veteran’s pockets offered nothing of value to Tipoana.

“You’re wasting your time,” Henrique Inglez said. “The bones of Paraguay are picked clean!” He turned to Antônio: “What more does he want?”

They all had their share, Antônio knew. He himself owned a pouch of gold and silver coins.

Urubu came back along the trench. “Meninos!” he whined. “Not one peso among the lot of them!” There was a boy at his feet. Urubu bent down to pluck something from the corpse. Chuckling malevolently, he straightened up, holding the object in the light of his lantern.

Henrique’s long, narrow face contorted with rage, his buckteeth bared. “Savage!” he shouted at Tipoana. “Heartless savage! Dead, brave boys! They deserve respect!”

“Let it be, Tipoana,” Antônio Paciência said. “They fought and died like men, did they not?”

The object Tipoana dangled in the lantern light was a crudely fashioned false beard. Every boy in this trench had strapped one of these to his jaw hoping to make the macacos think he was a man.

To write what I knew about Acosta Ñu from field reports of the great war in Paraguay was one thing. I had to understand the reasons why. I had to see in my mind’s eye every clump of blood red macega grass where eighteen hundred children fell. To be “witness” I had to know passion.

The Notes I post as I research A Novel of America are tiny markers on my way to understanding the great themes of this land and its people. Some notes will ultimately have no bearing on what emerges in the manuscript; some will spark new ideas; some will on deeper reflection be a folly best avoided.

For the historical novelist to write with an authentic voice demands painstaking research or, as the adage says, ninety percent perspiration, ten percent inspiration. These online examples of Notes made during the writing of Brazil and Covenant give a good idea of what’s involved: Nicolau Cavalcanti [Brazil] and The Promised Land: Limited or Horizonless? [Covenant]

I dig deeply to get an honest picture of time and place and people. I feel I’m ready to write when I can put aside my Notes and bring the story to life as if I was living it – to be there is to know.

[Images: Paraguayan boy soldiers, courtesy Museo Histórico Nacional, Buenos Aires]