Finding Truth in Black Historical Fiction: A Conversation With Denny S. Bryce
Since her stunning debut, Wild Women and the Blues (Kensington, 2021), novelist Denny S. Bryce elevates the role of Black women in historical fiction. With her latest work, The Other Princess (Harper Collins, 2023), Bryce continues to write about Black history using exhaustive research and immersive storytelling. In a down-to-earth conversation, we discuss the challenges of researching the objective past. Let’s jump in.
How do you start the process of researching? Where do you source information?
My go-to resources always include libraries, ProQuest, and old newspapers. I go to the Library of Congress, particularly the map room, in Washington, D.C. JSTOR is another fabulous online resource. Walter Dean Myers wrote a children’s book called At Her Majesty’s Request in 1999 that was a tremendous resource for The Other Princess. There was also a Nigerian doctor who researched and wrote a historical account. I went to London and visited Windsor Castle because I definitely hadn’t been to Africa in the 1850s or 1860s (laugh).
Also, research is listening to the music, figuring out the economy of the time, reading dissertations. I love grabbing a quotation about a certain subject matter because you want to feel connected to how society breathes during that time. You want to relate to readers today about the past. And that’s where you go back to the saying, ‘History is always repeating itself.’
How do you become immersed in a historical period?
I need to know how people make money during that time, whatever time-period I’m in. And that tells you about society—the issues and conflicts. In 1920s Chicago, along with the rest of the world, there’s segregation. Then there’s the migration of African Americans escaping the South. And Jim Crow. Wild Women and the Blues is all about money—from gambling to policy gambling. Then there’s the music, the sounds of the time. It’s always a joy because I haven’t done any writing about time periods that don’t have music as a part of the framework. The fun of the 1920s, of course, is the Jazz, the Blues, the lyrics, and the artists.
Also, there’s a theme I want to dive into; something I want to say—usually, it’s connected to something about the era that makes me angry. Donald Maass has said in a class, more than once, writers need to be passionate about the subject—and it helps to write about something that makes you mad, that gets under your skin. I didn’t always have that thought, but as I go through new ideas, I ask what is that button? That button the story is pushing in me. Then I can better lay out the conflict. Who’s the character in the beginning? Who’s making the character change? What are those buttons being pushed in that character that impacts them? External conflict helps deliver on the internal conflict.
Is there more pressure writing biographical historical fiction?
According to how much information is available, you can’t control history and the story as much. Historical benchmarks are more specific when you write biographical historical fiction because you should have a lot of details. And for your main character, hopefully there are actual letters … it’s amazing if they’re diaries. You take the words, you take the facts, and then you go through the story based on your research, based on what you’ve discovered and learned about this character.
Then you look at that whole life time and say this is the type of person she was. What would have driven her crazy? What would she have chased after? What would her tragedies be? Her flaws? What would her joys be? And then you piece together a story, rooted in the facts of that life. Of course, it is still storytelling and still fiction because you weren’t there.
Check out Denny S. Bryce’s The Other Princess here:
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How do you sort through the objective part of history? Is there such a thing? When you’re looking at transcripts that were probably put together by white men a hundred years ago? How do you sift through that and define truth or is that the truth?
As an African-American woman who has read newspapers, watched the media, and looked at the world for more than a few minutes, how often do you take things at face value? I’m a marketing and PR person, so I understand the role of the press as influencers throughout time. How are they communicating or choosing to communicate to certain people and choosing not to communicate with others?
There are also the realities of the African-American community over time in America. For example, post-Civil War reconstruction … the underbelly of that aspect of history that people did not want to report … did not want to write about. You had a whole organization in the South that was primarily responsible for rewriting history in school books nationwide so that Confederate activities and Confederate generals were not perceived as bad guys. That’s why you had so many statues around the country.
So yes, you look at history with a discerning eye. You look at what’s in front of you realizing most of history is written by white men. I think it would be irresponsible to take everything that I pick up and say, “Well that’s the way it must have happened,” just like it’s written here. Any female writer of history, any woman of color, any white woman writing historical fiction has a discerning eye. The interpretation of the “facts” is critical to getting to the heart of a story.
In terms of creativity, do you ever doubt the well may run dry?
Oh yeah, well, that’s writing (laugh). You have to go through it, that’s part of the process of the book. I remember years ago I used to get so frustrated going to a craft presentation where the authors say, “It just comes to me,” and, “I don’t have to rewrite.” I’d sit there and I’d be so upset because I knew I couldn’t do that. And then I realized that that person was an oddity or they were just lying through their teeth (laugh).
But every book is the same. It’s hard. Writing is not easy, it’s solitary. You need your writing community—those folks that you can just call and say I don’t know what the heck is going on with this book. Sometimes you’re just saying the same thing that you said about every book from before.
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What advice would you give new writers?
Patience. As a creative, if you have patience, your frustration level will be lower. And then, just keep writing your best story—one book at a time.