The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [158]
Likewise, the purposes of a novel are not those of scientific research, though there are similar goals. In both cases, you’re constructing a small picture of reality; you are attempting to explain the world and how it works. However, in the case of scientific research, you’re doing your explanation via facts, and in the case of a novel, you’re doing it with lies—i.e., you’re telling a story.
RESEARCH ASSISTANTS—OR NOT
Given the necessity for so much background material, factual trivia, etc., many writers of historical fiction use research assistants—and in fact, I’m often asked how many research assistants I use! Actually, I don’t use assistants at all. It’s not that I don’t think they’d be helpful; it’s just that I couldn’t possibly tell them what to look for.
It’s rather like getting groceries for dinner. You can send someone to the store with a list—say, hot dogs and beans—and sure enough, they’ll come back with hot dogs and beans, and you’ll have a fine dinner. Or at least you’ll eat.
On the other hand… when I go to the grocery story myself, I may have it in mind to buy hot dogs and beans, but as I pass the meat case, I see that there are nice-looking lamb chops in today. Hmm, I think; lamb curry is awfully good, and I already have basmati rice and mango chutney at home. So I add the lamb chops to my basket, and then get a white onion, some garlic, and a six-pack of V-8 to make the curry. And on the way to the vegetable department, I pass the deli, where there is a special on fresh shrimp. Ooh, a shrimp salad to precede the curry! Get a nice green-leaf lettuce, some spring onions and a cucumber. Oh, and dressing. And then, of course, Mountain Dew, because nothing tastes better with hot curry than cold Mountain Dew….
So I spend a good deal more time (and money) by going to the store myself—but I get a much tastier and more original menu as a result. Novelists who use research assistants tend to get hot dogs and beans.
Translating this into writing—naturally there will be certain things that I find I want or need to know, as necessary ingredients to the story. However, more often than not, when I go looking for these tidbits of information, I come across something much more interesting; some fact whose existence I never dreamed of, and therefore couldn’t have sent someone to find.
As a brief example, take Monsieur Forez. I was reading a book on the practice of medicine in France during the second half of the eighteenth century, with the notion that I might pick up tips for Claire to use in her work at L’Hôpital des Anges. I did, in fact, pick up any amount of useful background: small technical trivia, like the art of urinoscopy, but also general information on practitioners of the period.
Licensed physicians were rare, expensive, and not always trusted by the general populace (for good reason; a license didn’t always imply either education or effectiveness). “Wisewomen” (les maétresses sage-femme) were not only popular as midwives, but were respected general practitioners, and many people with no medical education also dabbled in the healing arts, while plying a commercial trade for their principal living (e.g., Monsieur Parnelle, the jeweler with a sideline in trusses).
Among the “healers” who were not licensed physicians were—weirdly enough— the public hangmen. Because of the requirements of their trade, hangmen were not only executioners, but torturers, being often required to assist in official investigations by extracting testimony from unwilling witnesses. They were also often skilled bonesetters; you can’t disjoint a body easily without knowing quite a bit about how it’s put together in the first place.
Likewise, since it was often necessary to keep a victim alive for long periods, the hangmen had considerable knowledge both of gross anatomy and of physiological processes. A Monsieur Forez was cited as one of the best-known of these medically competent executioners, with the casual note that he did a good