Writing Historical Fiction

I’ve been hard at work for the last year and a half on an upper MG novel set in medieval Europe. The subject is the Children’s Crusade, which is thought to have occurred during the summer of 1212 A.D. I came across a reference to it while researching the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Historians have speculated that instead of a plague epidemic or a pipe-playing rat catcher—Der Rattenfänge—leading the town’s children into a mountain cave, perhaps they all marched off to the Holy Land. I became fascinated by the idea. What an adventure that would have been for a bunch of kids! Summer of the Sword and Cross was born of that research discovery.

Little did I know at that moment that I was committing myself to hours . . . and hours . . . and hours of research—reading reference books, documents, on-line websites and so much more. For months my desk has been piled with random bits of information like “12th Century Underwear” and “Some Romani proverbs and sayings.” My file cabinet is over-flowing.

I’ve read Avi, Cushman, Fleishman, Sutcliff, Gray, Grant and others, and I’ve even watched Orlando Bloom in The Kingdom of Heaven (just last night, as a matter of fact) as he attempted to defend the city of Jerusalem from Saladin. Ask me about the Sack of Constantinople or deerhounds, the Monastery at Mount Cenis or Dreikönigsschrein. I know.

I’ve pored over maps, paintings, diagrams of castles, and costume illustrations. I’ve learned about medicinal plants, the diets of medieval peasants, Catholic saints’ days, how to construct a snare, and the sound made by an angry wild boar. (Did you know you can actually listen to such things on line?)

The daunting fact, however, is that I have barely scratched the surface. In the process of all this, I’ve learned that a writer needs to be wary about becoming so caught up in the research that nothing gets written. It’s just that I know there’s a middle school librarian out there somewhere who’s also an expert on the Middle Ages and who’s waiting to pounce on me for some historical inaccuracy!

So these days, as I fret about the care and feeding of my blog, I also worry about the care and feeding of my young characters on their journey to the Holy Land. Perhaps I’m at the point where I just need to tell my story, get them to their final destination, and then go back at a later time to power-up the authenticity factor. Any advice, fellow writers?