Thank you for the honest feedback. I guess changing the title caused this to burden your queue again. I appreciate the time you took to look at it a second time.
Novel Treatments / Introduction
The fictional story of Little Woods is entertainment that I hope will provide readers with a contemplation of the repetitive nature of history and how the evolution of the 21st-century world governance is following a similar pattern to the development of governance of the United States in the 19th century. This novel might be categorically themed as the “local effects of globalization” and is the first of three planned, each expanding in the scope of that theme.
At no time should any reader conclude that the fictional characters in this story directly are real people. Instead, the characters are personality composites from two, different periods of time where the decisions made about dealing with the disruptive changes in their lives are as diverse as they are eternal. The comments made about actual historical or modern political figures in dialog and narrative are intended to provide the context of settings and are not intended to imply the involvement of those figures in the story’s fictional drama. All narrative is delivered from character point of view.
While H. H. Tanner’s Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History (1997) and an entry from Lydia Franklin’s journal provided by the St. Charles Historical Museum document the presence of a village of approximately 300 Potawatomi Indians living in the region of the Little Woods (which would become incorporated as St. Charles, Illinois in 1874) in the early to mid-1830s, I could find no written record to identify individual people or their specific activities during that time. This novel makes no claim to be a historical record of such people or their activities, but instead serves as a dramatic vehicle to help express the predominant issues of the time through the exploits of its fictional characters.
For example, no record exists of a specific cholera epidemic in the region of the Little Woods in 1833. However, the disease’s documented outbreak at Fort Dearborn in 1832 (http://www.earlychicago.com/) lends a plausible basis for its use in demonstrating the effects of European disease on the indigenous populations of North America. I had originally considered using smallpox as my choice for the historic, invading pestilence, but smallpox was less plausible than cholera based on time and place and offered a description of symptom and treatment that was less likely than cholera to be useful in the lives of modern readers.
The Chicago region of the year 1833 provided an ideal, historical setting for this story. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the atrocities of the Black Hawk War of 1832 set the stage for U.S. negotiators to demand the removal of the tribes at the Treaty of Chicago, which was signed on September 26, 1833 by local representatives from the tribes of the Three Fires (Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi). Chicago’s incorporation as an American town on August 12, 1833 and Fort Dearborn’s subsequent retirement as the Illinois prairie’s primary outpost also provided excellent milestones around which the story could form. The army outpost near the Little Woods that serves as a source of creative conflict in this story is a purely fictional construct.
The 21st-century side of this story makes extensive mention of recognizable landmarks, schools, hospitals, airports, and civil organizations, but the characters that occupy these institutions and their actions are fictional. The 21st-century protagonists, Lloyd and Marilyn McCallum, interact vigorously with their employers, coworkers, and neighbors after their careers are destroyed by the availability of less expensive sources of labor, but these interactions are fictional creations that do not document the specific behaviors of any real people. The characters that are involved in criminal activities, law enforcement, and business transactions are, likewise, pure fiction.
The underlying concepts that tie the two time periods (1833 and 21st century) together at a local level include: community, uncontrollable and disruptive change, communicable disease, individual compulsions, and displacement. My hope is that the reader will examine the decisions that the characters make concerning these factors and consider how he or she would react under similar circumstances. But more than that, I hope that you will enjoy the story of Little Woods and take great delight in the way it unfolds. For more background on the underlying research and principles behind this work, please visit my promotional website at: http://www.avicorcho.com/
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gilesward reviewed Version 2 -
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This stikes me as an incredibly ambitious project and as such demands attention. I confess that being English the subject matter is a little outside my knowledge zone, however, the way you describe the structure is extremely promising. Whether it is a concept sustainable over three manuscipts, as you put it, only you know. I particularly like the idea of the timeframe and the moons. There is no doubt that this would be of most interest to those with at least a general undertanding of the history, and as such, of course, will need to be extremely well researched… all the best with it!
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MsMenozzi reviewed Version 2 -
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I have to confess, first, that seeing this foreward would make me put the book down and seek another if I read it first. Perhaps if I glanced through the meat of the novel first and was intrigued, I might continue reading. But if I found this as the lead-in? No.
Okay, let’s get right to it. Once more, we are considering this as a foreward, so the critique will go with this in mind…
In paragraph 2, you can cut this bit without any problem, I believe: ”...and is the first of three planned manuscripts, each expanding in the scope of that theme.” Your readers haven’t even read the first story yet, and if you kept this introduction “as-is”, I doubt they’ll get fired up about another two manuscripts. Lose this bit, and you can combine the first two paragraphs, perhaps in a manner like this: “This novel might be categorically themed as the “local effects of globalization” and at no time should any reader conclude…”
I understand your desire not to be sued – who wants that? – but I believe that you could easily excise paragraphs 3, 4 and 5 with no problem. If you’re wanting to note that you used certain texts in your research for the project, that’s fine, but it isn’t necessary to go to all this detail as to what you found and where. In fact, it might better serve you to make a note in the acknowledgements section of the book, i.e., “Thanks to the St. Charles Historical Museum for providing the entry from Lydia Franklin’s journal…” etc. Or include an afterword – but it’s still too heavily weighted to be a foreward. As long as you include your disclaimers, you can’t be sued.
Your website promo can be included in your author’s blurb, or at the very end of your foreward. Here it’s lost and most readers won’t go back to find it.
Again, paragraphs 6 and 7 are unnecessary. The standard – “This novel is a work of fiction and all characters contained herein are fictional – any similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental – yadda yadda, blah blah blah,” is enough to cover you.
It is not necessary to note that you hope the reader will enjoy the novel, or think further upon what they’ve read within it. Of course you hope this to be the case – no-one writes with the goal of boring their audience, and then to be forgotten! (Well, maybe some authors of high-school text-books, but that’s pure speculation on my part.)
The inclusion of the Native American Moon notation is good – but if the story is well-written, won’t the reader figure this out on their own? You can, once more, move the website to the Acknowlegments page.
Your closing paragraph doesn’t really need the historical note. It makes it clunky and interrupts the tone of personal reflection, which was nice without it. Either the historical information is revealed through the novel, or it isn’t actually essentially vital. You don’t have to include all the research info for the reader. If you provoke their curiosity, they’ll seek it out, too.
I hope this will help you to refine your work yet again.
onlywish reviewed Version 2 -
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First I do not understand why you would need to write such a detailed disclaimer. You do have a lot of interesting information. That makes me want to know more about the story. For me this is a plus in having your writing read.
Calypsoidal1 reviewed Version 2 -
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This seems to be far more of a postscript than a forward. Much of this is covered by the standard disclaimer: Little Woods, A Novel. Don DeLillo wrote a NOVEL about Lee Harvey Oswald. It happens. As an “afterword,” this would be very satisfying; a little historical mint after the meal of what I am assuming will be a well-written story of parallel lives. But I would not have it precede the first pages of your story.
Huntress080 reviewed Version 2 -
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I do not believe that you will get sued after reading your introduction. I think that you are trying to be sensative to native American people and shows in the introduction.
ashkrafton reviewed Version 1 -
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I think that as far as disclaimers go, the brief generic “all characters and situations depicted within are works of fiction yadda yadda” is best. I don’t know the details of legality but if this would be enough to CYA, then use it.
The passage is interesting, though, and in my opinion would be a good forward. I do not read much historical fiction, but when I do, I appreciate the author giving me background so that I can start to process the information from the very beginning. I don’t want to open a text book and brush up on facts so that I can enjoy a story about them.
Therefore, I would remove the refences that insist that it’s fiction, such as “This novel makes no claim to be a historical record of such people or their activities” and “but the characters that occupy these institutions and their actions are fictional”. If you make a general disclaimer first, I’ll already know it’s fictional, and you can concentrate on telling me the facts that I’ll need to appreciate the story.
MsMenozzi reviewed Version 1 -
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As an enthusiast of Native American-themed literature, I would be interested to see how your work pulls all of these themes together. However, using this as an introductory disclaimer might weigh the novel down too much to sustain interest. If I were to pick up this piece and start reading from here, I would likely put it back on the shelf and continue browsing elsewhere. I’m a sucker for clarity, but perhaps it would be better to place this as an “afterword”, and note in an introduction that these clarifications are contained there? Otherwise, you seem to be beating a dead horse, a bit, proclaiming “It’s just fiction! Honest!” throughout.
Otherwise, the premise of the novel itself – in these tantalizing hints here – would certainly spark my interest. Go a little lighter on the explanations of the truth and let the fiction speak a bit more for itself. You could reduce this whole passage to the first two paragraphs (reworked a bit for clarity and punctuation, etc.), plus the concluding sentence of your final paragraph, and still convey the heart of your message.
I hope to see it on the shelves.
profet reviewed Version 1 -
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First off, this sounds like an interesting book… I want a copy.
The tone of this introduction worked well, being basically a legal disclaimer.
I found one or two editorial mistakes.
In this sentence the commas are slightly misplaced:
Instead, the characters are personality composites from two, different periods of time where the decisions made about dealing with the disruptive changes in their lives are as diverse as they are eternal.
It should read:
Instead, the characters are personality composites from two different periods of time, where the decisions made about dealing with the disruptive changes in their lives are as diverse as they are eternal.
Also this sentence contained an unnecessary comma:
The Chicago region of the year 1833 provided an ideal, historical setting for this story.
Other than that good work.
ckbailey reviewed Version 1 -
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The ideas as you present them here seem to have the potential to become an interesting novel. it does seem as though you’ve cherry-picked from your research historical situations which allow the maximum amount of leeway in fictionalization. But of course it’s impossible to know how effective this fiction will be until we can actually see a sample of you writing as a storyteller rather than a writer of a proposal for a novel. So I’d have to say that your concept is promising, conditional on your ability to actually bring it to life.
Papyrusandpen reviewed Version 1 -
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Your introduction was very intriguing. I enjoyed drawing the parallel between the two mentioned periods. Still, I would have liked it more if you had more specific references to the similarities in the 21st century. Your topical reference to communicable diseases, community, disruptive change, and displacement would have played alot better and attracted more attention if you gave direct similarities. Doing so would have lent greater credibility to what you say your story is about. All in all, I enjoyed it, and would consider reading it. Keep up the good work. Good luck with the book.
Papyrusandpen
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