From the Archives to Pulp Fiction: A Scholar Learns About Writing
Erica Harth
Professor Erica Harth shared with her audience some pointers that she has gleaned from her recent attempts to write mystery fiction. She reflected on structural aspects that mystery writing has in common with fiction writing in general, such as creating “hooks” for the reader and sustaining interest through plot development. She then talked about problems that she has encountered as a feminist in working on her novel-in-progress, set in the 1950s. Feminism as we know it today was not prevalent then, so how to create strong women characters without anachronism is an issue; similarly, how to balance historical accuracy against the demands and expectations of today’s readers. What she has done to try to address these issues involves, among other strategies, the manipulation of point of view and the creation of conflicts between strong women protagonists and the male-dominant world in which they live. She ended her talk by reading from her short story, “Friendly Witness” (forthcoming 2008 in an anthology of short crime fiction), which is related to her novel in setting and characters.Before her retirement in 2006, Erica Harth was Professor of Humanities and Women's Studies in the Department of Romance Studies. She is the author of several books and numerous essays on early modern France and, most recently, Last Witnesses: Reflections on the Wartime Internment of Japanese Americans.
