Date
5-2022
Department
College of Arts and Sciences
Degree
Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing
Chair
Timothy Christian
Keywords
historical fiction, accuracy, believability
Disciplines
Creative Writing
Recommended Citation
Cimino, Amy Elizabeth, "Family Lore and Believability in Historical Fiction" (2022). Masters Theses. 871.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/masters/871
Abstract
This thesis began with a story of family lore about life at the Manhattan Project plant site at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The artist's statement tells the story of lore passed down from grandmother to granddaughter during a road trip. As the family lore was written down on the page, the question of how to write believable historical fiction arose. Limitations in the research showed gaps in the narrative that the author needed to fill in. The critical theory paper evaluates how those research gaps can be used as opportunities for the craft of writing to bring this family story to life. Finally, the application of the research and family lore meet in the creative manuscript, Oak Ridge.
