I love history. Absolutely love it. Heck, I even taught it for a while. So many really interesting, really weird things happened in the past.

One of my favorite things to do is to take a real historical event, analyze it, then twist it. Oh, yeah, I get lots of plot ideas this way. Take for example, the Beast of Gevaudan. In the 1760s, France wasn’t the safest place to be. A strange, wolf-like beast (the Beast of Gevaudan) was prowling the countryside, killing dozens of people (a hundred according to some), leaving a trail of blood and terror in its wake. Eventually a creature was killed (actually, I think several creatures were killed–and the hunters all said they’d slayed the beast!), but one particular wolf/dog was killed by–gasp–a silver bullet.

Now, for the most part, my little Beast tale is supported by fact. But, in my mind, I add a bit more to the tale. I think the Beast was a real werewolf. And I don’t think the creature was ever killed by a hunter. I think it simply left the area in search of a new hunting ground, and I think it continued its attacks for years…and years.

There I go, twisting history.

When I wrote my werewolf novellas for Red Sage, I decided to create werewolf heroes who hailed from France…in honor of the Beast. (But don’t worry, my heroes aren’t blood-thirsty fiends–they’re the good guys, really! The pack always punishes any wolf/man who attacks innocents.)

Of course, there are so many other tales from history that interest me. King Tut’s tomb, Cleopatra’s suicide, Elizabeth Bathory and her blood baths. So many…

Does anyone out there have any favorite historial facts that you’d like to twist?

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 15th, 2006 at 9:57 pm and is filed under Romance. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.