Fads of the 1920s

It's Camp time again -- Camp NaNoWriMo, that is.  I'm doing something a little different for Camp this time, though.  Instead of working on a novel, or even trying to finish past projects as I've done before (e.g., my failed attempt at April's Camp NaNoWriMo), I'm going to blog every day.  I have quite a few blogs and I've been slipping on all of them, so my goal will be to write a couple of blog posts a day for all of July.

Which brings me to an article about the 1920s that I've been meaning to blog about for a couple weeks:

4 Forgotten Fads Of The Past

The 1920s and the KKK

Sorry for not posting for a long time.  Truth is I've fallen out of the habit of working on my novels and other personal projects every day -- or rather, that habit has been replaced with freelancing endeavors.  I'm devoting April to getting back into the habit, though.  My goal is to write 500 words a day during April for Camp NaNoWriMo.  I have several old projects I want to finish so that I can move on to the next one, so getting back to work again is important.

Anyway, today's topic is the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.  Most people don't realize that the hate group was hugely popular in the 20s.  Not only was it considered culturally acceptable, but it was also a thriving part of the community much of the time.

When The KKK Was Mainstream

Dressed up in my glad rags

Are you ready for the surprise I told you I had for you?

Bestselling books in the 1920s

Yesterday I never got around to working on my novel.  It still remains to be seen whether I will manage to do so today, but in the meantime, here is a fun article on the bestselling books of the 1920s.

Do you recognize any of the titles?  The only one I recognize is The Sheik -- the movie was referenced in some of the books I read about the 1920s during my research phase, so I watched it.  I found The Sheik streaming online for free (the music track isn't original) thanks to Archive.org.

I'm tempted to read some of these books, especially The Mysterious Rider, The Sheik, and The Plastic Age.  Nothing shows you what the 20s were like better than reading or watching actual literature and movies from the time!

'Gatsby' a visual feast for lovers of the 1920s

Last night I saw The Great Gatsby in the theater for the first time (and probably not the last -- I am fully intending to see it a couple more times before it leaves theaters).  I have been stalking this movie for almost a year, watching the previews repeatedly and devouring all the new photos as they've popped up online -- I was devastated when they pushed back its release from December 2012 to May 2013.  An extra six months to wait!  Inconceivable!

1920s cocktails

I have taken a break on revisions lately to do some more research -- more on that later.  But as part of this, I decided to try out some 1920s drinks and figure out a favorite drink for my main character, Ruby.  In my rough drafts I have her ordering gin and tonics all the time, but I knew I wanted her to be drinking something with a little more pizzazz.

Prohibition

 It took me a little while to get back on track with my novel — our dog Emma has been sick with pneumonia for the past month, and all of the vet visits and medications and coupage, on top of everything else in my life, has hamstrung my efforts a little bit.

But I'm finally getting started on my research again.  Last week I started researching potential guns for Ruby to carry, and I think I've found one, but more on that in another post.  This post is about Prohibition — or, more accurately, Ken Burns's Prohibition.

My mom had watched all three episodes of the show back when I was working on the first draft of the novel, and recommended it to me then.  I was lucky enough to find them in their entirety on YouTube (otherwise I would have had to get the DVDs from Netflix, since it's not available streaming anywhere else, and I didn't want to buy it from iTunes because I wouldn't have been able to watch it on my Nook Tablet).

I've watched the first two episodes, and so far I'm impressed.  They provide fantastic information about the era — including some things that I should be able to use in my novels — and being able to see footage from the 1920s, including the entrances and interiors of the speakeasies, is invaluable as it will enable me to create a more realistic-seeming setting for my characters.

If you are interested in the 1920s, I highly recommend watching these, especially episodes 2 and 3 (since the first episode is more about the years leading up to the passage of the 18th Amendment — it's great as background, but not really about the 1920s themselves).

Enjoy!

Noveling playlist: 1920s music

I find that when I'm working on fiction — or just writing in general — music can be either a help or a hindrance.  The right music will help to create the mood I want to evoke in my novel's tone, while the wrong music will distract me from my writing.  I find that lyrics can be especially distracting, especially if it's the wrong kind of music or I have the volume up too loud.

Writing nonfiction and marketing copy, I tend to write without music.  It's been a long time since I've written fiction regularly, but long before there were iPods and playlists, I was choosing specific music as "writing music."  For instance, for one of the novels I started in high school (never finished — still intend to someday, as it was a fantastic idea) I listened to a lot of Enigma to achieve that dark, otherworldly mood.

For Ruby's story, I'm listening to 1920s music.

I could easily get by with stuff like Enigma, and as Ruby gets more heavily involved in the vampire world, perhaps I will.  But I find that 1920s music keeps me pretty well grounded in flapper and speakeasy culture while I write.

When hubby and I got married in 2007, our wedding was 1920s-themed, so we'd bought a bunch of 20s music from iTunes.  When I started working on Ruby Ransome I pulled out those old CDs and created a new playlist.  The jazz of the 1920s is fun and full of energy, but it also does well turned way down, as background music while I write.  If you are interested in 1920s music, here are a few of my favorites from my playlist:

• Crazy Rhythm
• Five Feet Two, Eyes of Blue
• Ain't She Sweet
• Sweet Georgia Brown
• Ain't Misbehavin'
• Coquette
• Dinah
• If You Knew Susie
• My Honey's Lovin' Arms
• Second Hand Rose
• The Black Bottom
• The Sheik of Araby
• Who
• The Charleston
• Honey
• Shiny Stockings
• Down Hearted Blues
• Makin' Whoopee
• My Blue Heaven

You might notice that a lot of these come from a 3-CD set called Rhythm Crazy, but you can also find a lot of them on YouTube, if you're just interested in hearing some 1920s music!

Bringing the 1920s to life

As I was getting ready to start writing in earnest, I started doing some research on the 1920s.  I had a feel for how I wanted to weave the danger and seduction of vampires into the glitz and glamor of the 1920s, but I wanted to make sure I was getting the details right, too.

To that end, I read — a lot.  Stephen King has said that to be a writer, you must be a reader, and I am a voracious one.  I read novels about the 1920s, and I read nonfiction books.  I read online, and I read offline.

Here are a few of the sources I found to be the most helpful.


F. Scott Fitzgerald

According to the nonfiction books I read, the Fitzgeralds had as much a hand in creating the 1920s and the flapper image as these things had in creating them.  The Great Gatsby is his best known work, but he has several other novels and many short stories about the 1920s.  Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, and Fitzgerald's other heroes and heroines perfectly capture the careless opulence that we think of when we envision the era.

Anything Goes by Lucy Moore

This is an excellent, well-researched nonfiction book that will give you an overview of what the 1920s were like.  Moore talks about everything from the Fitzgeralds to the music of the era.  She also discusses the economy and the rise of organized crime.  A great book if you genuinely want to know more about this era!

Flapper by Joshua Zeitz

Whereas Anything Goes gives you a picture of the 1920s as a whole, Flapper focuses on the rise and fall of the flapper icon during the 1920s.  In addition to discussing the impact that Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald had, the book talks about the popular actresses of the era — Connie Moore, Clara Bow, and Louise Brooks — and the impact each one had on the ideal of the flapper.  A fantastic book for anyone who wants to know more about this carefree icon of early 20th century womanhood!

Vixen and Ingenue by Jillian Larkin

These aren't nonfiction books, but novels about the 1920s.  I've read both, and I think they are fantastic representations of life for young women in Chicago and New York during the 1920s.  Although my vampire world is quite different than Larkin's authentic 1920s world, these books provided a lot of inspiration when I was trying to get into the Roaring Twenties mood!

Bright Young Things and Beautiful Days by Anna Godbersen

You might recognize Anna Godbersen's name from her Luxe Series, YA novels about the high class world of turn of the century New York.  Although I haven't yet read her newest book, Beautiful Days, I loved Bright Young Things when I read it after it first came out.  Godbersen also has done a fabulous job of recreating the Roaring Twenties in her novels.

The Internet Guide to Jazz Age Slang

This is a fantastic website I found with an alphabetical list of 1920s slang.  I am using some period slang in my novels, so I've found this guide absolutely invaluable!

I'm sure I'll have more to add eventually, as I'm still constantly researching the 1920s, even though I've already started planning and writing my novel.  But so far, these are some of my favorite sources of information and inspiration!