Thread by @hobbb

#FlashHistories @PaulMMCooper, Fall of Civilization podcast

Idea of "flash histories" can mean historians writing less and leaving creative space for the reader's imagination.

Historians tell stories, but sometimes only in that opening anecdote

Helen began short-form writing with convictionblog.com telling stories of children in Yarmouth gaol

Used literary techniques, found short blogging format fitted source material, brief anecdotes, scenes

Experimented with writing every day for a month, capturing unfolding stories, upping the narrative tempo

Switched to historic present tense, let the characters speak, finding images from Norwich school of artists, helped to visualize the boys' world

All this led to research and insights she wouldn't have got to otherwise. Emotional, imaginative involvement in their stories

Moved into the world of flash fiction, e.g. imagining the story behind a Turner painting of Yarmouth harbour

She has written journal articles, but wants to write a popular history book, bringing the boys' stories alive, with some non-technical context

She traced the life stories of some of her lads, sometimes across the world

Writing it with novelistic techniques, suspense, false trails, contrasting characters

Agent showed interest, loved the blog, but said book needed narrative arc -- which comes from life of the young working class prison visitor

But that agent dropped it. Another liked it, didn't think they could place it

Now planning 2 books, better titles: possibly The Artful Dodgers and the Prison Visitors, and 2nd book more about the prison visitor.

Wants to reconstruct the personalities of the lads, break them out of the judgmental archive records condemning their characters