Finding a narrative voice

My true birth name is Nāmākeha‘okalani—no more and no less. But since 1840, when the legislature required our people to use two names, including a “Christian” name in the manner of the haoles, I have gone by “Benjamin” Nāmākeha‘okalani. It is no matter. What matters is that I am ali‘i; noble blood runs through my veins.
Once There Was Fire, copyright 2016 Stephen R. Shender

When I began writing Once There Was Fire, I wanted to tell the story of Kamehameha's rise to power from a Hawaiian's perspective. For that, I needed a contemporary of Kamehameha's to tell the story. I found one in Benjamin Nāmākeha‘okalani, whom I came across in a genealogy of Big Island ali‘i posted on Ancestry.com. Benjamin was identified in the posting as the son of Kamehameha’s favorite brother. As a nephew of the great Kamehameha, he seemed the ideal candidate for the job -- especially since the real Benjamin (or Bennett) Nāmākeha‘okalani -- who in all probability was not Kamehameha's nephew -- lived until 1859 and would have been familiar with important events that followed Kamehameha's death in 1819.

Choosing Benjamin as Once There Was Fire's narrator was a beginning. But identifying him and his bona fides was not enough. Benjamin would have to embody a Hawaiian sensibility peculiar to his era, and more specifically, the sensibility of an ali'i (Hawaiian noble) of his time. And this required more of him than telling the reader that this or that happened or so-and-so said this or did that. Benjamin would have to sound like a Hawaiian noble of his time. Moreover, because he was telling his story in English from the later perspective of the mid 19th-century, Benjamin would have to sound like an educated ali'i of that time.

As it happened, by the time I found Benjamin, I had already discovered a book that was one of my first and perhaps most influential acquisitions in an ever-lengthening list of Hawaiiana that now numbers more than 25 volumes -- Ruling Chiefs of Hawaii, by S.M. Kamakau (Kamehameha Schools Press, 1992). Kamakau (1815-1876) was 19th century Hawaii's foremost native historian. His work initially appeared as a series of Hawaiian-language newspaper articles that were translated into English 85 years after Kamakau's death. First published in 1961, Ruling Chiefs was compiled from excerpts drawn from Kamakau's newspaper columns. The style of those Hawaiian-language columns has been described as "florid." Translated into "readable," mid-20th century English, Kamakau's writing still comes across as a voice from another time, as in the following passage:

It was during the time of warfare among the chiefs of Hawaii which followed the death of Keawe, chief over the whole island that Kamehameha I was born. Moku was the ruling chief of Hilo, Hamakua, and a part of Puna; Ke'e-au-moku of Kona and Kohala. Alapa'i-nui, son of Ka-uana, was living at the time on Maui .... When Alapa'i heard that the chiefs were stirring up trouble, he went to war on Hawaii against these chiefs, was victorious in battle against them, slew them, and united the island under his own rule.

If Benjamin's narrative sounds somewhat stilted to the modern ear, it's because he's channeling the voice of S.M. Kamakau -- further streamlined for a 21st century readership.

The tangled ali'i web

With his acceptance into Alapa‘i’s household, Kamehameha plunged into a tangled ancestral web woven of generations of “marital” unions and less formal partnerships of both political convenience and amorous opportunity. Genealogy was of paramount importance among the ali‘i, and it was Naeole’s responsibility to tutor the boy about his forebears.
 
“The first thing you must understand, Kameha,” Naeole instructed one day, “is that your great-grandfather was Keawe, who was mō’ī of all Hawai‘i, and one of our greatest rulers.”
Once There Was Fire, A Novel of Old Hawaii, Copyright 2016, Stephen R. Shender

One of the first things I had to understand before I could begin writing my epic Hawaiian historical novel was who the hell was related to whom. Given the obsession of the ali'i -- the Hawaiian nobility -- with consanguinity, this was no easy task. The ali'i believed that the closeness of parents' bloodlines determined the strength their children's mana, or spiritual power. The more closely two people were related, the greater power their offspring would have. Social ranking among the Hawaiian nobility depended on the presumed strength of their mana, which was derived from their bloodlines' purity. Thus among the ali'i, it was acceptable -- preferable in fact -- for brothers to pair with sisters, for half-siblings to partner with each other, first cousins with first cousins, and so on. The ali'i's widespread practice of polygamy, combined with their laissez faire attitude toward affairs of the heart -- or just pure lust -- gave their descendants ample opportunity for such pairings.

For example, look at the top line (first generation) of the genealogical chart accompanying this post. (I spent a ridiculous amount of time working out all this stuff, by the way.) You'll see that Keawe, Kamehameha's great-great grandfather, and king of the Big Island of Hawai'i, took three wives (he probably took more, actually), and had children by all of them. Moreover, at least one of his wives had children by another ali'i. Trace the various lineages to down to the second generation on the next line and you'll find Keawe's sons pairing up with their half-sisters (or vice-versa; Hawaiian women had equal say in such matters in those days). You'll also find half-brothers sharing partners, producing more complexity, and confusion for later genealogists, by the third generation. And this complexity continues to cascade and further complexify -- okay, that's not a real word, but it packs a nice punch -- in succeeding generations. Believe me, it's easy to get lost in this thicket. I did more than once.

By now, you're justified in wondering: What was the point of this exercise? For me as a storyteller, the point was the black lines I drew linking so many of these Big Island ali'i in successive generations to Keawe. And this seemed important to me as a writer, at least, because of the poignancy it lent to the often-violent conflicts between my characters, who were all related. I also thought at first that an understanding of all these family connections would make the story more interesting for readers. So I spilled a lot of virtual ink explaining them in the book. I had originally intended to include the chart in the novel, as a visual aid to readers, but there was no way to make it fit properly in a 6x9 trade paperback, so I scrapped that idea. Later, I hired an editor who persuaded me that I should scrap most of the narrative's genealogical details as well because they were just gumming up the story. So I cut out nearly all the mentions of most of the main characters' progenitors.

Readers who find that the old Hawaiians' multi-polysyllabic names make their heads spin owe my editor a debt of gratitude for that.

Why I wrote Once There Was Fire

"Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it."
-- Russell Lynes (1910-1991), managing editor, Harper's Magazine

I have never blogged before, but—like sex or writing novels—there’s a first time for everything, and since conventional wisdom dictates that all struggling, self-promoting authors should have blogs, and since I’m struggling to promote myself, here goes:

Imagine this blog post as the beginning of a book talk I might give someday at an independent bookstore near you. Imagine also that this nearby independent bookstore is somewhere in Hawaii, which would mean you’d be living in Hawaii and what could be better than that? Can you hear the pounding surf yet?

Where to start? How I came to write Once There Was Fire seems as good a place as any.

As a longtime writing professional (newspaper reporter, speechwriter, marketing-communications writer), I always admired writers who had the discipline and persistence to author books, and especially novels. However, contrary to Russell Lynes’ assertion (above), I never found my inner novel during my thirty-year career—which presumably would have been a relief to the late Mr. Lynes. It wasn’t for lack of trying. I did make a couple of fitful starts on novels over the years, but I wasn’t much good at inventing and sustaining characters, and my plot lines and quickly ran out of gas.

In the summer of 2004 during a weeklong trip to the Big Island of Hawai‘i, the sweeping epic of Kamehameha’s rise to power found me, gripped me by the collar, and would not let me go. Initially, it was just a tug—a brief history of 18th Century Hawaii that I came across in a popular tourist guide. Kamehameha’s name was already familiar to me, but like most mainland haoles, knew little about him. I knew even less about the old Hawaiians’ culture. I soon discovered that Kamehameha’s story had everything a wannabe novelist could want—strong, colorful characters; intrigue; violent conflict, lots of it; clashing cultures; and sex, potentially plenty of sex. Most importantly for me, being historical, Kamehameha’s story had a dramatic beginning, an exciting middle, and a poignant end—elements I had never been able to master or manage on my own.

The begged question was whether another writer had already plowed this literary ground. The saga of Kamehameha’s life was so dramatic that I was sure some author must have already turned it into a novel. I’d never read James Michener’s Hawaii. Surely I thought, Michener must have included Kamehameha’s story in his thousand-page novel. I discovered that he had not. Hawaii begins with the arrival of the first Congregationalist missionaries in 1820, about a year after Kamehameha’s death. Kamehameha figures in Michener’s novel only in passing and only in the narrator’s rear-view mirror. The story of Kamehameha was one that Michener did not tell. Except for a single biography and some novels written for children and young adults, it was there for the taking. I knew I had to tell it.

To be continued …