Writing a historical novel about a real person brings with it a particular challenge. History may provide the names, dates and events, but it rarely tells us everything about the people who shared that person's everyday life—the friendships they formed, the conversations they had, the arguments, disappointments and moments of affection that were never recorded.
For David E. Owen, this was something he discovered while writing When the Stones Held, his novel about eighteenth-century Welsh bridge builder William Edwards. His first attempt had the history, the bridge and the man himself, but something was missing: William needed a world around him.
In this fascinating guest post, Owen takes us behind the scenes of the novel to explore how Welsh songs inspired two of his most important fictional characters, why some gaps in the historical record invited invention while others were deliberately left untouched, and how rewriting the novel changed his approach to bringing the past to life.
Giving William Edwards a World: Creating the Fictional Characters Around a Real Man by David E. Owen
Image credit: ©Amgueddfa Pontypridd Museum. Used with permission.
When the Stones Held is my first historical novel. Except, in a sense, it isn't.
I wrote it once, looked at what I had produced and
realised that something was missing. The historical events were there. William Edwards was there. The bridge was there. But the novel was flat. So, I started again.
Looking back, I think I had concentrated so much on getting William's story right that I hadn't given him enough of a world to live in. The people around him existed because William needed someone to talk to, someone to help him or someone to move the story towards the next historical event.
Two of those characters were Myfanwy and Elen. They were present in the first version, but they were shadows of the women they eventually became.
Both were inspired by Welsh songs, Myfanwy and Elen, Tyrd yn Ôl. The songs themselves don’t date from William's lifetime, but I wasn't trying to place them historically within the eighteenth century. They were part of the Welsh culture I knew, and they gave me something much more useful: the beginnings of two characters.
Myfanwy came first through the words of the famous song of that name. The woman in the song has fire in her. The singer sees anger in her eyes and a frown where once there had been affection. He pleads with her, remembers the promises she made and, finally, accepts that he may have to say farewell. That gave me my Myfanwy.
She could be affectionate and loyal, but she could also be impulsive, proud and angry. She wasn't going to behave conveniently because the story required it. Her fiery nature would sometimes lead her into choices that eighteenth-century society was far less prepared to forgive in a woman than it might have forgiven in a man.
Elen developed in a different way. In the second version, she became William's childhood friend. They knew each other so well and grew so close that, as I wrote them, it became obvious they would eventually marry. I had accidentally created a problem.
William Edwards was real, and history had already chosen his wife. He married Mary Jones.
I could have gone back and made Mary his childhood friend instead. That would have made everything much tidier. But by then, Elen and William's relationship had begun to feel important, and I didn't want to lose it simply because I knew where history was taking him, so I let them drift apart.
That gave me something I hadn't expected when I created Elen. Two people can be important to one another without their lives following the path they once imagined. William moved towards the life history had recorded for him, including his marriage to Mary, while Elen had to find a life that didn’t depend upon waiting for him.
Then her name gave me another possibility. Elen, Tyrd yn Ôl means "Elen, Come Back".
Those words stayed with me. History records that Mary died before William, and suddenly the song suggested a way of completing a fictional relationship that had begun in childhood. Elen could come back.
I liked that because I wasn't changing the known history to accommodate my fictional character. William still married Mary Jones. Mary remained an important part of his life. Elen simply occupied some of the spaces that history had left unrecorded.
There was another temptation I wanted to resist.
With Myfanwy and Elen already important to William's fictional world, and Mary destined to become his wife, it would have been very easy to turn the three women into rivals. Conflict would have come almost automatically, but it felt too easy.
They are very different women, and their relationships are sometimes complicated, but I didn't want their importance to be measured by which of them had William. When Myfanwy falls foul of the expectations of the society in which she lives, it is Elen and Mary who help her, and that became far more interesting to me than making them enemies.
It also helped me understand what had been wrong with the first version. William's world couldn't consist entirely of people reacting to William Edwards. Myfanwy's troubles mattered to Elen and Mary because Myfanwy mattered to them.
Once I understood that, the fictional world began to grow.
One of the more enjoyable examples came from something much smaller: the Llanover Inn.
An inn of that name still exists in Pontypridd, right next to the Old Bridge, but during the research I couldn't establish why it was called the Llanover. Llanover is a tiny village near Abergavenny, some distance away, and the unanswered question became irresistible, so I invented an answer: I brought a man into the story who had come from Llanover and set up the inn.
I have no evidence that this is how the inn acquired its name, and the novel doesn't pretend otherwise. It was simply one of those places where an unanswered historical question gave fiction room to play.
Other gaps made me react very differently. William's mother was real, but I couldn't find her name in the historical record. I could easily have given her one. After all, I had invented Myfanwy and Elen, but somehow that felt wrong.
If I gave William Edwards' real mother a name, readers might assume that I had found it during my research. So, throughout the novel she remains William's mother.
There is something rather poignant about that. William's name has survived for three centuries because of what he built, while the name of the woman who raised him has apparently disappeared. Sometimes a gap encouraged me to invent. That one seemed better left alone.
Rhys Price and Ewan presented yet another problem. The administration surrounding the Hundreds of Miskin and Caerphilly, and precisely who exercised authority over the bridge project at particular moments, proved complicated. Trying to include every possible historical figure would have required explanations that contributed very little to William's story.
So I simplified them into Rhys and Ewan.
That wasn't the application of some rule I had learned from years of writing historical fiction, because I hadn't written years of historical fiction. It was simply one of the decisions I found myself making while trying to turn history into a novel.
And that, perhaps, is what the second version of When the Stones Held taught me.
The historical record gave me William Edwards, Mary Jones, the River Taff, the failures of the bridge and eventually the remarkable structure that still stands at Pontypridd.
It couldn't give me every friendship, argument, disappointment, joke or moment of affection.
Those had to come from somewhere else.
Myfanwy began in the words of a Welsh song. Elen began as a childhood friend and then, almost inconveniently, became someone William might have loved. An unexplained inn name gave me another character. William's unnamed mother taught me that sometimes it was better not to invent at all.
In the first version, I had been trying to tell William Edwards' story accurately.
When I wrote it again, I began to understand that accuracy wasn't enough. William needed people around him who had lives of their own.
Before I could make the bridge matter to the reader, I had to make the people standing around it matter too.
Addendum:
Myfanwy lyrics in English
Why does anger, Oh Myfanwy,
Fill your dark eyes?
And your gentle cheeks, Oh Myfanwy,
Without blushing while beholding me?
Where is the smile that was upon your lips
That kindled foolish faithful love?
Where is the sound of your sweet words
That drew my heart after you?
What was it that I did, Oh Myfanwy,
To deserve the frown of your beautiful cheeks?
Were you playing, Oh Myfanwy,
With the golden fires of your poet’s love?
You belong to me, through true proviso,
And is it too much to keep your word to me?
I’ll never leave your hand, Myfanwy,
Unless I have your heart with it.
Myfanwy, may all of your life be
Beneath the sparkling sunshine of midday.
And may blushing roses of health
Dance on your cheek a hundred years.
Forget all your promises,
That you made to someone, pretty girl,
And give your hand, sweet Myfanwy,
Just to say the word “Farewell”.
Elen Tyrd yn Ôl
Core refrain
Elen, oh Elen, oh Elen come back,
Don't be so foolish as to leave me behind,
Elen, oh Elen, oh Elen come back,
Elen, I love you.
***
If David’s fascinating insight into the creation of these characters has whetted your appetite, then why not discover William Edwards’ story for yourself? When the Stones Held takes readers into eighteenth-century Wales and follows the remarkable true story of the self-taught stonemason whose determination to bridge the River Taff would leave a legacy that survives to this day.
Check out When the Stones Held by David E. Owen and discover the story behind the bridge—and the people David has imagined standing around it. Pick up your copy HERE.
David E. Owen
After decades spent teaching around the world—from the UK to the Caribbean, Africa, and the Middle East—I came to writing fiction later in life. I started with fantasy before finding my voice in fast-paced, real-world spy thrillers. My stories are grounded in current issues like corruption, gender bias, and power, but always emphasise pace, surprise, and character-driven tension.
I’ve visited over 80 countries, worked as a radio host in Abu Dhabi, directed Shakespeare for African audiences in the bush, and even survived a flash flood in Mali and an armed hold-up. I was arrested for drug-smuggling in Nigeria but was eventually released when I refused to pay off the police captain, and I was boat-wrecked alone on a desert island in the Arabian Sea (but no tree) and rescued through a police search. Now retired from teaching, I split my time between writing, photography, and trying to get fit (thanks to a stubborn rowing machine). My latest novel, Hate Machine, tackles misogyny and gender radicalisation — not typical thriller territory, but I like a challenge.
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