Historical Accuracy And Character - Where Is The Balance?

As a general rule, I don't like it when historical characters behave like 21st century people in costume. But this particular situation doesn't seem that anachronistic to me. Relationships between masters and servants varied greatly. There might be a social distance between them, but that didn't mean that an employer had to be cold or cruel. There were cases of servants being mentioned in wills, for example.
The situation with the children might be unusual, but if she likes children and enjoys having them around, you can make it believable. As I understand it, she's living with her brother and so is unmarried. Maybe she thinks she'll never marry and this is the closest she'll get to having children in her life? Or maybe there's some reason why she wants to help out this particular family. Did the Mexican man or his wife help her out in some way?
This isn't my era (my writing is based in the 17th century), so I may be contradicted by others who know the time and place better!

I think there are two issues people may take with something like this, that are sometimes confused but not really the same.

One is historical accuracy. Some of those issues are pretty pretty straight-forward. No one will have a fridge in 1845. William the Conquerer won the Battle of Hastings. A woman couldn't graduate from Oxford in 1909. Knickers weren't generally worn in Europe in the 18th century.

They are simple, hard facts.

Then there are the more insidious issues, that are still based in facts but less straight-forward and will rile people unless you show that you know that they are anomalies and treat them as such. A British working class family in 1920 eating meat every day? Unlikely that they could afford that, but up to you to explain. A woman sent to school in 1682? Unusual, but girls' schools did exist. A poor person in Paris 1782 who bathes daily? It's up to you to explain how that was possible, what with the notoriously scarce water access in Paris in the 18th century.

If these things are treated as "normal", it will probably rile the typical reader of historical fiction, but you can work round them as long as both you and the reader are upfront with them being unusual.

"A person in the 18th century wouldn't" may sound as if it's simply about historical accuracy, but it isn't. It's really more about characterisation. It's saying "I am not convinced that a person of this background or those experiences would act like that." People living in the past, however, were no more all the same than we are. Some things were more common and more socially accepted than others but all eras contain lots of people who are atypical; anomalies, exceptions. If a person isn't willing to accept that, then it's not really an issue of the writer's historical accuracy, but either of a person refusing to believe that atypical cases have always existed (about which you as a writer can do nothing but shrug) or; you are failing in your characterisation (in the eyes of that particular reader).

So as long as you keep to the hard facts, everything else is in the writing. Not what you make your characters do, but how you write it and what explanations you give. So it's not historical accuracy vs. characterisation at all, I think. It's about creating characterisation that rhymes with historical facts. Not 'OR', but 'AND'.

Bess of Hardwick wasn't a "typical" woman and I'm sure some people would say "oh, I don't think a woman in the 16th century England could have a life like that, it's entirely unrealistic." But nevertheless she did. If you wrote about her and made it seem like this was what all girls expected, then I (and many others) would slam you for historical inaccuracy. If you wrote her like a 21st century feminist, I would slam you for poor characterisation. If you wrote her as an unusual woman for her time, some might still feel your characterisation off, and some would still maintain it was inaccurate and impossible because not every reader of hist fic is a historical expert.

In your case, I think you need to acknowledge that this was unusual and at odds with the customs of the time and place, give an explanation that works within both the context of the situation and the context of the historical facts. Not all readers will think you succeeded, but it's not a binary right/wrong thing but about how you write it. All we here can do is point to the stuff you probably will have to be able to explain in order to convince typical readers. Sometimes we might say "I really cannot think of a motivation for X that would convince me". Are we your potential readers? Then you should probably listen, or come up with something fiendishly clever and convincing that kills our objections. If we are not – not all stories are for all readers and vice versa, and maybe those anal peeps just aren't right a good match for your story – just ignore it.

Who is your target reader? If it isn't the anal reader, I wouldn't worry. If it is, I would probably spend some time explaining why this situation exists. But never think you will get approval from or readers. You never do, and the more you push the envelope in terms of unusual characters or situations, the bigger the risk you take. ETA: But the bigger the payoff may be as well. It's a deuced gamble, writing.

People have always varied. There's never been a time and a place where people all had the same beliefs, habits, and attitudes. There have always been outliers who were considered eccentric, even scandalous, by their communities. When reading a historical fiction novel where a character's behavior or attitudes fell well away from the norms for their time and place, the two things I look for are:

1. Plausible reasons for them to be different in that way. That's about characterization, really.
2. The consequences for being different. Are they regarded as eccentric, even shunned or condemned or persecuted? Do they hide the way they are from their friends, relatives, and neighbors? Do they experience any internal conflict over their own values? Do they find comfort in a community of like-minded people?

The others have said much better than I could, but my two cents as a reader of historical fiction are: I don't look for total accuracy when I'm reading historical fiction. I look for authenticity, which isn't the same thing as accuracy. Is is plausible with what I know of the time? Does it feel authentic? Does it make sense for the character?

As a historical fiction writer, I like exploring what may not have been common or was unpopular or contrasting my characters with society at large at the time.

I think it probably depends on the target audience too. Are they people who like Historical Fiction of the more serious, meticulously researched type, or are they more interested in swashbuckling, romantic tales set in period costume (maybe it should be called fictionalized history). The former type of reader hates the latter kind of story like toothache, but I've certainly run across plenty of popular and successful novels with anachronisms and implausible attitudes galore.

Roxxsmom said:

I think it probably depends on the target audience too. Are they people who like Historical Fiction of the more serious type, or are they more interested in swashbuckling, romantic tales set in period costume. The former type of reader hates the latter kind of story like toothache, but I've certainly run across plenty of popular and successful novels with anachronisms and implausible attitudes galore.

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What is implausible depends heavily on the reader though‚ because whether they think it or not‚ they don't know everything about the period. If I give a character views similar to Abigail Adams‚ who was an early example of an abolitionist and a feminist‚ then I risk the reader crying inaccurate attitude for the time. It wasn't. 1780 saw slavery banned in MA other states were also considering it at the time as well. It's only that we think of slavery as something that HAD to be at the time that people reject the idea a normal person could be so against slavery.

Then there's things like what type of husband a woman would want or what type a woman a man would want. The ideal wife for your average 18th century straight guy was intelligent‚ accomplished in womanly tasks‚ and not reliant on him to make sure the house was running. He wouldnt have even bought a house while courting without her consent unless he was an ass. Strong‚ smart‚ both passionate in bed and calm in other areas. She was more like a second in command than anything else and not the Victorian Angel of mercy people associate with anything set in the Edwardian Era and earlier.

Lillith1991 said:

If I give a character views similar to Abigail Adams‚ who was an early example of an abolitionist and a feminist‚ then I risk the reader crying inaccurate attitude for the time. It wasn't. 1780 saw slavery banned in MA other states were also considering it at the time as well.

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Oh, I completely agree, and it's annoying when you are actually being plausible, and someone actually has a more restrictive view about what people had to be like. There were educated women with "radical" notions in the middle ages, even. And a lot of what people think they know about some time periods is plain wrong. It doesn't help that teachers sometimes perpetuate the myths.

I remember learning that in "the middle ages in Europe" (never mind that they lasted a thousand years and spanned a continent), a person had only three baths in their lifetime, or that most girls were married and mothers by thirteen (many girls weren't even menstruating by then, and anyway, marriage patterns varied with time, social class, and place in medieval Europe). One teacher I remember stated that men didn't care for babies at all until modern times (I think he was trying to make the point that feminism is doomed to fail because paternal care of young children is unnatural). I guess Adriaen Brouwer was hallucinating when he painted this in the 17th century. His paintings, which focus more on everyday life of commoners than a lot of other Renaissance-era artists, disprove a lot of other things too, including the oft-stated "Women who weren't prostitutes never went to alehouses or taverns until modern times."

Huh, you ought to research the history of domestic service in the United States and Mexican & Mexican-American history in California. Because these questions are based general assumptions about life in the past, not based on historical records (written and oral).

I can tell you right now that your scenario isn't historically inaccurate or 21st century at all. Despite what today's political discourse wants to push, California--the Southwest in its entirely--didn't wipe away the Mexican population once the states were formed and borders between the US and Mexico were established. They were still here. They still interacted with Anglo-Californians on various levels.

The most insidious falsehood propagated by mainstream history lessons is that past is uniformly doom and gloom and and racism for people of color--if they aren't erasing POC completely. In fact, different states and even different regions of the same state had different views of minority populations. Look around at today: doesn't the ethnic makeup and relations within the community of certain areas in the country vary from place to place? In traveling through different regions of California, I've experienced wildly different interactions within a diverse population because of the history of the area.

ETA: if you're into reading academic texts, here's a dissertation that deals with this (chapter four, specifically): http://escholarship.org/uc/item/2xb386c5

Another thing that has always been around is people being interested in other cultures. Maybe your character just has an affinity for Mexican culture, and that comes out in her attitude toward its people. That's certainly not beyond the realm of possibility. Being from an upper class family she's probably educated and a little more worldly than the average yahoo.

If something is possible and plausible, then it is useable.

Historical fiction, by nature, has two perspectives. That of the time period in which it is set, and that of the time period of the author. You can't completely get away from the fact that you are a writer in the 21st century.

The question I have for you is, are you dismissing opportunities for conflict, drama, or character development by presenting your historical characters with an "abnormal" experience? Might the work be more interesting if you made them more a product of their time? Forget what other people might think or criticize of your work and ask yourself what a supposedly more accurate experience might do for your work as a whole.

Good luck.

mongoose29 said:

Historical fiction, by nature, has two perspectives. That of the time period in which it is set, and that of the time period of the author. You can't completely get away from the fact that you are a writer in the 21st century.

The question I have for you is, are you dismissing opportunities for conflict, drama, or character development by presenting your historical characters with an "abnormal" experience? Might the work be more interesting if you made them more a product of their time? Forget what other people might think or criticize of your work and ask yourself what a supposedly more accurate experience might do for your work as a whole.

Good luck.

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I came here with more or less the same question. Your point about the two persepctives helps my thinking a lot!

In all times and cultures, there have been people who took the road less travelled. It's a mistake to believe that there's one way that people would have behaved at any point.

What Twick said. Characters should always be products of their time, whether they take a more socially-accepted set of attitudes and behaviors or resist social norms. I don't want to get too down the social theory rabbit hole here, but resistance is also part of the dominant narrative in that it is produced by and in response to it. Don't give your characters ideas and attitudes that no one in their time and place would have had, but don't assume that means everyone at that time thought exactly alike.

That being said, I am more intrigued by stories of negotiation than outright rebellion, if that makes sense.

Have you given a lot of thought to the Mexican/Spanish viewpoint, about the Patron system? A landowner would be a Patron and his workers owed him loyalty, hard work, etc. But the Patron owes something to the workers, too. Like respect. A farm or ranch owner under this idea, no matter how rich he was, would be out in the fields in the morning to personally give directions even the lowest of workers what (s)he should do that day. To leave that duty to an assistant would be an affront to the workers' dignity. The Mexicans who worked in the house and close to the family might well be considered almost like family, especially if they had been there a long time, perhaps for a couple of generations. Great era and sounds good. Remember that Ishii, allegedly the last wild Native American Indian in North America, was still living with the remnants of his tribe in 1910. And not that far from your story locale. Ishii's band was wiped out by disease the the $50 bounty California paid for wild Indian scalps.