Historical Fiction Readers/Writers:

Authentic: Getting the details right without shoving them front and center. As you say, OpheliaReviled...historical references should be natural.

Inauthentic: Glossing over or ascribing noble/innocent intentions to the less-than-noble actions of famous figures. The one that always leaps out to me is Colleen McCullough having Julius Caesar wear the red boots of the ancient kings because he had vericose veins and they made his legs feel better.

I like to find little known facts which shed a light on other writings. For example, Chaucer's Bishop in the Canterbury Tales has thrown his grey fur cloak over the table beside him at a meal. In that time the Sumptuary Laws forbade grey fur unless the wearer had an annual income of at least five thousand pounds. At a time when a free labourer was earning sixpence a week, this gives the wearer an equivalent earning of a couple of million dollars! So Chaucer must have been telling us that this churchman was definitely not in a poor order.

For me, it depends upon the research and writing. The ability to show rather than tell.

I do not mind seeing or using foreign words and phrases in context with translation because they add flavor. I read and write HF because I enjoy learning as well as reading and writing a great tale.

Accuracy is essential, and if there are some alterations, the author should refer to them in the Notes sections. See my comment regarding Napoleon's quote below.

For me, it's characters. If characters come across as anachronistic or as caricatures, then the whole thing falls apart. As for actual details . . . I think setting, like the kind of room the characters are in, or the props they're picking up and putting down, or the things they're doing as they speak. These details help build a world unobtrusively. It's the small things a person of the time would have seen and done.

I enjoy being transported to that time and place. A good historical writer incorporates information as to clothes/appearance, furnishings and equipment, mannerisms/speech, climate/weather, setting/scenery, religion and politics, historical characters, and accurate language (with translations where needed) seamlessly. I have a good imagination so if the writer has done his or her job, I can see everything vividly.

I don't like the "tell all" incorporation of romance that started about 50-60 years ago that moved historical fiction from the battlefield to the bedroom. Writers before that time created an idea using allusion; since that time things have gotten more and more graphic. These more modern writers have taken away the reader's freedom to create his or her own image of what happens by spelling it all out. I don't care for it and that's why I've stopped reading historical fiction. I want to read and learn about history - not the bedroom, which really hasn't changed much in the whole stretch of humanity. Puma

I like it when a writer makes the past alien and strange and does not try to impose a twenty first century world view on the characters.

I love being transported to a strange and wonderful place and ultimately it feeling like home. While attitudes and certain values change, I believe in universal truths and I think there are fundamental values deep in the human psyche. Time, place and circumstances all come in to play when it comes to how we interpret and react to values - for me, that's what makes good historical fiction fascinating. I also want to learn something new, or I feel perhaps I've wasted my time. And simply, I love meeting historical figures.

I detest factual inaccuracies. The writer can use his/her imagination to fill in missing details (that's half the fun), but mistakes that can be prevented through research are unforgivable.

This might sound like I'm contradicting myself, but I second Doogs's 'inauthentic' point and times it by a million. There is nothing more intensely irritating and insulting than when writers try to gloss over dishonourable deeds, or things that sit uncomfortably, to suit modern sensibilities and make their characters 'nicer'. I don't want to be told some nonsense about why the character instructed a massacre. I want to be transported into the character's mindset, so at least I can understand why he did unpalatable things, and I can make up my own mind how to feel about it. Some of the worst behaved characters in fiction are amongst the most loveable and memorable.

The Devil is in the detail.
In almost every other aspect of my life I am a bit of a slap-dash slob but, when it comes to research about the every day things of the period I'm writing about, I am OCD. I want the reader to see what I can see in my mind's eye.
In my WW2 book, I had a plane shot down on a day that the squadron in question had no losses, but it had to happen for the sake of my story. I've made sure that I've mentioned in my notes that I took a bit of a liberty.
In my books, the MCs rarely encounter well known figures, because the stories are more about the lives of ordinary people turned upside down by war or revolution.

Puma said:

I enjoy being transported to that time and place. A good historical writer incorporates information as to clothes/appearance, furnishings and equipment, mannerisms/speech, climate/weather, setting/scenery, religion and politics, historical characters, and accurate language (with translations where needed) seamlessly. I have a good imagination so if the writer has done his or her job, I can see everything vividly.

I don't like the "tell all" incorporation of romance that started about 50-60 years ago that moved historical fiction from the battlefield to the bedroom. Writers before that time created an idea using allusion; since that time things have gotten more and more graphic. These more modern writers have taken away the reader's freedom to create his or her own image of what happens by spelling it all out. I don't care for it and that's why I've stopped reading historical fiction. I want to read and learn about history - not the bedroom, which really hasn't changed much in the whole stretch of humanity. Puma

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Now, Puma. You know the bedroom has changed massively over the years. Think of the mead halls, or the royal bedroom where business was conducted with the king lying in bed.

Now, sex on the other hand . . . well, 'boy meets girl' is as old as time, ain't it?

I'm just poking at ya a little.

It's all a matter of how to phrase it, Angeliz. Poke accepted. Puma

It was fabulous, Ophelia. I really wanted to use my all time favourite Blackadder exchange, but it didn't really sum up my take on life...

Nursie: "You almost were a boy, my little cherry pip."
Queenie: "What?"
Nursie: "Yeah, out you popped out of you mummy's tumkin and everyone shouted, 'It's a boy! It's a boy!', then somebody said, 'but he doesn't have a winkle.' Then, I said, 'A boy without a winkle? God be praised it's a miracle: a boy without a winkle!' And then Sir Thomas Moore pointed out that a boy without a winkle is a girl. And everyone was really disappointed.."

Blackadder's hysterically funny. Especially Baldric and his turnip fetish.

I'll echo the sentiments others have mentioned: I want to live in the characters' minds. Give me unfamiliar words as though they're heard every day, I'll figure out what they mean by the context. Don't feed me modern mores and values hiding in a kirtle, show me the mores and values that made the character what he/she is.

I grew up with Golden Age science fiction and was always impressed by those writers who could transport me to the ends of the galaxy or into an alien civilization without ever stopping to say, "this is a phaser, a kind of ray gun." Instead, they just pointed and a beam of light shot out with devastating effects. No explanation needed.

I like getting a history lesson without knowing I'm getting a history lesson.

It's easier for me to say what jerks me out of reading a (an?) historical--modern jargon. If I read one more "No way" set in the 12th century, I'll barf.

angeliz2k said:

For me, it's characters. If characters come across as anachronistic or as caricatures, then the whole thing falls apart. As for actual details . . . I think setting, like the kind of room the characters are in, or the props they're picking up and putting down, or the things they're doing as they speak. These details help build a world unobtrusively. It's the small things a person of the time would have seen and done.

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Oh, Vishnu, how I agree! I hate when characters are anachronistic. A common one is the woman who is an alienated rogue, because the author thinks she has to trample social custom and feminine culture in order to be interesting. 21st century feminism doesn't apply here!

Why can't a woman ever work within her historical context?

Like everyone else, I adore the details. The cadence of language naturally lost with time reinvigorated in the narrative and voice. This always seems to come down to the author's ability to research and integrate--you can always tell who fulfilled their responsibilities as historical authors. Their works have an unquestionable seamlessness.

The awesome historicals are more than a read--they are an experience in the world presented.

selkn.asrai said:

The awesome historicals are more than a read--they are an experience in the world presented.

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Oh I agree!

Actually, I don't read historicals that much (even though I write them), and if I do, the thing I want is an engaging, believable story written in a consistent style.

I have nothing against an author who is conscious of the reader and digresses from the story from time to time to explain things (it can be done very well). I also have nothing against, and possibly prefer, an author who tells the story as if the readers were living in the era presented, and who isn't overly concerned if they don't know or cannot understand something. I'd rather read a book which startles me and not merely confirms my knowledge.

Hear! Hear!

Why can't a woman ever work within her historical context?

Seconded and thirded.

Women could and did do so much. For many centuries their work was vital to keep family and community healthy and fed throughout the winter.

Oh, and please go and post that in the Romance writers' section, only be prepared to duck!

selkn.asrai said:

Oh, Vishnu, how I agree! I hate when characters are anachronistic. A common one is the woman who is an alienated rogue, because the author thinks she has to trample social custom and feminine culture in order to be interesting. 21st century feminism doesn't apply here!

Why can't a woman ever work within her historical context?

Like everyone else, I adore the details. The cadence of language naturally lost with time reinvigorated in the narrative and voice. This always seems to come down to the author's ability to research and integrate--you can always tell who fulfilled their responsibilities as historical authors. Their works have an unquestionable seamlessness.

The awesome historicals are more than a read--they are an experience in the world presented.

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Agreed. It seems like way too many women in historical settings are liberated femme fatales. Women were brilliant and accomplished and did many things, but they were repressed and they did have to contend with a society that would look down on them. By all means, I love a strong woman. But strong does not equal feminist, liberated, out on her own. Strong can come in many different flavors.

The high school I attended in the late 1960's didn't allow girls to take science or drafting. Nor were they allowed to play sports other than basketball and ringette. It wasn't "seemly." Not only was that not unusual, it was actively supported by most of the female population of the time. So if I come across a 12th century female who flaunts every rule of her society and doesn't end up with severe consequences, I can't buy it.

Puma said:

I don't like the "tell all" incorporation of romance that started about 50-60 years ago that moved historical fiction from the battlefield to the bedroom. Writers before that time created an idea using allusion; since that time things have gotten more and more graphic. These more modern writers have taken away the reader's freedom to create his or her own image of what happens by spelling it all out. I don't care for it and that's why I've stopped reading historical fiction. I want to read and learn about history - not the bedroom, which really hasn't changed much in the whole stretch of humanity. Puma

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You're entitled to your own opinion and reading habits, of course, Puma. And I agree that often the sex scenes seem completely unnecessary in the course of the plot.

For me, though, part of what makes reading historical fiction interesting is the combination of the different with the familiar. I like to feel a common sense of humanity with the characters, even when they are living in very different circumstances with different constraints of etiquette and morality. So having something which really hasn't changed, whether that's greed or pride, or compassion, or lust... or even sex... can be quite a powerful way of drawing a reader in, when it's done well. Sex scenes that develop characterisation and move the plot along, and make me care about the characters, now those are the kind I like!

girlyswot said:

You're entitled to your own opinion and reading habits, of course, Puma. And I agree that often the sex scenes seem completely unnecessary in the course of the plot.

For me, though, part of what makes reading historical fiction interesting is the combination of the different with the familiar. I like to feel a common sense of humanity with the characters, even when they are living in very different circumstances with different constraints of etiquette and morality. So having something which really hasn't changed, whether that's greed or pride, or compassion, or lust... or even sex... can be quite a powerful way of drawing a reader in, when it's done well. Sex scenes that develop characterisation and move the plot along, and make me care about the characters, now those are the kind I like!

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I agree.
Romance and sex have been around probably before our ancestors climbed down from the trees and started walking upright.
Historical fiction isn't just about the big events or the movers and shakers of history but, to me, it's how events impact everyday lives.