Where do you put the 'fiction' in your historical fiction?

Hi PastMidnight - My WIP is all real people in real locations with mostly real events. But, because there's a limited amount of information available about the real events and no documentation of things that were actually said or how they happened - it's fiction (I'd guess that would be fictionalized history). And, because there are major gaps in events that are known and documented, I used commonplace events to fill the gaps - that would be the pure fiction.

I think most writers of historical fiction use fictional main characters but real peripheral characters. Look at a work like A Tale of Two Cities - the fictional story is tied into the historical events and people in a way that they blend together almost seamlessly. I think the reaction of many readers to well put together historical fiction is something like "It could have happened" or "It probably did happen but to different characters." Really good historical fiction writers use their fictional characters as a vehicle to tie in documented events that happened in a non-straight line progression of events (or events that happen in a different locale from the main line of the story).

My two cents worth. It will be interesting to see what other types of responses you get. Puma

I latched on to one tiny detail of Anne Boleyn's end - the fact she was accused of witchcraft - and asked the question: Well... what if it really was witchcraft, only Anne wasn't the witch to blame?

From that premise, I created my own witch and set her to the task of destroying the power of the Catholic church in England during Henry VIII's reign. All the history was accurate. The details were accurate... but there were scenes 'behind the scenes' that were the 'real' reasons behind what ultimately became Tudor history.

If the characters and story work, the writer can/may even alter history and get away with it as in those dramas where Mary, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth I meet face-to-face and the film KHARTUM, in which the Mahdi and General Gordon also have a face-to-face. For a total misuse of historic accuracy that made wonderful entertainment in its day, I suggest watching THE SANTA FE TRAIL with Errol Flynn and Ronald Regan.

Forgot to add the quote attributed to Napoleon and many others: "History is a myth agreed upon."

I see historical fiction as a very large tent, everything from barely fictionalized biography in which every character and event is attested, to works in which entirely imagined characters play out their own dramas in a historical setting. And everything in between. It's all good.

Puma said:

I think most writers of historical fiction use fictional main characters but real peripheral characters.

Click to expand...

It's certainly what I do.

And since my stories take place in a grey area between history and pre-history, I have rather more freedom than some of you.

The fiction in historical fiction is generally the main characters; the setting, the events, and some of the minor characters are typically historically accurate. If you put historical figures in fictional settings you're wandering into a different subgenre, in my opinion. I like reading both ways of rearranging history.

History is the drama...

'And fortune made his sword' by Martha Rofheart

A fictional story of the rise of King Henry the First, ruler of England.

I found this book to be an excellent read from a historical perspective. Locations, dress, weapons and lifestyles were very accurate and well portrayed. the dialog and some characters - complete fiction. weaving the two together - great fun.

I think LKP is right -- there's room for very, very accurate portrayals of real people and events, and for the fictional adventures of fictional people in a recognizable (if slightly modified) historical setting. Either can work depending on what kind of story you're trying to tell.

What's most important, I think, it to make a conscious decision as to how closely you intend to hew to the reality as you can know it and to stick to that, instead of shifting back and forth between precision and license as the mood suits. Readers will give you a quite a lot of leeway if you make it clear from the beginning the kind of leeway that's needed for the story; if, on the other hand, you're writing a very fact-based story and then suddenly interject something very new and odd, you're likely to lose them.

My one fictional project has a mix of real and fictional people in the early Roman Empire, though the main characters and events are all fictional. I intend to stick fairly closely to historical fact in terms of the setting, albeit with a couple of small liberties I think will aid in reader comprehension. (I.e., Tiberius and Caligula did not use the title Imperator as often as they did Princeps, but the majority of modern readers will think of them as Imperator, or "Emperor," and to me it makes more sense to simply say "Emperor.")

That's like me. I'm writing something where a girl can time travel and they want me to put it in the fantacy section. Everything else is historical fiction. I filled in the blanks and maybe twisted a few truths but most of it is accurate.

Chickidy - Time traveling from computers and cell phones to ancient Egypt is not the same sort of thing as a mix of real and fictional people in the early Roman Empire. If you were writing historical fiction, your story would only take place in ancient Egypt - no chasing mummies, no 3-D computers. As soon as you put the time travel in your story, you threw yourself out of historical fiction. Puma

It's really all about preference. There are historical fiction where the main characters are fictional people living through historically accurate events. Then there is historical fiction where real people are the main characters and fictionalized.

Personally, I think the sound rule is that if you're doing a story under the first category (fictionalized main characters living through real events), then keep the history as close to as it was recorded. But with fictionalized real people, there is more freedom to change what is recorded. This may seem counter-intuitive at first glance, but a reader of a historical fiction novel about real people knows that it is not a biography and, thus, assumes that true events were altered for the purpose of telling a good story. With fictionalized main characters, you are in the "witnesses of history" mode.

In any event, you're the writer and have all the freedom in the world. Your number 1 job is to tell a good story, IMO. If the reader wants "true" history, he or she would read a biography.

So a little bit of time travel putting my MC into the time period that she is reenacting makes not historical fiction? Even if that's the only fantastical thing that happens and all the rest is realistic?

I'm with you on this, PastMidnight. I prefer reading books with fictional MCs or with real people who are so obscure to history that the general reading public wouldn't know that that person was real.

On the flipside, if I am reading about antiquity, I don't mind the main characters being real people because with the minimal extant contemporary records of these people they have become pseudo-fictional characters already.

Rosemerry, your story sounds intriguing! It kinda reminds me of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

Here's why I wouldn't categorize it as historical fiction: because your time-traveling main character will always have her futuristic perspective, even as she participates in the events of the past. She's going to experience the events in a different way than the people living them in the moment will do. Does that make sense? The key is in your own sentence: she is re-enacting, whereas the people around her are not.

But maybe there's not a lot of science fiction in your work, either. Perhaps your book is best categorized as contemporary fiction?

I have noticed that in the books I've read that use this idea of time travel.

Sometimes the character can go back home and bring their love interest with them. Considering they are 15 doesn't work in my head because modern day is different from back then.

Then there are the ones where they get stuck in the time period they were sent back too. And they use the info they know about the time period to survive. Usually something along the lines of: oh it's January 1856 in March 1856 this town is going to get attacked. Said person usually gets attached to someone and tries to convince that know what's going to happen and try to save them with varying results.

I've always regarded as both scenarios as a type of historical fiction but I'm probably wrong. They are always in the YA section of the library though.

rosemerry said:

I have noticed that in the books I've read that use this idea of time travel.

Sometimes the character can go back home and bring their love interest with them. Considering they are 15 doesn't work in my head because modern day is different from back then.

Then there are the ones where they get stuck in the time period they were sent back too. And they use the info they know about the time period to survive. Usually something along the lines of: oh it's January 1856 in March 1856 this town is going to get attacked. Said person usually gets attached to someone and tries to convince that know what's going to happen and try to save them with varying results.

I've always regarded as both scenarios as a type of historical fiction but I'm probably wrong. They are always in the YA section of the library though.

Click to expand...

YA is its own genre so it is not bound by historical, science fiction, mystery, etc. labels.

Selling a straight-up historical fiction novel to a YA audience is really a non-starter. The thinking is that the YA audience would be turned off by history at first glance. Thus, the writer uses the plot device of a modern teenager whom the YA audience can relate being thrust back in time.

SteveCordero said:

On the flipside, if I am reading about antiquity, I don't mind the main characters being real people because with the minimal extant contemporary records of these people they have become pseudo-fictional characters already.

Click to expand...

This, I think, is the crux of the issue when writing a historical set in antiquity. With the exception of a few certain periods, contemporary records are few and far between, and those that we do have are far from reliable.

My approach, if any are interest, is to adhere to the historical record where it is agreed upon by ancient and modern sources. Thus Hannibal did cross the Alps in the fall of 281 B.C., Themistocles did lead the Athenian fleet to victory at Salamis, Caesar was assassinated in March of 44 B.C., etc. These are the facts, the "unalterables", if you will.

Beyond these are several points where a historian may be unreliable, either through his own lack of knowledge, confusion, or ready engagement in histrionics. When confronted with these, I consult both the ancient and modern sources, examine the arguments for something happening either this way or that, and through my own analysis arrive at what may have plausibly happened.

And then there are the gaps, where a figure may drop out of the narrative for months or even years. This is precisely the issue I encountered with respect to my MC, who is accounted for precisely twice in the years that my novel spans. I think in these cases we have more freedom to speculate what course of events may have taken a character from point A to point B, provided that that course is in keeping with the period, etc.

Man, I've had trouble with this concept. My Master's degree is in history, and with the last manuscript I was so busy trying to get everything historically accurate that I missed out on telling a good story.

I might as well have been giving a dull as dirt lecture.

rihannsu said:

Man, I've had trouble with this concept. My Master's degree is in history, and with the last manuscript I was so busy trying to get everything historically accurate that I missed out on telling a good story.

I might as well have been giving a dull as dirt lecture.

Click to expand...

That's an issue I've had with mine, too. Too much detail that pulls the reader out of the story.

There's a definite art to both getting it right AND telling a good story.

Thiis is tricky...

but I think that readers of historical novels really want people, i.e. characters who tell their story, one the reader identifies with because it's about those human concerns like love and hate and relationships and power or lack thereof, but set in another time.

Anyone can read a history book about the Renaissance and learn about the notables of that time, but a hist. novel reader wants the human touch to make the history real. A war is a war, a bad thing. When the reader experiences it through the eyes of, say, a family involved in various ways, who are hurt and afraid and struggling to survive, that reader experiences vicariously the horror of war. This is what most readers of hist. novels are looking for.

So the problem with using real people as your main characters and not minor ones is that people have read about them in history books and have set ideas about them.
They don't go down well as main characters.