True history passing for alternate?

Hi guys,

I have this weird dilemma. I was writing a straightforward historical novel (not a normal thing for me, because I only write spec fic) but I based the story on some really rare, strange facts and settings only a few historians know of.

I showed it to a few betas and they all say, "great alternate history!" They never heard about the (admittedly weird) historical facts I based my book on so they assumed I'd made it all up

Now I think it would be real fun to market this book as alternate history, dieselpunk, because that's the kind of thing I love to write, but wouldn't it be cheating? Imagine people reading a book convinced it's pure science fiction, then discovering it all actually happened in reality.

What do you think? Thanks a lot!

2Wheels said:

I think that if you're incorporating real people and events, and don't deviate from the known facts as to what happened historically then it should stay as "regular' historical fiction. I can't justify going the alternate route, unless you start with the real history, and use that to propel your story off into pure fiction. You wouldn't market alternate history as real history (well some folks might try it I guess), so why do the reverse?

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Thank you very much, 2Wheels!

Naturally, I write fictionalized history, so I don't use real names in it and I fictionalize real events, anyway, so there're no real people or events mentioned (apart from the actual historical background, of course).

Yeah, some people market alternate history as real all the time, and some of them are even professional historians

On second thoughts, I think you're right. We read totally fictional books like Da Vinci Code assuming they offer accurate historical information which is probably one thing that makes them fascinating. So I'll see...

Thanks a lot!