The Fine Line Between History and Fantasy

Joanna Alonzo

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I've been working on a historical novel for the past three years. Right now, I have the characters and all that and the basic idea of where I want the novel to go. My problem is the time period, which is around 800A.D.. The novel is set in the Philippines, waaaaaaay before the Spaniards came and colonized the country.

I've done as much research as I possibly could given my resources, but the problem is there's so little to go by. Most historical artifacts/documents made before the Spanish came are gone/destroyed, so I'm having trouble constructing the world itself.

The setting of the novel is more along the lines of "what could've been" or "what we probably once were". I've tried to base some of the world-building on neighboring countries I knew the Philippines had a connection to during that time period (Malaysia for example), but I don't know... it's tough.

My question here is how does one keep a piece historical when there's so little material to research? I fell like I'm always in danger of crossing the border to fantasy...
 

angeliz2k

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Filling in the gaps doesn't put you into the territory of fantasy. It sounds to me as though you have a lot of gaps to fill because of a dauntingly sparse historical record. But if you go with what you do have and make educated inferences about the rest, I'd still count that very much in the historical fiction camp. It's when you start changing known facts or adding in supernatural elements that you start getting into fantasy or alternative history.
 

benbenberi

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Agree with angeliz2k. Filling in gaps of knowledge with things that are plausible and possible given the known facts is perfectly acceptable for historical fiction. When you're writing about a time & place where there are big gaps, you'll necessarily have to do a lot of filling in. That's fine. Putting in things that violate the known facts or insert magical/supernatural/fantastical elements is what will push the story over the line into alt history or fantasy.
 

snafu1056

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Wow. You sure like to do things the hard way. But I give you credit. That's a tough subject.

Have you talked to any Philippinos? Maybe there's an oral tradition about the ancient past that's still kinda known as folk history. Even if its just in the form of fairy tales.

Going that far back youll probably find some Indian influence. They were pretty active in Southeast Asia back then. Thailand, south Vietnam, Cambodia, etc. were all pretty culturally Hindu. So you might have to do double cultural research.
 

ULTRAGOTHA

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I agree with angeliz2k and benbenberi. It's not fantasy unless you include fantastical elements that weren't realistically part of the actual, or realistically conjectured, historical world of your characters.

There are many good, interesting well research historical novels that take place during scantily documented periods of history that are nonetheless firmly historical fiction and not fantasy.
 

Joanna Alonzo

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Ok great! Whew. *sigh of relief* Still have to do a lot of research though.

Wow. You sure like to do things the hard way. But I give you credit. That's a tough subject.

Have you talked to any Philippinos? Maybe there's an oral tradition about the ancient past that's still kinda known as folk history. Even if its just in the form of fairy tales.

Going that far back youll probably find some Indian influence. They were pretty active in Southeast Asia back then. Thailand, south Vietnam, Cambodia, etc. were all pretty culturally Hindu. So you might have to do double cultural research.
I'm Filipina actually. :) You're spot on with the Indian influence, because the one (yes, one - and it's not even complete) historical document we have that dates back to that time is written with months/dates of the Hindu calendar. The document also refers to a connection with Mdang of Indonesia.

Since these countries have more well-documented histories than we do, I'm thinking maybe I could derive some of the research from their cultures. Still, I feel like I'm making things up doing that.

As far as folktales go, it's still difficult, because the Philippines is divided into so many tribes and dialects, with unique folklore in each region. Again, not so well-documented because of colonization.

*scratches head*

The project is really important to me, and I really want to do it right, because to me, it's kind of like looking back to our identity as a people before any significant Western influence came in. I grew up thinking that we were a rather savage people before the Spaniards came - backwards and uncivilized, but after studying what little resources I could find about the Philippines during pre-colonial times, I'm not sure that's the case.

There are many good, interesting well research historical novels that take place during scantily documented periods of history that are nonetheless firmly historical fiction and not fantasy.
Could you recommend a few? I'd love to see how they pulled it off.
 

ULTRAGOTHA

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There's The Kin by Peter Dickinson. There is no history at all of that time period, only archeology. Therefore, Dickinson had to make up almost all of the society he wrote about.

Most of the historical fiction books I like are also fantasy. I'll have to think about ones that are straight history.