How much creative license to take in HF?

Some Lonely Scorpio

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In general, I am a huge stickler for historical accuracy in fiction. Which is why I feel pretty hypocritical when I take (minor) historical liberties in my own writing. Granted, these are mostly minor details the reader won't care about; and I only take these liberties for the sake of furthering the story. There will be a long-ass author's note at the end explaining which details were true and which were altered to better fit the story. And if I can inspire readers to learn more about the actual history, that's the best thing I can possibly do. How much creative license/historical liberty do you take in your writing? Where do you usually draw the line? Again, relatively small things are fine so long as they benefit the story. Blatant anachronisms are not. :p
 

DarienW

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Hey Some Lonely Scorpio, welcome to AW! :welcome:

I suspect by historical, you're speaking of earlier than the 80s, LOL! But I am writing in the early 80s, and one thing I let slide was Joan Jett's "Do You Wanna Touch," which came out about four months after my story's time-line. It works so well in the moment I used it, I felt it was worth the fudge. Her debut album had already been out. It was a cover of a Gary Glitter song which came out earlier, but would be so obscure to use.

I don't know how that compares to what you are doing, but maybe just saying some "liberties" were taken on the real history in a general way at the end would do. You can go into detail on a blog entry for those who want to know. Good on you promoting history!

Best of luck with your writing!

:)
 

Some Lonely Scorpio

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Hey Some Lonely Scorpio, welcome to AW! :welcome:

I suspect by historical, you're speaking of earlier than the 80s, LOL! But I am writing in the early 80s, and one thing I let slide was Joan Jett's "Do You Wanna Touch," which came out about four months after my story's time-line. It works so well in the moment I used it, I felt it was worth the fudge. Her debut album had already been out. It was a cover of a Gary Glitter song which came out earlier, but would be so obscure to use.

I don't know how that compares to what you are doing, but maybe just saying some "liberties" were taken on the real history in a general way at the end would do. You can go into detail on a blog entry for those who want to know. Good on you promoting history!

Best of luck with your writing!

:)


:) thanks for the kind words, I appreciate them!
 

Siri Kirpal

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Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

We discuss that issue a lot here. You might wander around and look at some of the other threads.

In any fiction, I don't like mistakes that throw me out of the story. So I don't like tomatoes in pre-Columbian Italy, nor obvious errors on page one. Please don't name girls "Ashley" if they were born in 1953 (I was there) unless you're going to do a lot of explaining the weird name inside the story itself. The better known the story or the closer you are in time, the more likely you are to have to get the facts right. But the farther out in time, the more I want the psychology to work. So, please no identity crises in Ice Age tribes. Don't make all people secular in eras when they weren't. Etc.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

Some Lonely Scorpio

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Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

We discuss that issue a lot here. You might wander around and look at some of the other threads.

In any fiction, I don't like mistakes that throw me out of the story. So I don't like tomatoes in pre-Columbian Italy, nor obvious errors on page one. Please don't name girls "Ashley" if they were born in 1953 (I was there) unless you're going to do a lot of explaining the weird name inside the story itself. The better known the story or the closer you are in time, the more likely you are to have to get the facts right. But the farther out in time, the more I want the psychology to work. So, please no identity crises in Ice Age tribes. Don't make all people secular in eras when they weren't. Etc.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal


Haha, anachronistic names have always irritated me. They take me right out of the story. :p But I see your point. I'm not guilty of any of those issues, fortunately.
 

Layla Nahar

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Me? Pretty much 0%. Here's an example. I'm watching a movie about Kuukai, the founder of Shingon Buddhism. He went to China on one of four ships. There was a storm, one was lost at sea, one turned back and two made it to China. But in the movie only one ship survives the storm. Even though it didn't really change the plot, it changes how the uninformed person understands those events, so why do it?
 

Atlantic12

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Fiction isn't a piece of journalism or a documentary, so I always assume a few things may be changed for drama. It's no big deal to me as long as it's not big fudges/anachronisms. I've read wonderful books with author notes that talk about historical events being moved a month earlier or later, landscapes changed, or characters appearing here or there a little early or late compared to the historical record. I don't mind this as long as the story was good.

One of the biggest fudges I see in historicals is what Siri mentioned --- religion and faith isn't taken nearly as seriously as it actually was all over the world up until very recently (and I know in many places it still is!). Faith doesn't have to be the center of the story, but it was probably an important part of the characters' world view and sense of self and morality, so why isn't it included more? Not to preach to anyone, but as another fact of the era.
 

angeliz2k

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Atlantic12, you make a good point. Religion was very much part of everyday life until recently. People learned the Bible and went to church every Sunday (speaking from a Christian POV). Even those who weren't particularly religious would have grown up in a world where religion was part of the common culture. These days, that is very much not the case, and that's reflected in literature, even historical fiction. I think that 1. the writers just aren't as familiar with the religious aspect and aren't comfortable getting into it, 2. they may personally have a distaste for that kind of religious content, 3. they may think that readers won't appreciate the religious content if they do put it in, or 4. they really aren't aware of the role that religion played.

I'm not a particularly religious person, and most of my characters are not very religious. I was raised going to church and Sunday school, so I'm fairly familiar with the Christian tradition, so I can work in references and religious thought here and there. However, I'm working on rewriting a WIP where one character is a Quaker and very much guided by his Quaker ideals. I'm trying to consciously build in that religious factor without overdoing it.
 

Some Lonely Scorpio

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I fully agree; I think there's a way to include religion in fiction without being preachy or obnoxious about it. :) Unfortunately, I can't think of any examples where it IS done well...
 

Tocotin

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I fully agree; I think there's a way to include religion in fiction without being preachy or obnoxious about it. :) Unfortunately, I can't think of any examples where it IS done well...

Off the top of my head: Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault accomplishes this flawlessly. It's not about religion at all – it's about the youth of Alexander the Great – and yet religion permeates completely everyday life, thoughts, and behavior of every character. Even the title itself has religious connotations. There is no preaching, no judging, nothing that might suggest any agenda on the part of the writer.

I know it sounds funny, because hey, why and how would you get preachy when you're writing about Ancient Greece? So my point is that not every religion is (or has been) equally prone to preachiness, or fanaticism, or dogmatism. Some religions don't even require that their adherents believe in anything, and still can be extremely influential.
 

Roxxsmom

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I read Code Name Verity a while back and really liked it. I suppose you could call it historical fiction, as it was set in WWII. The protagonists were fictional characters, and the names of air bases and so on were changed, but the author did a lot of research about women pilots during WWII (in Britain), the French Resistance, and even the role of the RAF in the early development of ball-point pens. However, she admitted to taking some liberties with things in the story, as (spoilers) there are no known incidents of female pilots shuttling agents over to France at that point in the war (though some of the agents were women). She set up a series of events that made it plausible for the character to have done so, though, and get away with it. The author had a appendix at the end of the story where she talked about which elements in the story were fabricated and which were based firmly on truth.

Is that the sort of thing you're talking about?

I have no problem with HF changing some specific names or manufacturing people and places as needed for a story (that may be drawn from real places and people), nor do I have an issue with their creating plausible situations that probably didn't happen, or with their filling in details that have fallen through the gaps of history (so we don't know what George Washington, say, did on a particular day, but it's possible that he could have done X, Y and Z in a work of fiction).

I have more trouble with things that are blatantly anachronistic, or impossible in mundane or realistic history (as opposed to alternative histories, historical satires, or historical fantasies), or when real historical figures do things that we know they never would have or could have done. What bugs me most, though, are those little "I didn't do my research" kinds of things, like turkeys in England in the 12th century. Those aren't even needed to make the story work. They just come off as lazy. Then there are the people who think they know how things were in a given time or place, but they're filling their story with myths and misconceptions about a time in history.
 
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Atlantic12

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I'm working on rewriting a WIP where one character is a Quaker and very much guided by his Quaker ideals. I'm trying to consciously build in that religious factor without overdoing it.

Yes, this is good, just the kind of thing I mean. That character will be likely to act and think in very particular ways, and it's a fundamental part of building that character. I have a character who is from a Catholic family, and it matters because in her era people still drew their loyalties and prejudices partly from which religion you were. She doesn't do anything particularly religious in the story, but she has a couple places where her memories do touch on it, and her basic moral view is strongly influenced by it -- mostly in how uncompromising she is in her convictions.

By the way, angeliz, I'd probably read every one of your WIPs! LOL
 

Lakey

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On the role of religion: I think the best way to get a feel for how religion integrates into daily life in the period you are writing about is to read books written during that time period, if you’re working in a time period when such books are available. One can find historical fiction that treats religion with tremendous thoughtfulness - Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall comes to mind, which is all about the intersection of religion and politics, or Gore Vidal’s Creation, about a man’s struggle to understand God in the ancient world, through the lenses of Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Confucianism, among others. But, for an understanding of the thoughts of ordinary people, literature from the period you’re writing about is a much better guide to the range of attitudes and world views than modern historical fiction, which suffers from all the same problems and biases that we are struggling to solve and rid ourselves of (*).

Be careful about assuming that in the past there was some general “more religious” mindset; rather, look at the lives and behaviors of people like the ones you are writing about. For instance, in Europe and in the US, atheism was a very big deal in certain post-Enlightenment circles. On top of that large swaths of people of many social strata who might have believed in God or been agnostic didn’t participate in any kind of organized religion, just as now. I think someone mentioned religion as a way of separating communities; us vs. them. That’s important and useful for some characters in some times and places; but it’s often more about social strata and community than it is about actual religious belief or piety. Moreover, for people who were raised in an enviroment of religion, they are as likely to take it for granted as to have it be a conscious part of their existence. It’s very good to be aware of the social norms around religion so that you can write with intention whether your character conforms to them or defies them, but don’t assume that your characters have to be formally religious because “people went to church then.” Rather, think purposefully about what religion means to your characters and use its influence and symbols accordingly.

(*) Off topic: I was reading a history book - nonfiction - that mentioned something about how gay soldiers are portrayed in post-war fiction to support an argument about this or that. The author cited a novel with a character in it who was a lesbian WAC. I thought, this is right up my alley - I need to track down this book! So I looked it up, and was disappointed to learn that it was written in 1987. I found it rather disingenuous of the author to call this a “post-war novel”. There is a HUGE difference between a book with a lesbian WAC written in 1947, and one written in 1987. The former would give one an interesting data point about its time, but the latter must really be taken very cautiously as evidence of anything that anyone thought about anything immediately after the war. It might have been meticulously researched, or the WAC character based upon a real person, but the author who cited it didn’t say any of that. While I have been gobbling up fiction written in the 40s and 50s of late, I’ve actually been largely avoiding modern historical fiction about that era since I’ve been working on the novel, because I don’t want to mix up stuff I read in there from stuff in sources from the time.
 
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Atlantic12

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Lakey, I do the same thing, avoiding more current novels set in the period that I write in. I'm aware of them and their plotlines, and every once in a while I'll read one (rarely!), but for the most part, I stick to stuff closer to the era if I'm reading fiction in that period. Always keeping in mind it's fiction, it's the dream of that author and not usually some universal truth about the age, just one person's snapshot.
 

Siri Kirpal

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Sat Nam! (Literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

A lot of good points here about how religion can be used...and how it should not be everyone-did-this.

Since I don't know what you're including in preachy (lots of contemporary novels that are secular, lots of atheistic novels, lots of Freudian novels are preachy, by my standards), I'm going to suggest an opera: Tosca, which takes place in Rome just after the Battle of Marengo. The first act takes place in a historical church that is still used. The characters range from extremely devout to meh to using religion as a ploy to trap victims. The last time of character is clearly the bad guy, but there's no preaching otherwise.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

Melody

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Worrying about this 'creative liberty' stuff is exactly why I write historical fiction BUT made up my own nation. This way I can mix and match fashion, foods and stuff that was happening in Italy, with stuff that was going on in France or England. I do try and stick to the dress, technology, or lack of it, in the year 1630, but can then tweak some of the customs and conventions of the time just a bit.

Lots of writers do take liberties, though. In IQ Einstein is still Einstein but he is set in a fictional family. It really depends upon your audience. Some will say write so accurately that it reads like non-fiction others say go for it. It seems as if the changes you make are true to the person's character, such as Einstein in the story mentioned above, most people will understand when you take minor liberties. But I do see how it may be troublesome to some people when specific known details are changed, as in the ship scenario mentioned above and Pocahontas and who she married in the movies and who she actually married in real life, etc.
 

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Probably quoted before (apologies) but I always liked Mark Twain's take: "Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please."

Careless anachronisms and errors of fact can easily dispel the transporting quality that I look for in historical fiction. That said, I've always thought that if we could travel back in time and observe events directly, we'd discover that much of what we thought was true wasn't. So I'm willing to give an author a wide berth in terms of exploring well thought-out possibilities that may go against consensus history.
 

Elenitsa

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Sometimes, a good story - the one you want to tell - has to prevail to certain historical details. Historical fiction classics like Alexandre Dumas and Walter Scott had done it, so why wouldn't we? Writer's license has always existed.

Nobody wants to tell how horrid the times were and how the street smelled and how filthy everything was... This can be glossed over. If the story tells about a battle, the king leading it bravely (instead of watching it from the fortress, how one of the chroniclers dared suggesting, while the others had kept polite silence) and inspiring the men for victory is a more epic image, more appropriate for the story...

I admit (and highlight in my presentations) that I deliberately had a detail wrong in my Viking story (and I highlight this in all presentations, and nobody had anything against it): Thessaloniki had been sieged by the Franks several times, but until 1185 they hadn't held it for more than a few days/ weeks. In my story, when my character returns after 6 or 8 years, the city is still in the power of the Franks (maybe not having been constantly all that time, but then it is) so she doesn't has any reason to stay. But this strengthens my story, doesn't weaken it.
 

Layla Nahar

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This thread is interesting. I thought people would stickle a lot more. Forex (and I hope I am choosing my words well here) - if I learned that something I read was, as in Elenitsa's examples, altered to fit the story, rather than making the story fit the record, that would interfere with my ability to fully immerse in the story. However, if done well, creating something for which there is no evidence, but that *could* have been (the women WWII pilots forex) I can enjoy that. I remember watching and enjoying "The Ginger Tree" but my Japanese professor at the time didn't like it, & one of his primary problems was the 'free spirit' Japanese woman who befriends the heroine. My professor said (and he spoke with some knowledge) that such a person could not have existed. fwiw.

I'm writing my first historical & I've created something that (imo) is plausible but for which there is no evidence of it's existing.
 

Tocotin

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I remember watching and enjoying "The Ginger Tree" but my Japanese professor at the time didn't like it, & one of his primary problems was the 'free spirit' Japanese woman who befriends the heroine. My professor said (and he spoke with some knowledge) that such a person could not have existed. fwiw.

Wut? That's interesting. I haven't seen the movie, but I've read The Ginger Tree and can't remember any "free spirit" Japanese woman. I wonder why your professor said that, but my guess is that he just didn't know too much about women in general, Japanese or not. The feminist movement was quite strong at that time in Japan I think...

On topic: I don't mind the author adjusting the historical facts so that they fit the story, as long as the story is entertaining. HOWEVER the atmosphere, the mindset, and the everyday details have to be more or less accurate, otherwise what's the point?
 

Roxxsmom

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I've noticed that people who study history are often upset with characters who break stereotypes about culture. Of course one should research what is known about a time and place, but surely there are outliers in any culture. Often it's the people who aren't typical who make for interesting characters, especially if their differences create obstacles for them to overcome. I'd be suspicious of any claim that such and such a person couldn't have existed, though they might have been highly unusual, and they may have experienced a lot of pushback. It's the absence of plausible consequences I notice more than the presence of someone who doesn't toe their culture's line.

There's also that issue with assuming that an average trend in a culture actually reflects a consensus and that a reasonable amount of variation hasn't existed in most times and places. For instance, I've had people my age act shocked by something that "wouldn't have been allowed" when we were young, yet I have very different memories of how things were in the 70s and 80s and of what was allowed and reflected in the popular media of the day. Imagine the confusion over what was normal and allowed hundreds of years hence.

I wonder if some future historian will insist that a person like me couldn't have existed in these times.
 

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I've noticed that people who study history are often upset with characters who break stereotypes about culture. Of course one should research what is known about a time and place, but surely there are outliers in any culture. Often it's the people who aren't typical who make for interesting characters, especially if their differences create obstacles for them to overcome. I'd be suspicious of any claim that such and such a person couldn't have existed, though they might have been highly unusual, and they may have experienced a lot of pushback. It's the absence of plausible consequences I notice more than the presence of someone who doesn't toe their culture's line.

There's also that issue with assuming that an average trend in a culture actually reflects a consensus and that a reasonable amount of variation hasn't existed in most times and places. For instance, I've had people my age act shocked by something that "wouldn't have been allowed" when we were young, yet I have very different memories of how things were in the 70s and 80s and of what was allowed and reflected in the popular media of the day. Imagine the confusion over what was normal and allowed hundreds of years hence.

I wonder if some future historian will insist that a person like me couldn't have existed in these times.

I was just going to say ...

There's a great book called "Doubt: A History" by Jennifer Michael Hecht. She does a good job of showing that every major culture had its doubters. There was the Carvaka of ancient India who didn't believe in gods or souls or anything supernatural. There were the Zindiq poets during the height of the Muslim caliphate who made fun of Mohammed and the Koran. I believe it was a pope of the 12th Century who issued an edict forbidding monks to "speak as if God didn't exist." You wouldn't say that unless people were doing just that. There was man named Menocchio (see "The Cheese and the Worms") in 16th century Italy who didn't believe in God, thought life originated from putrefaction and branched out into different species from there.

These are extraordinary examples but I gotta believe every culture had a significant percentage of doubters. Many, I suppose, depending on the time and place, had to be careful who they talked to about such things.
 

Ol' Fashioned Girl

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....On topic: I don't mind the author adjusting the historical facts so that they fit the story, as long as the story is entertaining. HOWEVER the atmosphere, the mindset, and the everyday details have to be more or less accurate, otherwise what's the point?

This. Very much this.
 

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I've noticed that people who study history are often upset with characters who break stereotypes about culture. Of course one should research what is known about a time and place, but surely there are outliers in any culture.

This is such a great point. You have to lay the groundwork for your readers, letting them know you know your character is an outlier. That is, you paint the backdrop of the character's culture and then bounce your character off of it, or contrast her against it.

But even when you are creating an outlier, she still has to be an outlier within reasonable parameters of her culture - you can't just drop a person with a wholly modern, western mindset into feudal Japan, for instance, and then say "well, she's an outlier!" And that, to me, is the extremely tricky part. I'm trying to write about lesbians in 1951, which was a time of very rapid transition when it comes to the way lesbians thought about themselves. This is fun, because it gives me a lot of latitude to give my characters an interesting range of attitudes about their relationships and their community. But I also worry that people might be put off by characters who have views that seem to them too modern, if they expect all pre-gay-rights-movement lesbians to behave and think a certain way. It's an interesting balance to try to strike.
 

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Wut? That's interesting. I haven't seen the movie, but I've read The Ginger Tree and can't remember any "free spirit" Japanese woman. I wonder why your professor said that, but my guess is that he just didn't know too much about women in general, Japanese or not. The feminist movement was quite strong at that time in Japan I think..

This conversation is from a long time ago, and that his how I remember the gist of his words. I only saw the tv series (BBC mini series). I really enjoyed it and I remember thinking 'but, you're missing the point - it's about the love story...'. I didn't say this to sensei, of course, because sensei... And at the time I was not one to openly contest things... But -- I remember thinking that the character was really an English person in a Japanese skin. (Maybe that's what didn't sit right with him?) Funny but at the time it didn't bother me at all. I still enjoyed the character. And here I am so fussy about a missing ship.