I HATE it when I read something that is historically related and it leaves me wondering where truth ends and fiction begins. There is a distinct variety of historical writing:
*Non-fiction and has well documented resources. I like these and I respect them.
*Historical Fiction that mearly glances at the historical era. I enjoy these books for the most part since the history isn't a focus and it's more like "oh, this is set in 1840--there shouldn't be any automobiles". There is a general rule, but it doesn't need to be historically accurate.
*Historical Fiction that attempts to bridge history and fiction. This is where some gray area exists. If an author is creating a fictional world which just happens to exist within a historical era, then I don't mind a lack of references. Many of my favorite books "live" here--Catch 22, Briar Rose, Hospital Sketches, etc--they tackle well known events and don't try to change the status quo. Most importantly, they do not tackle real people. They serve to give a human element that non-fiction often can't. For example, memoires, biographies and autobiographies, while they do attempt this always run into the question of "is this true or are you trying to make yourself/the subject look as good/bad as possible?" Fiction avoids this because we know it's fake, but at the same time a great author can create a character that portrays a life that those who lived through the event can all look at and say "that was me".
*Historical novel that tries to humanize real people/events. This is essentially putting words into the mouths of, well, gods. I think that these authors should be tarred, feathered, drawn and quartered. I know that there are historical scholars out there who will disagree with me on some books, saying that the author did a great job portraying whomever/whatever they're writing about. But I'm not a historical scholar. I have a great grasp for finding the B.S., but not much in terms of factual knowledge. I don't like this type of writing because the people that read it might have even less factual knowledge than I do, but without even the B.S. filter--a poor author could create a portrait that is complete fiction and the naive reader wouldn't know any differently. I only have one example of a book of this type that wanted me to pull out my hair: Unwise Passions by Alan Pell Crawford. If you are going to make a commentary on history, do not hide it in fiction. Admit your references with pride--and refer to them often. Write a historical novel, but you'd better have something factual to stand on that doesn't involve a written demand of the author to provide evidence for his case.
And on this note, I begin my efforts for full disclosure on the historical accuracy of my novels. You'll notice that Historically Dead (sorry if it's name has been changed since I wrote this) makes a strong attempt to bridge history and fiction. I've already admitted to being an expert on nothing more than an ability to call the B.S. card, so I welcome you to peruse my "references". Now, before you say anything, Wikipedia is my general go-to source and I'm okay with that. This isn't a scholarly paper/book and I'm not checking my references for accuracy, just some kind of platform to build off of without looking entirely ignorant.
One of my classes in college involved the professor reading us a passage from Wikipedia on one of the subjects we were studying. The point was that while yes, every item in the article was technically true, it didn't fully emcompass everything that we were talking about. If you've ever read anything on a subject then I know that you can find the exact opposite argument also in existence using equally relavent examples (it's one reason why I suck at writing argumentative essays--I can't convince myself that I'm right). This strategy for finding real "facts" doesn't work for a publically edited encyclopedia, so Wikipedia is stuck stating the facts and nothing but the facts (except when a troll decides to say that Socrates worked as a bouncer in a strip club in New Jersey).
So, don't knock my sources, but please do tell me if something I've written is blatently wrong (be nice). I mean, if it's something that I don't care to debate in my writing, you'll have to settle with my technically wrong, technically right facts as they stand, but I would like more information on the subject for my own mental encyclopedia, so do share what you know on the subject and, if it's not already obvious, I would appreciate a few bits of evidence to support whatever you have to say :-).
*Non-fiction and has well documented resources. I like these and I respect them.
*Historical Fiction that mearly glances at the historical era. I enjoy these books for the most part since the history isn't a focus and it's more like "oh, this is set in 1840--there shouldn't be any automobiles". There is a general rule, but it doesn't need to be historically accurate.
*Historical Fiction that attempts to bridge history and fiction. This is where some gray area exists. If an author is creating a fictional world which just happens to exist within a historical era, then I don't mind a lack of references. Many of my favorite books "live" here--Catch 22, Briar Rose, Hospital Sketches, etc--they tackle well known events and don't try to change the status quo. Most importantly, they do not tackle real people. They serve to give a human element that non-fiction often can't. For example, memoires, biographies and autobiographies, while they do attempt this always run into the question of "is this true or are you trying to make yourself/the subject look as good/bad as possible?" Fiction avoids this because we know it's fake, but at the same time a great author can create a character that portrays a life that those who lived through the event can all look at and say "that was me".
*Historical novel that tries to humanize real people/events. This is essentially putting words into the mouths of, well, gods. I think that these authors should be tarred, feathered, drawn and quartered. I know that there are historical scholars out there who will disagree with me on some books, saying that the author did a great job portraying whomever/whatever they're writing about. But I'm not a historical scholar. I have a great grasp for finding the B.S., but not much in terms of factual knowledge. I don't like this type of writing because the people that read it might have even less factual knowledge than I do, but without even the B.S. filter--a poor author could create a portrait that is complete fiction and the naive reader wouldn't know any differently. I only have one example of a book of this type that wanted me to pull out my hair: Unwise Passions by Alan Pell Crawford. If you are going to make a commentary on history, do not hide it in fiction. Admit your references with pride--and refer to them often. Write a historical novel, but you'd better have something factual to stand on that doesn't involve a written demand of the author to provide evidence for his case.
And on this note, I begin my efforts for full disclosure on the historical accuracy of my novels. You'll notice that Historically Dead (sorry if it's name has been changed since I wrote this) makes a strong attempt to bridge history and fiction. I've already admitted to being an expert on nothing more than an ability to call the B.S. card, so I welcome you to peruse my "references". Now, before you say anything, Wikipedia is my general go-to source and I'm okay with that. This isn't a scholarly paper/book and I'm not checking my references for accuracy, just some kind of platform to build off of without looking entirely ignorant.
One of my classes in college involved the professor reading us a passage from Wikipedia on one of the subjects we were studying. The point was that while yes, every item in the article was technically true, it didn't fully emcompass everything that we were talking about. If you've ever read anything on a subject then I know that you can find the exact opposite argument also in existence using equally relavent examples (it's one reason why I suck at writing argumentative essays--I can't convince myself that I'm right). This strategy for finding real "facts" doesn't work for a publically edited encyclopedia, so Wikipedia is stuck stating the facts and nothing but the facts (except when a troll decides to say that Socrates worked as a bouncer in a strip club in New Jersey).
So, don't knock my sources, but please do tell me if something I've written is blatently wrong (be nice). I mean, if it's something that I don't care to debate in my writing, you'll have to settle with my technically wrong, technically right facts as they stand, but I would like more information on the subject for my own mental encyclopedia, so do share what you know on the subject and, if it's not already obvious, I would appreciate a few bits of evidence to support whatever you have to say :-).
No comments:
Post a Comment