How creative?

[Diviner]

My historical novels are pretty much event driven, the real historical events, with fairly believable but fictional characters being touched by those events. I have a thesis (an American slant, if you will) that the privileged at the beginning of the seventeenth century in England--and the class system--were selfish and self-serving, close to evil. The religious bigotry of the times, a striking parallel to present day, is also appalling. This slant makes for few admirable leaders and makes my protagonist more or less a victim who manages to survive anyway.

My take on history seems so inherently logical--and unromanticized--that I wonder if it is essentially uncreative? My writing is not polemical, but it does not galmorize behavior which a modern mind finds shocking. What I am wondering is, is there a chance other writers who see things in a similar way might, even as I struggle, be writing a similar tale? How creative need a work of historical fiction be to stand in a significantly different place? I try to make it entertaining, but I stick close to the real historical events as the driving force of the story.

[Julie Worth]

If I were writing about the seventeenth century, I wouldn’t worry that anyone writing today would anticipate my ideas. I’d worry that they’d done it fifty years ago.

[Diviner]

If I were writing about the seventeenth century, I wouldn’t worry that anyone writing today would anticipate my ideas. I’d worry that they’d done it fifty years ago.


Can you give me some titles?

[Ol' Fashioned Girl]

Diviner, I wrote one about fifteen years ago set in the Tudor era. I did the same as you - historically accurate event, my characters mixed with real historical figures. Those of us who're interested in the Tudors all know that Henry VIII used witchcraft as one of his excuses for executing Anne Boleyn - my premise was that yeah, it was witchcraft... he just had the wrong witch.

I didn't worry about anyone else having done it in the past or doing it then or whether they might do it in the future. I worried about historical accuracy, weaving the events we know to be factual into the fabric of my story - and hopefully making it more believable at the same time.

Sounds like we're working in the same way, using history as the stage. We're two of thousands, I'm sure. You might try posting some of your work in 'Share Your Work' elsewhere on the site and get some critique. It's really hard to say one way or another about a piece until one reads some of it. ;)

[Stacia Kane]

My historical novels are pretty much event driven, the real historical events, with fairly believable but fictional characters being touched by those events. I have a thesis (an American slant, if you will) that the privileged at the beginning of the seventeenth century in England--and the class system--were selfish and self-serving, close to evil. The religious bigotry of the times, a striking parallel to present day, is also appalling. This slant makes for few admirable leaders and makes my protagonist more or less a victim who manages to survive anyway.

My take on history seems so inherently logical--and unromanticized--that I wonder if it is essentially uncreative? My writing is not polemical, but it does not galmorize behavior which a modern mind finds shocking. What I am wondering is, is there a chance other writers who see things in a similar way might, even as I struggle, be writing a similar tale? How creative need a work of historical fiction be to stand in a significantly different place? I try to make it entertaining, but I stick close to the real historical events as the driving force of the story.


I don't think it's uncreative, but it seems to me you've just listed part of the accepted reasoning for the English Civil War, not to mention various other revolutions throughout history.

Which is fine. Nobody says you can't support a theory and use it in your work. I'm in the early stages of planning a romance set just after Bosworth, where my MCs are all Yorkists. Because I'm a Ricardian. :)

[Puma]

Hi Diviner (et al) - If you do post a bit in Share Your Work, PM me and let me know the title and where to look for it. I've been doing quite a bit of critiquing up there and I've also been working on my historical novel set in the US just after 1800. Puma

[Carmy]

My take on history seems so inherently logical--and unromanticized--that I wonder if it is essentially uncreative? My writing is not polemical, but it does not galmorize behavior which a modern mind finds shocking. What I am wondering is, is there a chance other writers who see things in a similar way might, even as I struggle, be writing a similar tale? How creative need a work of historical fiction be to stand in a significantly different place? I try to make it entertaining, but I stick close to the real historical events as the driving force of the story.

Don't worry about what others are writing. Even if someone picks the same time period, the slant and characters will differ from yours.

I wouldn't worry about glamorizing history. The period you've picked is well documented so you should stick to the facts, while offering your perspective, and leave the creative incidents and thoughts to the fictional characters in your story.

However ... I try to keep abreast of historical research and what I'm finding lately is that many researchers are ignoring what has been accepted as truth for years and taking a new approach that, to my mind, is more logical than what most people believe. Who's to say that your view isn't the right one? More power to you, I say. What you write might generate fresh research.

Go for it. I look forward to finding your novel on my bookshelf because I am sick of reading historicals by people who haven't done their research.

[Cav Guy]

I think the biggest thing with historical writing (all writing, obviously, but to me this is especially important in historicals) is to have a good, believeable character that a reader can identify with. With a historical you're trying to draw a reader into a specific time period, to include its social conventions. That's hard to do if you have a character (or characters) that people can't somehow identify with or become concerned about.

Since I dual-hat and write non-fiction as well, I'd like to toss in some words about new research. In some cases the research focus is being driven by other issues (political considerations being one, or efforts by people who may not be totally grounded in the principles of historical research for another), but in most cases (hapilly) it's the availability of new sources or new ways of evaluating sources. This is bringing more of the "man on the street" view into things that may have in the past been dominated by a more higher-class slant. Sometimes this includes reviews of what was then popular literature which can help indicate popular views or opinions.

[BruceJ]

I think the biggest thing with historical writing (all writing, obviously, but to me this is especially important in historicals) is to have a good, believeable character that a reader can identify with. With a historical you're trying to draw a reader into a specific time period, to include its social conventions. That's hard to do if you have a character (or characters) that people can't somehow identify with or become concerned about.

Since I dual-hat and write non-fiction as well, I'd like to toss in some words about new research. In some cases the research focus is being driven by other issues (political considerations being one, or efforts by people who may not be totally grounded in the principles of historical research for another), but in most cases (hapilly) it's the availability of new sources or new ways of evaluating sources. This is bringing more of the "man on the street" view into things that may have in the past been dominated by a more higher-class slant. Sometimes this includes reviews of what was then popular literature which can help indicate popular views or opinions.

Agreed, Cav. Bringing a historical figure to life has similar ramifications of bringing a contemporary figure from a radically different culture to life. We tend to impute Western 21st-Century nuances into our understanding of historical--and non-Western contemporary (witness Iraq)--settings and it's a challenge to present the characters to the reader with their due. The linguist/translator has a similar challenge in transferring more than just words from one language to another, one society to another. It can be exhausting.