Playing Fast and Loose With History?

IdiotsRUs said:

Very true.

I mean I read for story - but if something significant has been changed, I'd like to know, even if it's just a 'I took this person out, but actually they did X and Y' or 'I added a catapult cos they're cool' Not every one will care though, and some will care more than that, enough to wallbang it.

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Generally you can inoculate the reader by introducing some historical liberty straight off, and the reader will either accept that it's that kind of book, or read some other book.

Julie Worth said:

Generally you can inoculate the reader by introducing some historical liberty straight off, and the reader will either accept that it's that kind of book, or read some other book.

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I could see that would work - well as long as the liberty you take is something they know about

I'm very exited about the new heritage centre being built at Bannockburn [a joint venture between The National Trust for Scotland and Historic Scotland.] It's going to be opened in 2014, ready for Stirling's celebration of the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn.

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Ohh goody, an excuse to go to Scotland!

gothicangel said:

he tried to sell it [most notably to Donald Trump],

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As a wig? It couldn't be any worse than what's on his head just now.

Oh no!

While people like Julie insist that you can do what you like with history I'll never agree. If she'd agree to market her novels as alternate histories I would shrug and say "Typical American, a la Braveheart!" but to try and slide them in as historical novels on shelves with the great writers of real historical novels. Never!

Tom, Bernard Cornwall always has an author's note and tells the reader what he's changed and why. That is fair.

And yes, now you can research accurately (see Resources by Era for the websites) and get a calendar for your year with phases of the moon and a compilation of weather for your year you should darn well get the dark and stormy night right too!

If one isn't interested in getting the details right for oneself and one's reader why claim to write historical fiction? Why not call the work alternate or adventure/murder/romance set in X century?

pdr said:

While people like Julie insist that you can do what you like with history I'll never agree. If she'd agree to market her novels as alternate histories I would shrug and say "Typical American, a la Braveheart!" but to try and slide them in as historical novels on shelves with the great writers of real historical novels. Never!

Tom, Bernard Cornwall always has an author's note and tells the reader what he's changed and why. That is fair.

And yes, now you can research accurately (see Resources by Era for the websites) and get a calendar for your year with phases of the moon and a compilation of weather for your year you should darn well get the dark and stormy night right too!

If one isn't interested in getting the details right for oneself and one's reader why claim to write historical fiction? Why not call the work alternate or adventure/murder/romance set in X century?

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Hm . . . 'scuse me?

pdr, I respect your opinions enormously. But how is there such a thing as a "typcial American" except by stereotyping us Americans? I'm sure plenty of Americans, a great many of whom are descendents of Scots, are just as irritated by Braveheart as you. As the song says, Hollywood is not America--and I and many other Americans roll our eyes constantly at Hollywood's skewed portrayal of the world, both modern and "historical".

But how is there such a thing as a "typcial American" except by stereotyping us Americans?

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Maybe the same way a lot of Americans expect Brits to all have butlers and play tennis a lot and say 'I know old chap, let's have a cup of tea and then go and bash the Bosch!'....*facepalm* Please, do not ever think that the 'British' part of Disney world is anything like the truth...It might be unfair, but ...well, I've been asked about William Wallace being progenitor of the royal family by tourists before now...

The US education system concentrates on the US. Faire enough. It does leave a tad of a gap in 'rest of the world' knowledge though. Just as my education didn't cover the intricacies of US history.

Not everyone is great at history. Many people get their ideas about history from the films and books they read. Which gives us an obligation to get it right or say when we've changed something

Thing is..thing is that's the thing. Because of Hollywood/peope messing with history in books without disclaimers, people get creative with history, then the people who watch/read accept it as truth unless the author says otherwise.

So if you screw with history, be up front about it. It's only fair to say what you're about after all.

Julie says take a liberty up front - but if I don't know the period I don't know there's a liberty being taken and so I assume the writer has researched, if it's marketed as historical. Unless I know otherwise, or the author states, I don't know and so I assume it's been properly researched.

I would be pissed to find out that was not the case.

Because...

I am not face to face and therefore cannot be seen to be discussing in a friendly way,angeliz, I cannot answer your comment:

But how is there such a thing as a "typcial American" except by stereotyping us Americans?

Anything I write could cause offence.

Everyone who writes HF about real people is taking huge liberties. You are putting words in their mouths they never said. It is about versimilitude, not veracity. Different nations/cultures will have different levels of knowledge and you'll need to do different things to create versimilitude depending on where you are trying to sell your book. Dorothy Dunnett, who is wonderful at creating versimilitude in her HF, makes me howl with laughter every time she mentions something to do with Canada in her thrillers, she gets it all so wrong. But that's okay --- she didn't need to convince Canadians in order to get them published.

I think Julie's notion of taking a big liberty --- which I took to mean something, not plausible but false, but rather implausible and false --- at the outset if you're going far wide of the mark was a good one.

IdiotsRUs said:

Maybe the same way a lot of Americans expect Brits to all have butlers and play tennis a lot and say 'I know old chap, let's have a cup of tea and then go and bash the Bosch!'....*facepalm* Please, do not ever think that the 'British' part of Disney world is anything like the truth...It might be unfair, but ...well, I've been asked about William Wallace being progenitor of the royal family by tourists before now...

The US education system concentrates on the US. Faire enough. It does leave a tad of a gap in 'rest of the world' knowledge though. Just as my education didn't cover the intricacies of US history.

Not everyone is great at history. Many people get their ideas about history from the films and books they read. Which gives us an obligation to get it right or say when we've changed something

Thing is..thing is that's the thing. Because of Hollywood/peope messing with history in books without disclaimers, people get creative with history, then the people who watch/read accept it as truth unless the author says otherwise.

So if you screw with history, be up front about it. It's only fair to say what you're about after all.

Julie says take a liberty up front - but if I don't know the period I don't know there's a liberty being taken and so I assume the writer has researched, if it's marketed as historical. Unless I know otherwise, or the author states, I don't know and so I assume it's been properly researched.

I would be pissed to find out that was not the case.

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Just like Brits expect Americans to be ignorant oafs or hillbillies? LOL. Or act really surprised that we bought a third of the continental US and Alaska? There IS some misunderstanding going both ways. We're great friends with the Brits, but I definitely noticed while I was over there that there are some major differences in outlook.

I have to admit, there are plenty of dumb Americans. The education system stinks (though I drank in all the knowledge I could and loved my school days), especially where history is concerned (I wrote a little about it in my blog). I wish I could signle-handedly slap some historical knowledge into people.

pdr said:

I am not face to face and therefore cannot be seen to be discussing in a friendly way,angeliz, I cannot answer your comment:

But how is there such a thing as a "typcial American" except by stereotyping us Americans?

Anything I write could cause offence.

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I'm sorry, pdr. I'm sure you didn't mean to offend and I'm sure you don't think in stereotypes, either.

gothicangel said:

In a seminar this week on Walter Scott a fight nearly broke out because of the Scottish students hatred at the way the Scottish Government market Scotland.

I was taught by [a now retired] poet and Scottish Lit critic and his biggest bugbear about Braveheart is that it has nothing to do The Scottish Wars of Independence and just an American rewriting of The American War of Independence. Basically Gibson and Wallace imposed American history on to a Scottish setting.

Funny story. At the Scottish premier of Braveheart [in Stirling] a local man walked up to Gibson:
"What happened to the bridge [at the battle of Stirling Bridge."
"We found it got in the way", replied Gibson.
"Aye, so did the English."

On the 'typical American' discussion: the next American tourist at Stirling castle starts [very loudly] retelling the Braveheart version of Scottish history is going to get a stern history lecture and a haggis in the face.

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Yeah. I got the feeling that I was the only one walking around Hever Castle who could put Henry VIII's wives in order. Correctly. Or who was looking for Lettice Knollys on Anne Boleyn's family tree because I wanted to see the Earl of Essex...

The thing is, you only hear the people who don't know what they're talking about, because the people who do are probably just taking it all in. It's always the blowhards who make themselves heard.

Another funny story (this person probably would have gotten it right if he weren't under so much pressure):
On the Weakest Link (in the UK), one question was about a US President nicknamed the Great Emancipator and Honest Abe. The person answered George Washington. I just about died laughing. Because, you know, ABE is a common nickname for GEORGE. It was a brilliant moment of silliness.

Interestingly, I've never seen Braveheart.

Yeah angeliz2k has a point. The world's getting dumber, not just each side of the pond.

Another example? On Eggheads the other day, that's a tv quiz show by the way, a contestant was asked which ocean Hawaii was in. She was given three choices: Pacific, Atlantic and Indian. Guess which one she plumped for?

Another thing that hasn't been mentioned in this thread though, is historical novels where the main character has 20th/21st Century values. To me, that's nearly as offensive as rewriting history!

There IS some misunderstanding going both ways. We're great friends with the Brits, but I definitely noticed while I was over there that there are some major differences in outlook.

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Oh lawks, yes. I think maybe because we shared history (until you got uppity and decided to go for Independence ) we kinda expect to be more similar than we actually are. The fact we (nominally) speak the same language reinforces our expectations to be similar. So if we roll eyes and say 'Americans' in exactly the same way we might say 'Blood Southerners' or whathaveyou, it probably isn't meant in the way you might think. It's sort of an affectionate thing. (well, not always lol. Depends on the Brit obviously. But a bit like when you roll your eyes at your husband when he tells that joke for the four hundredth time). Or like the fact my friend is 'that northern ginger monkey' where as to him I'm that bloody southerner who can't say bath right'

I recall one of the British Ambassadors to America saying he warned all his staff first time when they got to the States that 'America is NOT Britain only larger. Treat it as you would any other foreign country and get to know the differences.'

If I were you, I'd just thank your lucky stars/god of your choice most chavs can't afford to come to the states....

Another thing that hasn't been mentioned in this thread though, is historical novels where the main character has 20th/21st Century values. To me, that's nearly as offensive as rewriting history!

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I am sooo struiggling with this at the moment. Because I know certain um, cultural wassnames won't go down too well in the type of book I'm writing (historical romance) but I don't want to erase it completely.

I forgot where I read or heard this in book or film: "Isn't it wonderful to be living in the middle of the Renaissance?"

I've read this thread with great interest and am now sitting on the fence! I think that historical accuracy (HA) helps to create the internal ambiance of the story being told and when it (HA) is messed about with the whole structure of the story can crumble. BUT it does depend on the readers's knowledge of the period/place being written about. I read a book set in Florence where the Santa Trinita Bridge is used by the main characters to get from one side of Florence to t'other. Problem was that the bridge was built between 1567 to 1569; the action of the book starts in 1478.

IdiotsRUs said:

I recall one of the British Ambassadors...

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I recall the Christmas when my daughter discovered there was only big, fat man with a beard dropping presents off...

I was trying to sober up, putting a bike together and listening to the radio. The usual platitudes were on the airwaves. For Christmas, this politician wants to see peace and love; that politican wants an end to hatred. And the British Ambassador to somewhere wants a new pair of slippers.

gothicangel said:

I nearly came to blows [with a friend] who was adamant the John Buchan was racist. I was raging.

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A product of the times unfortunately.

Mick Taylor, he of Time Team fame, calls the Romans "savages with good plumbing". Yet for some reason, we're all a bit proud of Roman achievements. Nobody calls them Colonists, Imperialists or whatever.

I'm not quite sure what my point is, so I'm going to have a Daddy Juice, beer, and wait to see if anybody else can guess what the hell I'm trying to say.

Incidentally, I learned all I know about women from John Buchan novels. Or was it Flashman?

Regards

gothicangel said:

Did you mean colonialists?

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Possibly. Maybe.

But you can never tell with those Romans.

donroc said:

When reading, I can miss inaccuracies regarding flora, fauna, and added battlements that only a few experts may see.

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You'd be surprised at how many people can spot inaccuracies. I had to laugh when a student pointed out to me that the robin in my character's garden was the wrong bird. A robin in an English garden eats seeds while robins in North American gardens pull worms. I didn't know that.

ishtar'sgate said:

A robin in an English garden eats seeds while robins in North American gardens pull worms. I didn't know that.

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English robins eat worms too. In fact if you're digging over ground, they'll come and perch near you in case you unearth one. They also like insects.

ETa : Because Wiki is right about this lol:

it is relatively unafraid of people and likes to come close when anyone is digging the soil, in order to look out for earthworms and other food freshly turned up.

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"Isn't it wonderful to be living in the middle of the Renaissance?"

Love it!

It's like the "we live in 59BC" type dialogue!

Just my two cents worth.

On misinterpretation of history. It's not just a case of American schools centering on American history, or Brits being ignorant of US history, it's also down to perception throughout history.

I'll drag out my favorite bugbear on how Vikings have been perceived throughout history. Earlier this week there was a special edition of 'Time Team' on British TV, which highlighted recent archaeological discoveries including a very prosperous corner of Jorvik (York) where the Vikings had shops, workshops and warehouses, not the sort of thing you'd expect from people who allegedly spent their time plundering monasteries, pillaging, running amok with horned helmets and carrying off virgins. It's only in recent years that archaeologists have determined that, for the most part, Vikings settled peaceably in various parts of the UK. What makes me laugh is that archaeologists are surprised at how many places the Vikings settled. Parts of Cumbria are rich with Norse place names so it should hardly be a shock.

They did discuss the find Angel mentioned in another thread a few months back, of the mass grave of slaughtered vikings in Dorset. It was probably a raid that went wrong, all of the men were in their early 20s and all had been horribly mutilated. What this shows, to me, is that the Saxons were just as capable of mindless slaughter as the Vikings were.

So, in my long-winded, over-caffeinated way, I'm trying to say that it's not just a matter of what kids are taught or not taught, it''s also a matter of truths coming to light over time.

I'll crawl back in my pit now.

IdiotsRUs said:

ETa : Because Wiki is right about this lol:

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Which all goes to show that no one knows what everyone knows - because I heard an 'expert' on the radio say that while robins in England are pretty tame (which I know from experience that they are), robins on mainland Europe aren't (which I have to take his word on).

No one gets everything right.