How to Handle sides of history / politics / historical figures

I don't think MCs can be neutral, unless they are caterpillars. They will have opinions, take sides, and so on.

If it's a historical, you should probably stick with real names for real figures. If it's Fantasy or alt-hist, do as you will.

Zenning said:

I'd like to ask how to handle historical events / sides of politics / race,

Click to expand...

Do you need the historical events for the plot?

Jane Austen's books are set during the Napoleonic Wars. There's just about no discussion of the War, or the politics, or the philosophy men were fighting about and dying for.

The Scarlet Pimpernel is set during the French Revolution and examines events/politics/philosophy and Lord-knows-what-else on every page.

Use an aspect of the world or ignore it altogether.

Zenning said:

if the MCs are neutral and the events are happening in the background, how to handle analysis of history, or express opinions, or should a novel be doing that.

Click to expand...

A novel can do any damn thing it wants.

If you want your characters to be motivated by the struggle for Civil Rights, send them to Selma, Alabama. If you want them to be motivated by a desire to compete in the Olympics, send them to Chamonix in 1924. Your fellows in Alabama need never mention skiing. Your fellows at Chamonix need never discuss civil rights.

Zenning said:

should I give pseudos to historical figures, i.e. MC watching on TV in the news etc.? (I have given a pseudo to the city that the story is taking place)

Click to expand...

You can name public figures if you want. I mean, why not?

job said:

If you want your characters to be motivated by the struggle for Civil Rights, send them to Shelby, Alabama.

Click to expand...

Shelby?... Did something happen?

jcwriter said:

Shelby?... Did something happen?

Click to expand...

Sorry, my mind must have wandered off. A friend just got back from Shelby.

Selma, Alabama. Selma.

Jeesh.

Ah, yes. Selma.

Sometimes I mention the characters' political views in my time-travel novel, but they're not germane to the plot, so they only get dropped in here and there as part of making them into rounded characters.

Buffysquirrel said:

I don't think MCs can be neutral, unless they are caterpillars. They will have opinions, take sides, and so on.

Click to expand...

Ah, but caterpillars DO have opinions. And there opinion is that everything in my garden is up for grabs.

I think reacting to certain events would make the character and world around him/her seem more real. But you only need to talk about events that would be important to the character, or the giant events that are unavoidable (like something set in the early 2000s should probably mention 9/11).

ishtar'sgate said:

Ah, but caterpillars DO have opinions. And there opinion is that everything in my garden is up for grabs.

Click to expand...

It's more of an instinct with them *pat pat*.

No realistic character is going to be without strong opinions. I'm not sure I'd call a story staring in the 80s and continuing until now "historical", but maybe that's because I was in my thirties when you novel starts.

But whenever and wherever a novel is set, the character determines everything. There will be things he can't ignore, things he has strong opinions about, and things he simply has no interest in.

If you make the character three dimensional and realistic, all else will take care of itself. Give the character the lead, and let him express himself as he wishes, as YOU would do, were you there.

I read a very good novel set in 1980s Massachusetts (The Starboard Sea by Amber Dermont) that handled history well. The MC was a very wealthy boarding school student, someone who didn't have any particular reason to care about many political developments of the time, but a lot of historical events that would be relevant to him were integrated into the plot to ground the novel's setting. His friends play one of the first Zelda games as soon as it's released. The resident white poser "Rastafarian" blasts Bob Marley on a boom box. The MC's relatives, who hold high-level financial jobs, are involved in the development of a major Wall Street crisis. And the MC analyzes US-Soviet relations for a major school project. All of these details are tangential to the main conflict of the story, but serve to illustrate some of the larger forces that motivate the characters and shape the way they live.

So I'd say if you can fit small references to relevant history into the plot in a seamless way, they could enhance your readers' involvement in and understanding of the story without distracting them from the main conflicts. Your characters might not have strong opinions about historical conflicts that they can afford to ignore, but unless they are completely disconnected from society at large they will have at least a dim awareness of the effects of historical events in their own lives.

It's worth noting that many books writing in a certain time period do not actually reflect that much on the time (other than what is unintended, of course). It always seems to me that when writing about a certain time in the past authors will want to make their characters discuss events significant to modern readers, but might not have mattered so much back then.

It depends on the story you're telling. Maybe current events effect the plot directly; maybe they make an impact on your characters; or maybe the events are just there as part of the general milieu of the time. It's all contingent on the needs of your story.

I wrote about the 1850's, and the story is heavily, heavily influenced by the politics and events of the time. I also wrote a prequel set circa 1830, and it is very much not effected by the politics of the time because the characters are incredibly self-absorbed and focused on one-upping each other.