"accuracy in historical fiction" Topic

I read a short story from the Diana Gabaldon series about Lord John Grey
link

It was a pretty good read so I've started reading the longer novels.

Admittedly her understanding of things military & the historical aspects of the SYW & F&IW are somewhat woeful but for me it doesn't detract from the novels.

Is historical accuracy in fiction an issue for you?

As long as the story is good I am not such a stickler for accuracy. I donŽt mind at all how OŽBrian jumps about in time, because Aubrey-Maturin are fantastic books.
However, I do prefer that details be correct. OŽBrian would not be OŽBrian without all that great nautical information, and I would expect a reasonable amount of diligence from any other writer of historical fiction.

Yes – I find inaccuracy grates – I can ignore it to a certain extent but it never goes away…
I have the same problem with TV – for just a little bit of research and attention to detail they could have a vastly superior product but they prefer to go with whatever they think looks cool…

Being badly off is a deal killer for me. I love the Bernard Cornwell Saxon series, and was pretty excited when I saw the BBC was going to do a series. Then I got one look at an ad. The costumes were rechid. It looked more like "Game of Thrones" than Saxon England. Never watched a single episode.

rechid?

rechid: link

Diana Gabaldon's heroine is a doctor, and reading about her work in the 18th century was nice. Incidentally there are some favourite authors (favourite by me, I mean): Alan Mallinson (Matthew Hersey, Light Dragoon officer), William Dietrich (Ethan Gage, adventurer, gambler and pupil of Benjamin Franklin) and I will soon start Robert Brightwell (Thomas Flashman, the uncle of Sir Harry !).

Minor inaccuracies are fine but major mishaps or history rewritten to improve the plot is a complete not for me scenario.

Costuming errors bother me more than sociological or cultural inaccuracies. I can live with historical characters having modern attitudes or ideas because historical fiction is really a reflection of our times and the author's vision. But if I see stirrups in ancient Rome, I'm instantly calling shenanigans.

Well that was embarrassing. rechid = wretched.

Diana Gabaldon's heroine is a doctor,

Not really. In the Lord John Grey stories her hero is, not surprisingly, Lord John, a soldier in King George's army.

Inaccuracies are very irritating, and can spoil a good story for me – examples include the Lee-Enfield rifle in the Indian Mutiny and an C18 cavalry officer with the rank of ensign…

What a peculiar word! What language might that be I wonder..

As an historian I have it when non-modern characters act according to modern ethics and cultural norms. Why read historical fiction if you don't want to be transported to a different time. This is what I found particularly off-putting about Cornwall's series set in Arthurian Britain. Arthur, in particular, was just too modern.

Kevin

Is historical accuracy an issue? Yes. What kind of issue ..?

I think with historical fiction, the historical context sets the stage for the experience of the piece. It relates to the age-old dilemma of the writer (fiction, instructive material, game mechanics, game scenario, etc.), "What can I expect the audience to have on the way in?" I generally think about that from the standpoint of two large classes of thing: knowledge – facts and data, and baggage – how facts and data interact with my (the audience, as a group of individuals) value system.

While the word "baggage" has a negative connotation, it does not always have a negative impact. Whether the feelings associated with the baggage are negative or positive, I think they positively impact your experience of the material. They provide a richer context than in a purely fictional setting where the audience must fill in the gaps for themselves.

(This is part of why I think certain types of fan fiction are very popular. People automatically fill in the gaps and feel the need to have that become a part of the shared (and often the shared "canonical") experience.)

So baggage gives the writer some ability to pick and choose where to focus effort without the need to create everything. Likewise, knowledge provides a different context and allows the writer latitude in different directions. One doesn't have to, for example, explicitly tell the audience in the text whether the French and English are allies or enemies.

That example leads to the challenge that comes with the power of knowledge and baggage … Can I really assume this or that? If someone has a different set of social mores, does this still work? How common is "common knowledge"? Will using this bit make me come off like a Nancy (an insult that assumes you both know what it means (knowledge), and that its alignment with your social viewpoint won't break your experience when used as an insult (baggage))?

As far as making assumptions about the audience' weltanschauung, I think it is OK to assume that even if individuals will not align with a particular attitude, they can accept it as a genuine part of the milieu. Knowledge gives me a little more challenge. Beyond whether it is or isn't appropriate to assume particular knowledge (working out your base line of general "should-knows" and "someone interested in this will know that"), in the modern age we seem to have a gross overestimation of the precision with which we know things.

If I was taught that a certain shootout happened at high noon, then putting it at 2:00 pm is an historical inaccuracy. Even if I know that most people involved probably couldn't afford a watch (or likely tell time on one), wouldn't have them synchronized to any reasonable degree, and that anyone paying more attention to their chronometer than the surrounding activity wasn't likely to be in a state to provide eye witness testimony after the fact. But still, I was told this, and in the 21st Century, high noon means 12:00:00!

The absolute best solution I have seen is in the back of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series, where he takes a couple pages to explain what his perspective on the facts of the event are and where he took creative license to modify things a bit.

Ah, Ochoin, perhaps you are in for a feast (;-)): what I meant is the "real" heroine that Diana Gabaldon created: Claire Beauchamp Randall. Lord John Grey enters the cycle through her lover Jamie. Claire is a nurse in WW II and after returning to the 18th century becames a doctor. If you up till now only read about Lord John, I can advise you to start the full "Outlander" series.

"The absolute best solution I have seen is in the back of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series, where he takes a couple pages to explain what his perspective on the facts of the event are and where he took creative license to modify things a bit."

Yes, agreed. CJ Sansome does this too.

The clue is in the genre name 'historical fiction', if it was all true it wouldn't be fiction…

As long as it isn't too silly, I am fine with it, same for both books and TV series. Even the ancrhonistic costumes in both 'The Tudors' and 'The Last Kingdom', as well as the cast of dozens fighting The Battle of Barnet in a forest in 'The White Queen' didn't matter as they were all great stories.

George MacDonald Fraser handled the issue of accuracy quite well, I think.
The Flashman books are the "memoirs" of a British soldier, who was everywhere and behaved badly everywhere. In his 80s, Flashy sat down to write his memoirs. Flashy says he is breaking the habits of a lifetime and being completely truthful. Maybe. And there is the charm.
Wryly, Fraser says in the notes and foreword that he checked the historical accuracy against known facts as well as he could, and Flashman is to be depended upon. Again, Maybe.

Where there are obvious "errors",Fraser excuses Flashy on the grounds that a hard living octogenarian could not be expected to get everything right.
In some cases Fraser says that Flashman was just plain wrong, confused dates and people, etc.
It is cleverly handled, and it works.

So far I don't seem to see any real poll type questions.
Unless it is:
It matters.
It doesn't matter.
It depends.

When I am reading Hornblower or the like, and the brave captain orders his men to clew up the fore t'gans'l shrouds and goose wing the mizzenmast stays, I assume he knows what he's talking about. I sure don't.

Absolutely yes, it does matter. I really enjoy historical fiction better when authors take a careful look at historical information and incorporate it into their narratives. It is like time travelling back to the era in a way, and helps bring to life otherwise boring historical accounts. I especially appreciate the way Bernard Cornwall includes a short historical essay at the end of his books, acknowledging where his account runs with/against the historical record, and also discussing debates among experts over rival accounts.

Yes. I was reading an alternative WWI story where the Germans made their main push against the Russians. Got to a page where the Germans where crossing a river. This is 1914 early. The pontoons where transported by truck and half the Russians had no rifles. Wrong wrong wrong. Pontoons were horse drawn and at this stage in the war Russian line and reserve units still had no shortage of rifles. I stopped reading and erased it from kindle.

Yes.

So far I don't seem to see any real poll type questions.
Unless it is:
It matters.
It doesn't matter.
It depends.

I think so. I'm interested in seeing who agrees/disagrees with me, I guess.

I think one of the real challenges of writing historical fiction is creating characters who are "of the period" yet can still engage with modern readers. Some, perhaps a lot, of compromise is needed on this point.

I'm fortunate enough to have avoided any historical fiction with jarring historical inaccuracies. My favourites have been Patrick O'Brian and George MacDonald Fraser. Bernard Cornwell I gave up on as the Sharpe series saw the titular character become more and more of an a-hole and the writing was getting samey but I did find the history fine enough.

Fraser was particularly good with footnotes and end pieces, even conjuring up differences of opinion with himself in the guises of his real self and Flashman.

Like a lot of teenage boys in the 1980s I dabbled in some Sven Hassel novels but after about 3 the inaccuracies got more and more preposterous so I gave up.

Not long ago read from Gutenberg project Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia. I don't normally read fiction but did like it. Actually a million years ago in high school I had a class in English which was based on historical fiction.

I'm currently writing a novel based on the Icelandic tale of murder, feud and outlawry called Gisli's Saga.

A very highly regarded authority on the sagas (her recent book on the Lewis chessmen is up for prizes) was willing to read the first 25K words, and pointed out a lot of things I'd got wrong – for instance, my poor island family owned too many farm animals – but quite a few of her caveats concerned things that actually occurred in the saga account. The sagas were written down two or three centuries after the events portrayed, and were themselves as much fiction as history. I'm still not sure what to do about that.

the Sharpe series saw the titular character become more and more of an a-hole

So, he became more and more like a real person? :) Seriously, the fact that he is less like an idealized amalgam is what I like about the character (so far). Though that could get old for me. But I likes what I likes and you likes what you likes.

The clue is in the genre name 'historical fiction', if it was all true it wouldn't be fiction…

I always thought historical fiction should be more about filling in the interesting holes in our knowledge based on likelihoods and research than drama set in the past. We know about President Lincoln. We know him from his letters, speeches, actions, and the recording of his contemporaries. Likewise for Mary Todd Lincoln. AFAIK, we have no idea the content of their actual conversations were. But we could extrapolate their interactions based on what we know.

As long as the big picture is reasonable, I don't really care too much.

If the story bills itself as historically accurate, I'll be more discerning but most books and movies are just adventure stories.

I am amused that moderns, including Ms. Gabaldon and the folks in Italy who made the sword and sandal movies seem to think folks got around by riding on wagons or horses as a common thing.
Grelber

Etotheipi,if you're uneasy about "baggage",try "horizon of expectations" a term from reader – response theory. It sounds as if that is what you're talking about.

Historical accuracy is important,but more bothersome to me is anachronistic attitudes.The film "Lancelot du Lac" had Arthur and crew walking around in full plate,but that was OK,every shot was like a Pre-Raphaelite painting. But I wanted to strangle the Guinevere character for spouting Freudianisms at every opportunity.

Also anachronistic language. I read an FIW novel by writer who is also a wargamer, and shall therefore go nameless,whose main character criticized himself for being "paranoid" 150 years before Freud,and who found the American landscape "mind-boggling". I can dig it,but it sort of yanks you out the period,doesn't it?

Bernard Cornwell said that the trouble with Patrick O'Brien is that "he makes absolutely no concessions to the modern reader's sensibilities".

Of course,with Cornwell,the opposite is the case.