I've learned some interesting things about some types of fiction. . . .

I'd like to follow up a bit about my introduction to the blog Clio's Children. I was invited to join via another blog, which I won't go into now. Well, actually several blogs, and my accumulated knowledge, while hardly "scientific" suggests a few things, at least about the genre or subgenre "historical fiction".

I've already noticed that most readers, and even more so writers, like "accuracy" in historical fiction. Which is fine. A historical novelist should maintain accuracy in whatever historical fiction they're writing about. But that inevitably leads to the question about what is "accurate" or "accuracy". Some writers, for example, feel that they must use "period" place names, or a lot of expressions like "ere", "nay" "tis" "twas", and so on. Or write the names of people in "period" style(or what they think is "period" style(how many of these writers actually know Old English or Old French, for example?) These kinds of things can be quite confusing for a modern reader. es[ecoa;;u of the modern reader is being asked to figure out how to pronounce some Old English name as it was originally written down(since monks were about the only people who could write, and there were no "rules" about how to transcribe place or personal names, these things could vary wildly, but recognizably, which only adds to a modern' reader's confusion. And that doesn't even take into consideration that English-speaking writers are basically communicating in modern English.

Another interesting thing is, the majority of historical fiction readers tend to be female, and both female readers and writers, tend to gravitate toward biographical fiction about Famous People. Which is one reason so much Tudor-themed material is being written for the growing historical fiction market. Which has resulted in an absolute glut of Tudor-themed books. . . . This may be partly publisher-driven' the people who publish books have apparently gotten it into their heads that "everybody" likes Tudor stuff. A fair number of historical fiction readers have gotten into that period, and love, love, love it, but I was never all that interested in Tudor anyway, and I'm beginning to feel that there's just an absolute glut on Tudor-themed historical novels. Aren't there any other periods that are interesting? The same thing could be said, especially in the US, about the abundance of American Civil War themed books. And the American Civil War is, for reasons I won't go into here, I avoid, avoid, avoid.


This, by the way, is not a rant, exactly. Just an observation. Men write historical novels, too, but men's historical novel-writing tends to be closer to the "thriller" subgenre, in that it tends toward blood, guts, war, battle, etc. and often doesn't have very well-rounded female characters. When there is a female character that's reasonably well defined, I've noticed a tendency among some male writers, to just have the female character sit at home and cry or there is a "bedroom reunion" or something like that. Men still don't tend to view women as having any real "agency", and it shows. This all too often doesn't accord with actual history; even constrained by the mores of their times, women could, and did, and not infrequently, act on their own for sme reason or another(but all within the framework of their times)

As I said, this post is not "scientific" at all. I don't pretend that it is. It's just my observations, and I'm sure there are many, many exceptions which the Gentle Blog Reader can surely point out, if they wish to do so. I will have more to say about a lot of this in a not-too-distant future post.
Anne G

Opinions, please, gentle readers!

On a writer’s site where I have a version of the first book in my trilogy uploaded(with great difficulty, I might add), I also do reviews and critiques of some people’s work.  I do a fair amount of reviewing sci-fi/fantasy, and some historical novels, since The Invaders is a hybrid – of sorts – or both genres. 

Which brings me to my dilemma, the one I want opinions about. I’ve noticed a tendency on the part of some writers of historical novels, to use “old” place names instead of their “modern” equivalents.  I can understand the reasoning behind this: in Anglo-Saxon times, for example, the city of York was called something like Eorferwic or Jorvik(by Viking-era Scandinavians who traded there).  The problem for me is, such usage may turn out to be very confusing for the average modern reader.  And yet some readers of historical novels actually prefer this.  Again, the reasoning behind this preference seems to be that it is more “authentic” to give the “old” place name, because that was what was used at the time, rather than the modern one, regardless of whatever confusion a reader may feel. I think, too, these writers(and a fair number of readers who may know more than “average” about whatever historical period the novel is set in), want what they feel is consistency here.  They don’t want what they feel are “modern” attitudes seeping into their novels, and if this means using “old” place names, so be it.

And I can understand that, too.  I used to read a lot of romance novels, and got rather disgusted with the historical ones, when the writers would use out-of-period, or obviously made-up names that no one in that period of time would ever have used, or had things like castles in the wrong places or times(I actually started critiquing a historical novel that was set in a time when there weren’t essentially, any castles.  This woman appears to have had serious problems, because she got all upset when I mentioned this to her, and I never did find anything out about her novel.  I suppose you can credit my anthropology background for some of this sensitivity; names tend to “belong with” periods and “ethnic” groups.  Names make the people of such ethnic groups and/or time periods instantly recognizable as who or what they are. 

I also understand that many writers think that their readers want easy-to-swallow history lessons, because they fear history is not taught in their schools or in their country, particularly well.  In this, they are right, but I’m not sure that this kind of attention to detail is going to “teach”  the reader anything he or she really wants to know. If they really want to  learn about “what really happened”, there are libraries, and the interested reader will probably be interested enough to get such details about the period, on their own.  I did much of my own research this way: I knew a little bit about Neandertals before I started writing(they existed in the past), and nothing at all about earlier medieval England, except a vague blur of events.  I had enough sense to want to get it “right”.  At the same time, though, I did not want to burden any potential readers with a lot of  facts; rather, I wanted to give a flavor of the times, as accurately as possible, while at the same time telling an interesting, and hopefully compelling, story.  I hope some  potential readers will be interested enough to do their own research, and if they’re really dedicated, write their own novels.  That, I think, is the best any writer, even of a “hybrid” genre like mine, can do.

Which brings me to my dilemma.  Well, I guess it isn’t really a dilemma, at least not for me.  I don’t use “old” place names; I think the extra possible authenticity(and I have come to the conclusion that authenticity is as much in the mind of the writer as it is “factual”) is negated by the possible confusion to the reader – even if that confusion is, to some extent mitigated by a glossary or end notes of some kind.  So I use modern place names.  I also avoid expressions like “ere”, “nay” “mayhap”, etc. like the plague.  For me, these particular words may well have been used in “olden” times, but the problem is, the people living in “olden” times, sounded just as modern, to themselves, as we do now.  I am fairly sure that at least some of those who could read, might have found “olden” language used in their time, stilted and unnatural. 

By the same token, then, I use what I call “modern standard” English for dialogue(indicating when people are speaking some other language when necessary). No, I don’t use slang, though I do try to add “flavor” by using expressions that were probably used in that time period. I realize a  number of writers, and readers, would disagree with me here.  I also know that some very fine writers, who have immersed themselves in a particular period, are happy to use a “flavor” of “olde-timey” language, just the way some writers use, or think they can use, “dialect”(the number of people who try to imitate Scots is really unbelievable, and they never get anywhere close to the real thing). Yes, this may be less “authentic” in some ways, but I think it’s more important to suggest authenticity in other ways.  A writer can, for example, flavor their character’s thoughts about things by, for example, contrasting the common way of thinking about, say, Native Americans, in the 18th century, with their own, if their own attitudes happen to be different for any reason(maybe they were brought up in Quaker households, for example).  They can describe clothing and buildings in some detail.  They can, without overpowering the reader, describe what kinds of medical treatments were available.  And so on.  The astute reader will ”get the picture” if they’re alert enough.  And as I said earlier, if they’re really interested, they might read more about the period and the people of that period, especially if information is abundant.

In other words, my primary concern is, telling an interesting story, while keeping any historical side as accurate as possible. I’m not here to give a history lessen, especially in view of the fact that what I’m writing is kind of a hybrid(I call it “romantic science fiction set in medieval England” for lack of any other way of describing it).  As there is also “prehistoric” detail involved(which is a whole other area of research), I’ve “flavored” the book with that as well. But again, my purpose isn’t, per se, to give a lecture no the course of human evolution. If people are sufficiently interested, they will also do research on this, for themselves.  Therefore, I’ am not so “historically obsessed” as some, but I’m not going to lie about anything that “happened”; I’m going to get as much “right” as

possible, but that simply weaves in and out of the story I’m telling. 

Which, when push comes to shove, I am inviting comment here.  What do you think?  How accurate do you need to be in a situation like mine. Remember, that although I’m writing what I call “romantic science fiction set in medieval England”, I am most definitely not writing a romance, although there are some perfectly delightful romance writers out there, who write in “historical time”. I’m must writing “my” story.  And I try to pay attention to the historical side, without letting it overwhelm me.  So I will part by once again asking, what do you guys out there think?

Anne G

Have you heard the one about the historian who no longer reads historical novels?

No, I didn't "hear" that one, I saw it, here!  In some ways, I can't blame her.  If you're a historian, I guess you're going to be able to pick out what you think are "anachronisms", "modern" thinking in historical times," etc., etc.  But when it comes to things like words for "mother", "father", "mama", papa", etc., what's going on here?  It's interesting that many languages have "pet" names for mothers and fathers and other close relatives, and a lot of them sound like "mama" and "papa",especially when coming out of young mouths.  But Magistra et Mater isn't a linguist, so presumably she wouldn't be aware of this. 

 

It seems to me that what she really wants, and what I've complained about elsewhere is "total" accuracy for whatever period she's reading about.  Even in periods where there's an abundant amount of material that can be mined as research, this simply cannot be done.  As for as "modern" attitudes go, well, I kind of wonder.  If, for example, my heroes had completely "early medieval" attitudes, they would probably be totally unsympathetic.  That doesn't mean I don't recognize that such attitudes existed, it just means that at least some of the people are exceptional in some ways(besides, it's "romantic science fiction set in medieval England", not a history treatise, nor a "pure" historical novel.  And it has "anthropological" material in it, or I wouldn't otherwise be writing about Dauarga/Neandertals as some of my central characters. 

 

The real problem here is, a kind of academic snobbery, not unlike some "literary critics" who moan about "popular" works like Twilight and  the Harry Potter series.  These people want "beautiful writing" about "character development", whereas many readers just want A Good Story.  This doesn't mean you should write sloppily or have inconsistencies in your story.  It just means that there are some things that are more important to a lot of people than they are to these literary snobs(there's no other word for them, in my opinion).  Historical novelists, however, do offer an opportunity for the reader to learn "more" about whatever period they are writing about, and it is not uncommon for people who read historical novels to later get into history majors, and become professionals, in some way or another.  Similar things have happened to some science fiction readers, who get into science that way. 

 

I think Magistra et Mater has fallen into the common trap of thinking that, since they have become "experts", they must find fault with anything written by a nonexpert.  Some fiction, like some historical films(such as Kingdom of Heaven and Braveheart in the movie realm, and things like The Da Vinci Code in the "literary" realm), richly deserves the opprobrium it is given.  These pieces are laughably inaccurate, as in Braveheart, and/or they have, as in the case of The Da Vinci Code, very obviously "mined" certain dubious source "works", which are themselves full of historical "junk".  However, the author apparently does not recognize that a historical novelist is not a historian, is not expected to be a historian, and shouldn't be held to the same standards as a historian, no matter how "representative" of a time or place any piece of historical fiction is supposed to be.  I've seen whines about this in anthropology journals(mainly about the Jean Auel's Children of Earth series.  There, the problem is, that the academics in question wish they were as famous, or had made as much money as Mrs. Auel, but they're academics, and aren't as famous as Jean Auel or her series.  It is quite possible to make legitimate criticisms of her series -- she has obviously done extensive research, but Ayla, her heroine, is too much of a prehistoric "everywoman" to be completely credible.  Yet, if she hadn't written Ayla this way, would anybody have eve read her books?  I don't have an answer to this, but novelists must make authorial decisions all the time about things like this, whether it's "accurate" or not.  On the other hand, I do think the novelist in question should research as thoroughly as they can, and work the "accurate" bits into the background.  It won't be "history", exactly, but it might inspire someone, some day, to research a period on their own or even(gasp!) to become a historian themselves.

Anne G

Literary snobbery strikes again!

In a piece on her blog, The Disorganised Author, Anita Davison writes about an article she read in a British newspaper about historical fiction.  Perhaps, before I get into comments about anything here, I should state that although my Invaders trilogy is set in historical time, it's not strictly "historical  fiction".  I say this, despite the fact that I've always wanted to write a novel set in medieval England, so that's what I ended up doing.  And I've tried to make the history as accurate as possible, given there's not much "on the ground" in the period I'm writing about.  Still, I feel some obligation to at least try to get the basics right. 

 

I should also remind readers that I've written several blog posts criticizing what I thin as excessive attention to "historical accuracy", and claims about generalized "mindsets" for given historical periods.  I just don't think  there is any such thing as an overarching "mindset" for any given historical period, nor do I think, as some authors appear to, that you can accurately reproduce actual conversations of actual historical personages, unless these were written down somewhere, and I doubt very many of them were.  I  also have my opinions about the techniques some writers use to gain this supposed accuracy, but that's a story I won't go into here. 

 

However, my complaint is really about the article in the Guardian newspaper.  You see, it didn't take me very long to realize that Anthony Beevor, the author of the article, is basically another one of the, in my opinion, excessively large tribe of literary snobs who feel that people "really" shouldn't be reading anything but "fine" literature of the type they profess to prefer.  Beevor apparently thinks writers of historical fiction are doing historical periods and characters some sort of disservice by writing fictionally about them, simply because they are writing fiction.  Wow!  It also didn't take the article very long to clue me in on this; the moment he suggested that if writers of historical fiction wanted to write about a real person, instead of writing about the actual person, they should write a "roman a clef"!  Another wow!  This is just literary-speak for "write a tell-all set in historical time, but don't use anybody's real name.  And the arrogance of suggesting such a thing pretty much floors me.

 

I have suggested elsewhere in my blog, some reasons why I, myself, won't be writing any biographical fiction.  I find a lot of rather "episodic" and basically not too interesting. But that's just me, I suppose, and I've read some exceptions.  And I certainly wouldn't try to stop anybody from writing biographical fiction about some historical character, provided they do reasonable research into the period, and the life of the person they write about.  Most readers probably will read such a novel primarily for entertainment, as Beevor pointed out(and so did several comments on Ms. Davison's blog).  They won't be "fact checking".  Even if some readers get very interested in whatever period or person the writer is writing about, these readers themselves are perfectly capable of making the distinction between fiction and "historical fact".  But Beevor seems to think people are so stupid that they just can't do this.  Maybe some people can't, and there are some authors who apparently don't care what they put into their historical novels, regardless of whether it's accurate or not.  And here, I'm talking about really basic stuff, not just minor details.  This is something that really irritates me about Beevor's diatribe.  He brings up Shakespeare's plays, for example.  Many, though not all, people know that Shakespeare's "history" plays aren't historical, certainly not in the modern sense.  Shakespeare was primarily out to entertain the public, and he did a darn good job of it.  Besides which, the standards brought to bear on historical writing, as it was understood in his day, were not quite the same as ours, for a variety of reasons.  So what is this guy griping about?  If Shakespeare's plays aren't history, and half the audience knows they aren't history, how is this different from someone who picks up a book about, say Elizabeth I or Richard III(both fairly popular subjects for historical novels), which is marketed as fiction, any different?  Surely the reader knows, on some level, that what he or she is reading, is fiction.  Doesn't Beevor understand this?  And if so, why not?

 

I also have a feeling that, in terms of what he thinks people "ought" to read, he is not very far removed from that snobbish tribe of reviewers who trashed the Harry Potter series.  J.K.Rowling didn't pretend to be writing a "great" set of novels, nor, obviously, was she writing anything "historical".  But her literary crime was to appeal to a vast number of people of all ages, who became very engaged with Harry Potter's story, but whose writing wasn't "beautiful" enough to satisfy some critics, and whose plotline was too "ordinary" or not "realistic" enough to satisfy such people.  I think Beevor is basically in the same class, though he aims largely at writers of historical fiction.  Well, I'm sorry, Mr. Beevor, but if you don't "like" historical fiction, for whatever reason, if you think most readers are just too dumb to know the difference(or discover the difference for themselves) between fiction and fact,  you have another very  long think coming.   Given the opportunity, most people can, and sometimes do.  I'm one of them.  I'm sort of a "fact checker" myself, and I've read nonfiction biographies of a number of historical figures, and I've read nonfiction on any historical period that happens to catch my fancy.  I may not be a "common sort" this way, but I've done it.  And, apparently, so have a number of writers of historical fiction.  How dare you try to discourage some potential reader of a work of historical fiction, from doing the same thing?  People have minds, you know, and some of us actually use them!  Personally, I feel that, although I'm not, strictly speaking, writing "historical fiction", if I hadn't done this, I probably wouldn't be writing what I'm writing. 

 

I think Beevor's advice will probably end up being generally ignored.  People will read what they want.  Some authors will continue to be "compulsively accurate" and some readers will demand this of writers.  Others won't care, but read whatever historical fiction they read, primarily for its entertainment value.  Some readers(and writers) may decide they like the kind of "serious" fiction that Beevor himself apparently prefers.  Others will not.  The important point here is, readers and writers come to any book they read, or write, from any number of different places, and they're all good, in my opinion.  The Beevors of the world will pronounce and pronounce on proper "standards", but most people will probably continue to do what they always have when reading fiction:  get enjoyment out of whatever they are reading.

Anne G

A hearty welcome to a fellow blogger

A wonderful author not many have heard of, Helen Hollick, has entered the blogosphere. Her blog, Helen Hollick -- Historical Fiction and Adventure History has recently started, and not only am I introducing her here, but I am adding her to my Honorable Blogroll.  She is currently writing a series set in the Golden Age of Piracy, about pirates, naturally, but she has also written an Arthurian trilogy and is working on the third book of a trilogy set near "my" period(late Anglo-Saxon/early Anglo-Norman). Welcome!  I hope Ms. Hollick doesn't mind too much being sandwiched in between my thoughts on the writing process, Neandertals, and wolves, though!

Anne G

Flabbergasted

There's been a recent discussion going on at the Historical Novel Society e-mail list,which I frequent.  For anyone interested,it's at the Historical Novel Society e-mail list  The discussion started out with an observation that the famous archbishop Thomas Becket was found to be wearing a hair shirt and crawling with lice when he was murdered.  There was a general reaction of "eeeewwww", at least until someone knowledgeable about the period explained that some ecclesiastics of that period found it perfectly acceptable to engage in "self-mortification" ,the better, it was thought, to sanctify themselves.  Not everyone did this.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  Most people, contrary to one of the most persistent myths about the Middle Ages, at least attempted to keep themselves somewhat clean, even if this consisted mostly of washing their hands and faces with some regularity.  Alexander of Neckham noted, at about the same period, that there were a lot of bath houses in London, which should tell the astute investigator something about how people felt about these things. 

 

However, the following day, I came across another discussion, on the site of a romance reader's, and author's site that I have frequented from time to time. It was part of a  blog post called Where Have All the Medievals Gone?  The! blog itself was unexceptional; apparently a lot of publishers just didn't think "medieval romances" sold very well-- at least in the US. What flabbergasted me was the responses to the post. A lot of the responders -- romance readers every one -- apparently couldn't get past the idea that people in the Middle Ages "never or rarely bathed"!  They all admitted that they had "cleanliness" issues, but romances, after all, are basically a kind of fantasy, and the readers regularly suspend disbelief as they read them.  So why can't they suspend disbelief here? 

 

Well, for one thing, this "cleanliness fetish" seems to be a peculiarly American attitude, e.g., "cleanliness is next to Godliness", and probably goes back to (some of our) Puritan ancestors.  Now there's nothing wrong with keeping oneself reasonably well-groomed and cleaned up.  This is one reason why, I suspect, that Alexander Neckham, who was more or less contemporary with Thomas Becket, wrote that there were a lot of bath houses in the London of his day.  It's also obvious that the readers who have "eeewwww" reactions to "medieval romances", simply don't know this. And, to be absolutely fair,I should note two things:  first, many of the responders also said that they liked medieval-themed romances, and many of them listed books, like Anya Seton's classic Katherine which, while not strictly romances, are certainly medieval-themed. Second,to be fair, I don't bother with "medieval themed" romances any more, either.  Why?  Because the authors of these romances(as well as many authors of historical romances set in other periods),simply do not pay any attention to the actual way people of whatever time period they're writing about, actually acted and thought.  One dead giveaway, in my opinion, is the use of "out of period" names, usually the kind that would be found in some contemporary "baby name" book or the like, especially for the female characters.  Thus, too many of these fictional "medieval" heroines have names like "Tamora" or "Candace",which don't fit the period.  And while the men have "masculine sounding" names, they're not medieval by any stretch of the imagination.  Just this past Monday, I picked up a paperback whose title and author I can't remember,whose hero character had the given name "Wulfson".  This was supposed to be taking place in Anglo-Saxon times, and you'd better believe that no English male of that time and place would have had the given name Wulfson! He might be referred  to as something like Edmund Wulfson, if his father happened to be named Wulf(except that's not how men in those times were named), but a given name??  Ugh.  As far as I'm concerned, if the names are "out of period" just about everything else will be wrong, too. And I won't waste my money on anything like that.  But that's another story.

 

To get back to the subject, it seems to me that this peculiarly American attitude is partly predicated on the idea that things that aren't somehow "American-related" just aren't very important, interesting, or worthy of notice. It's not just that the readers who won't read "medieval-themed" romances are projecting their own quite modern -- and culture-specific attitudes onto a period they probably know about only through the medium of Hollywood -- but it extends much farther:  few of these "medieval" romances get published, because they are too far out of the "range" of many readers'  ability to conceive.  Romance readers, on the whole, tend to like the familiar and the predictable,and while people from the Middle Ages are recognizable in their quirks, their "context" often is not.  And romance readers(as a whole), don't like "alien".  There does seem to be an exception made for "paranormal" romances in which vampires, werewolves, witches,etc. appear in modern contexts, but the reader knows this is fantasy, yet the setting and the "mores" are probably reasonably familiar(you don't have to try to understand "alien" mindsets, among other things).  A lot of this distaste for medieval-themed romance also seems to stem from what I call a "Hollywoodized" version of medieval times that a lot of people seem to have in their heads. While I, personally, enjoy the "larger than life" quality inherent in certain historical personages of the time,  I don't have any illusions that they would have exactly thought, or had the same attitudes toward, a whole range of things.  Including the "cleanliness" idea. It seems, again via the knowledgeable author, that many people in that era made an effort to bathe and wash, because doing so was a sign of "good breeding".  And given the difficulty of getting together enough hot water to bathe with, it is easy to see why this kind of thinking existed, though there is evidence that even peasants tried to keep themselves as clean as they could, given their circumstances. But as some other posters in the Historical Novel Society list pointed out, part of these "insular" attitudes may be a function of faulty educational systems as well. Combined with the apparently "conventional" socialization,and "conventional" attitudes that many of these romance readers seem to have -- but again, I must emphasize, not all of them -- there seems to be little interest in exploring a world that is somewhat, but not completely "alien". 

 

Of course, I'm "prejudiced" here.  I was not brought up "conventionally", and for a female of my time, I had somewhat "unusual" tastes.  Practically from the "get-go" I liked science fiction, though I liked historical stuff, too.  Thanks to Anya Seton's Katherine, which I devoured as a teenager, I wanted, then and there, to write something set in medieval England.  And, also apparently unlike most romance readers, I haven't led a "conventional" life.  But that's another story.  The point is, I think, that to read anything "different", or perhaps anything at all,one must be "open"  to new vistas. And if some romance reader can't get past the fact that they didn't have hot and cold running water, and scented soaps, and toothpaste and dental floss, in the year 1150, then, in my opinion, they are not doing themselves any favor, in the romance, or any other genre.

Anne G

It all depends on what you're writing. . . .

There's been another round of discussion(or should I say, argument) regarding the whole question of "historical accuracy". I've discussed this elsewhere on several occasions, so I won't go into excruciating detail here.  However, there seems to be a division of opinion about whether "story" is primary, or "accuracy". If you're writing something that takes place in historical time,then you do have to be true to the period you're writing about. In other words, unless you're writing "alternate history" type fiction(and that's basically a kind of fantasy anyway), you can't have people zipping around in flying saucers in the time of Good Queen Bess.  But the discussion then devolved into how primary "story" is.  And if "story" is primary, can you alter facts slightly, in order to make a better story?  I think the majority of people(some of whom are writers), came down on the side of "story", with some vociferous objections on the part of people who "demand" a great deal of accuracy.  This is fine and dandy; if you're doing historical novels and you want to get it "right", you had better be prepared to do something more than superficial research. 

 

One writer claimed you could actually do both.  You probably can -- if you're someone like Dorothy Dunnett. For the record,the author I'm referring to, who is quite successful in her niche, admires Dorothy Dunnett, as do a lot of other historical fiction fans.  For the record, I'm not one of them, but now I think I know, at least in part, why she writes what to me, are such excessively detailed and "talky" stuff.  She was also a portrait painter, which may have given her an eye for a lot of detail, and many readers obviously like this, but to me, it was just a little too much(plus the fact that she often used obscure words that made a lot of people rush to the nearest dictionary).  This is, perhaps, a matter of taste, especially as she's not writing fictional biographies, as her writing admirer does.

 

If one is writing fictional biographies, one had better know a lot about the person one is writing about.  The aforementioned writer does meticulous research.  I've seen some of it. Furthermore, she has access to material that I can't possibly get.  The same woman does a number of things that I think probably influence her view of the whole "accuracy" discussion, for she thinks you can have both "story" and accuracy. 

 

But what if you're not writing fictional biography?  There were people on this same list, who absolutely insisted you have to be totally "accurate",no matter what, no exceptions allowed.  One person even  sounded as if they "worshiped" research!  I had to remind this particular person that research for historical fiction is a tool, not an end in itself.  I don't know how the person took that; they never replied, as far as I could tell.

 

As  the Gentle Blog Reader probably will guess, I come down pretty much on the side of "story".  After all, as someone else pointed out, it's fiction,after all.  You're not writing a history book.  I realize that this reply can also be,or seem like, an excuse to do "anything".  Again, for the record, while I consider the Invaders trilogy to be science fiction, it is set in a particular slice of medieval England, and I feel, based on what I've read about this period and how people operated in it, to be as true to that particular period as I can, given the fact that I don't have all the source material I'd like, and given the fact that there are plenty of gaps in my knowledge. It took me a long time to even start writing this trilogy, for precisely that reason.  I spent that time gathering information, which I continue to turn to, before I even dared start putting words into the computer.

 

if you're writing a novel set in historical time,whether it's a mystery, science fiction,or something else,  what you know about your period is important. Sloppy "research" will show.  I've seen it. But if it's not fictional biography, do you have to "count rivets" as I have discovered some readers of historical fiction seem to like to do?  Some of these readers, especially those who are "in love with" or "know"a period very well, will essentially throw a book at the wall, if it has the slightest "inaccuracy" in their view. They also tend not to like Authors' Notes as explanations as to why some of these inaccuracies are in the book. I, on the contrary, find these perfectly acceptable. After all, the author has taken the time to explain what s/he is up to.

 

In the end, however, as still another person(a writer) pointed out, agents and editors will often point out where things can be "fudged" or at least "fused" to make a better story -- a story readers actually want to read. If you're too busy "rivet counting", my feeling is,you can't really do this properly, despite the fictional biography writer's assertion that you can. For myself, therefore, I will wrap "history" around "story", while striving to be as accurate in my writing as I can. I think this is about all any writer can do, especially with a project like mine, which started out simple and got very complicated, very fast,once I really started plunging into the research.  But that is another  story, for another time.

Anne G

The Virgin Queen's Daughter -- A review

Chase, Ella March

The Virgin Queen's Daughter

Crown Publishers, New York, 2008, 352 pp.

When I read historical novels, I don't usually ok for "Tudor/Elizbethan"-themed material.  For one thing, the entire period seems to me to be overdone.  I mean, how many more angles on Elizabeth I or Henry VIII can you have?  Yet this is a popular period, partly because of the sheer abundance of material about the famous people and events therein.  Some writers consider this "easy", and proceed to write what is essentially biographical fiction.  For the record, I'm not all that fond of biographical fiction about people of any period, mainly because the storyline tends to be, well, predictable -- that is, unless the person is extremely obscure. 

 

It was therefore with some trepidation that I picked this book out of the library and started reading it.  On the one hand, the life of Elizabeth I along with the way her personality and the events of the period -- for England, at least -- meshed, are so well-known to anybody who is interested in the period at all, that they hardly bear comment.  On the other hand, the "Virgin Queen" was psychologically very complex, and at the same time very vulnerable.  She lost her mother, the tragic Anne Boleyn, at the age of three, and then was declared illegitimate by Henry VIII(another outsized, but fictionally overdone character), and considered more or less not very important, especially when her half brother Edward VI, was born.  After all, he was the son Henry had been trying for.  Unfortunately, he didn't live long enough to achieve much, except under the guidance of his advisers, established the "reformed religion", which eventually became what Americans know as the Episcopal Church, in England.  He was succeeded by his half-sister Mary Tudor, who was unabashedly Catholic and her reign ushered in the persecution of everyone who wasn't Catholic, with the enthusiastic help of Spain.  None of this helped Elizabeth, who was essentially raised in what people then called the "reformed religion"; in fact, she was considered a definite threat to her sister Mary. 

 

All of this forms the background to Ella March Chase's The Virgin Queen's Daughter, which actually turned out to be a very interesting read.  From my reading, Ms. Chase has striven to get the "flavor" of both the times, and of the complexity of Elizabeth herself, right, and in this, judging by what little I know about the period and the person, I think she managed quite well, in some ways.  The central character is not Elizabeth herself -- or I would not be reviewing this book -- but rather a young woman called Elinor de Lacey, who has been brought up as an only child by a "bookish" father and an apparently distant mother.  She gets affection and psychological sustenance from a nurse called Hephzibah Jones, and from her father, who encourages her to think.  But she longs to become part of the court of Elizabeth I, and eventually, she does get her wish.  Unfortunately, she has never heard that you should be careful what you wish for, because you might get it, and so she ends up being thrust into the intrigues of Elizabeth's court, where men vie for the queen's attention, and women vie for the men who vie for the attentions of their queen.  It very soon becomes apparent that there is some mystery about Elinor, and this mystery arouses all sorts of suspicions, including those of Queen Elizabeth herself, due to a very unfortunate incident when she was a young girl.  Once the mystery is put in place, the tale becomes  more and more of a "cat and mouse" game as Elinor and Gabriel Wyatt, a man who first antagonizes her, but whom she eventually comes to love, match wits with those who mean both of them ill. 

 

It is, therefore, in my opinion, a very good story, and worth the read.  But there are some glaring mistakes of either usage or spelling, which make me wonder about some issues I won't go into in this post, but will save for another one.  One of the most glaring mistakes is, she misspells the name of Hans Holbein the Younger.  This man painted the famous portrait of Henry VIII that "everybody" seems to know, and get their images of that particular person from.  I thought at first, it might be  a typographical error; even in these days of computer-generated printing, such things still happen.  But she mentioned Holbein two or three times, and each time, the name was spelled wrong.  She also seems to have trouble recognizing the difference between homonyms(words that sound the same but have different meanings), in particular "flare"(e.g. a fire that flares up or an argument that flares up) and "flair", meaning an aptitude for something.  She also mentions something about "green Lincoln cloth", which is probably more forgivable, since the phrase "Lincoln green" is assumed to mean some sort of green color.  I would not have caught this unless another historical writer, in a book I read several years back, mentioned that "Lincoln green" was actually a type of weave created in medieval times, in the city of Lincoln, which was at one time famous for its cloth.  "Lincoln green" was often dyed red!  Most readers, however, will probably not even notice this.

 

Overall, though, I find The Virgin Queen's Daughter an enjoyable read.  I think that Ms. Chase may well have more material up her sleeve, and if she learns to consult a dictionary and watch out for details like "Lincoln green", she has a nice future as a good historical novelist ahead of her.  I will be very interested to see what she comes up with in the future.

Anne G