Historical Fiction

[samuel orris]

I enjoy a good novel every once in a while. Red Badge of Courage was required reading in high school, of course Killer Angels is a fun read and I just recently read Never Call Retreat by Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen. This is not to be confused with Bruce Catton's book of the same title, but written well before Gingrich's book and definitely is not fiction.

 

[kevikens]

I sometimes wonder if there are more errors of fact in supposed learned treatises than good historical fiction. I admire research and love to analyze someone else's research but I have read any number of works by professional historians to understand that they frequently reach conclusions that are mutually incompatible. They both cannot be right and at least one of them has to be dead wrong (actually both may be dead wrong).

I also wonder how many readers of history have been repelled by the absolutely turgid, verbose, cramped, stultifying style of pedantic authors whose audience seems to be other stultifying, verbose authors. On the other hand I wonder how many historical enthusiasts, the ones who go to historic sites, buy history books, grow to appreciate our heritage and read websites like CivilWarTalk got started in their love of history (yes, some of us love history the way some love golf or baseball) from reading the kind of historical fiction that others disparage as garbage. OK, some historical fiction is garbage and it takes some discrimination to learn what authors get it right, but some do and what they can offer us, what they offer me, is a chance to take myself back in time and place me in the historical drama itself. With them as my first sergeant, I can storm the cliffs of Quebec with Wolfe, tremble with Prescott's Minutemen as I await to see the whites of their eyes, quiver with trepidation as I await the order to go over the top at the Marne.

Until we invent a time machine that can take us back to the March 5, 1836 to find out what Travis actually said to his Texican troops at the Alamo or to Thermopylae and Leonidas to his Three Hundred, both knowing they had but hours to live, I'll settle for a good writer, an informed one, who can take me with them.

 

[FarawayFriend]

kevikens, very well said!!

 

[kevikens]

Danke sehr.

 

[damYankee]

This is less likely to have been an error on Griffin's part and more likely to have been a literary device to allow flexibility that makes it easier for fictional characters to take action during a historical event. Another example is Richard Sharpe in the Cornwall novels; he serves in the South Essex Regiment, which is entirely fictitious.

When writing Shattered Nation, I placed my fictional character James McFadden in Company F of the 7th Texas Infantry. In actual fact, Company F had already been disbanded by the time the Atlanta Campaign began. The names of the other men of Company F are the actual names of men who served in the 7th Texas, though their personalities were entirely the product of my imagination. This kind of thing simply allows the author of historical fiction greater flexibility.

I disagree, It is just poor research, The 5th Marine Div. was not formed until Nov. 1943, the first combat they saw was Iwo Jima.
A literary device to misinterpret history make the book a fictional work, not a historical novel. Perhaps a writer could write a book about how Abraham Lincoln lead the nation in WWI and claim literary flexibility, I call it bullmucky.

 

[JeffBrooks]

A literary device to misinterpret history make the book a fictional work, not a historical novel.

But a historical novel is a fictional work. If it wasn't, it would be nonfiction.

 

[JPWalton]

Like I posted: some people just don't like novels.

To compare using a fictitious unit in a military historical work of fiction to Abraham Lincoln as President in WW1.... well, some people just don't like fiction. To think those are the same thing, one has to hate fiction.

I disagree, It is just poor research, The 5th Marine Div. was not formed until Nov. 1943, the first combat they saw was Iwo Jima.
A literary device to misinterpret history make the book a fictional work, not a historical novel. Perhaps a writer could write a book about how Abraham Lincoln lead the nation in WWI and claim literary flexibility, I call it bullmucky.

 

[damYankee]

Like I posted: some people just don't like novels.

To compare using a fictitious unit in a military historical work of fiction to Abraham Lincoln as President in WW1.... well, some people just don't like fiction. To think those are the same thing, one has to hate fiction.

I don't hate fiction. I wrote fairly clearly that there is a difference between an Historical Novel and Historical Fiction.
1. Using a fictitious character in a historical situation to tell a story about an event, as in Saving Private Ryan. That was superb story telling, the writers did not creat a army unit that did not exist, they created characters within actual military groups, carrying out a fictional mission with the purpose of showing the sacrifice made by men at war.
2. In Griffin's work he places fictional men in fictional units, but uses the actual names of Commanders were did serve, actually twisting history. He uses the actual names of the generals and admirals but places them in command of the wrong division.
That is fiction. It is misleading. Someone who has not studied history would read these books and because the writer uses the names of famous leaders in command of nonexistent regiments they would come to believe a false history.
Why even change the unit? Wasn't the 1st Marine Division good enough for his story? I have no problem with placing fictional characters into historical situations to tell a story.
However, placing fictional characters into fictional army and then placing them into actual historical battles IMO ignores history, it doesn't tell the story using a third party, it totally rewrites the events and gives credit for the outcome to units who were not there.
Perhaps my failing is that I did not learn history by playing video games.
But enough about me, Gen. Patton really cleaned up at the battle of Chancellorsville didn't he?

 

[Dave Wilma]

I don't hate fiction. I wrote fairly clearly that there is a difference between an Historical Novel and Historical Fiction.
1. Using a fictitious character in a historical situation to tell a story about an event, as in Saving Private Ryan. That was superb story telling, the writers did not creat a army unit that did not exist, they created characters within actual military groups, carrying out a fictional mission with the purpose of showing the sacrifice made by men at war.
2. In Griffin's work he places fictional men in fictional units, but uses the actual names of Commanders were did serve, actually twisting history. He uses the actual names of the generals and admirals but places them in command of the wrong division.
That is fiction. It is misleading. Someone who has not studied history would read these books and because the writer uses the names of famous leaders in command of nonexistent regiments they would come to believe a false history.
Why even change the unit? Wasn't the 1st Marine Division good enough for his story? I have no problem with placing fictional characters into historical situations to tell a story.
However, placing fictional characters into fictional army and then placing them into actual historical battles IMO ignores history, it doesn't tell the story using a third party, it totally rewrites the events and gives credit for the outcome to units who were not there.
Perhaps my failing is that I did not learn history by playing video games.
But enough about me, Gen. Patton really cleaned up at the battle of Chancellorsville didn't he?

All excellent points. I think there is a distinction between accuracy and authenticity. Accuracy in fiction would indeed include real units and even a real protagonist into whose mouth the author places words and feelings and even actions within the boundaries of the historical record. The Shaaras do this to good effect.

Authenticity is reflected in HBO's Rome or Bernard Cornwell's work where real events are compressed and manipulated, but the essence and texture of the time and place and plot are preserved. Fictional characters interact with real characters.

IMHO historical novels and historical fiction have two goals, to entertain and to inform. The author wants the reader to enjoy the experience and, further, to understand more of the event and the time. Ideally the novel will drive the reader to explore and understand more. I knew nothing of Serintabatam until Richard Sharpe saved the battle for Arthur Wellesley (Duke of Wellington).

 

[Shadow9216]

Shadow, did you publish these novels? If so, would you mind to reveal the titles to us? From what I have come to know about you in these forums and from the content you described, I would be very much interested in reading them!
(Maybe I have them already waiting in my shelf ...)

I haven't- I'm going to finish the entire series and then I'll make that decision. If I do, most likely it'll be self-published. As I said though, I'm a bit leery because of people who post negative reviews based on "rivet-counting" rather than the quality of the story.

 

[samuel orris]

Just got to thinkin' . . . Every once in a while we read a "What If" posted, you know: "What if such and such would've happened instead of this?" Would the question and the responses be considered fictional since a different outcome is being conjured up other than what really happened? I know they're meant to stir the imagination, and so is fiction. They serve the same purpose.
I know, stupid question.

 

[chellers]

Just got to thinkin' . . . Every once in a while we read a "What If" posted, you know: "What if such and such would've happened instead of this?" Would the question and the responses be considered fictional since a different outcome is being conjured up other than what really happened? I know they're meant to stir the imagination, and so is fiction. They serve the same purpose.
I know, stupid question.

No, it's not a stupid question. But there is a very simple answer: if it is not based on fact, it's fiction. "What ifs" are speculative and products of the imagination; therefore, they are fiction.

 

[Brendan]

I went through a long phase (in high school, no less) of reading only non-fiction because I did not see the point in wasting my time reading about things that didn't happen when there was so much to learn about things that actually happened. Great literature ticked me off at least as much as lousy writing. I hated so many of the classics we were forced to read in school. Catcher in the Rye just seemed so whiny and BORING. Don't even get me started on The Awakening. Yawn yawn yawn and then someone dies, the end. I still feel this way about a lot of fiction. College changed a bit though for me. Every corner of history I studied seemed permeated by the pungent odor of paradox, but I didn't have the tools to explore that stink to my satisfaction within the bounds of thesis-driven non-fiction work. In a class I took on Caribbean history, we studied how literature was essential to the political history of many Caribbean nations. In places where myriad cultures lived together in the shadow of their troubled pasts, nation-building had to go hand-in-hand with identity-building. Novels and poetry were thus part of an unending conversation around the questions like "Who are we?" and "Where did we come from?" I came to see this same process occurring in America, and here is where, I think, historical fiction has an important place at the juncture of where history and imagination intersect--it is part of that vital discourse into who we are, both as individuals and as parts of broader, complex, overlapping--and often conflicting--lineages.

Anyway, all this reminds me of a John Berryman poem:

Dream Song 14

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) "Ever to confess you're bored
means you have no

Inner Resources." I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as Achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into the mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.

 

[Dave Wilma]

Just got to thinkin' . . . Every once in a while we read a "What If" posted, you know: "What if such and such would've happened instead of this?" Would the question and the responses be considered fictional since a different outcome is being conjured up other than what really happened? I know they're meant to stir the imagination, and so is fiction. They serve the same purpose.
I know, stupid question.

Publishers and agents will call this "alternative history" and it does have a following. It all depends if it's a good story and it will have to withstand the scrutiny of purists.

 

[Shadow9216]

Mental note: Get dam Yankee something else for the holidays

 

[BelleBlackburn]

I love history, but that is why I wrote historical fiction. The more history I learned about the Civil War in Nashville the more surprised and disappointed I was that local people knew nothing about it. We definitely have our share of historians who know every detail, but they are a small segment of the population. Most people will not go search out a dry history book (in their opinion) but will be happy to learn it in a good story. Mine falls into the "fictional story in a historical setting" mentioned above. I tried to have real people have as tiny a part as possible in my story but the history is real and is the main character. At the back in the note I identify who the actual people were.

I know how true historians feel about historical fiction (ouch) but my hope is that once people read the book they will search out more history on their own. There was a lot going on here, including being the country's first experience with military occupation, and it is a story that deserves to be better known.

 

[FarawayFriend]

I haven't- I'm going to finish the entire series and then I'll make that decision. If I do, most likely it'll be self-published. As I said though, I'm a bit leery because of people who post negative reviews based on "rivet-counting" rather than the quality of the story.

I hope you will decide on publishing. You shouldn't focus on those who criticize fiction in general - you will not get positive reactions there, no matter how well written your novels may be. But as you said, those who like a good story will appreciate your work. And I'm absolutely sure that you will be as successful as you could possibly wish! There are lots and lots of people who savour a good story!

 

[JPWalton]

Except HBO's Rome wasn't very authentic

Even The Killer Angels does some things that the record can't justify, although I consider them all forgivable sins. Easily so, in fact. My own opinion is that sometimes a storyteller might need to take a liberty or two to tell the story they want to tell within the historical framework, and that is A-OK with me. It's when they do it gratuitously that I become annoyed.

Angry history nerds, on the other hand...

All excellent points. I think there is a distinction between accuracy and authenticity. Accuracy in fiction would indeed include real units and even a real protagonist into whose mouth the author places words and feelings and even actions within the boundaries of the historical record. The Shaaras do this to good effect.

Authenticity is reflected in HBO's Rome or Bernard Cornwell's work where real events are compressed and manipulated, but the essence and texture of the time and place and plot are preserved. Fictional characters interact with real characters.

IMHO historical novels and historical fiction have two goals, to entertain and to inform. The author wants the reader to enjoy the experience and, further, to understand more of the event and the time. Ideally the novel will drive the reader to explore and understand more. I knew nothing of Serintabatam until Richard Sharpe saved the battle for Arthur Wellesley (Duke of Wellington).

 

[phil1861]

I haven't- I'm going to finish the entire series and then I'll make that decision. If I do, most likely it'll be self-published. As I said though, I'm a bit leery because of people who post negative reviews based on "rivet-counting" rather than the quality of the story.

Of the three of mine that are out there, other than one person calling me a neo-confederate and the tens who say its bloody and it's good that war is so terrible and the majority who have appreciated the level of research - no one has mentioned anything about the history as far as 'soldier's wouldn't do that' or 'this unit wasn't there at 3pm on April 7th' etc. Could be that I took extra pains to make sure it was accurate and that most readers are themselves civil war initiates or just like a good story. This is after tens of thousands downloads and 220 reviews. But, I do concur with that fear but it's probably a good healthy fear that keeps the work accurate to the best of my own research.

One piece of advice I received after I'd published my first was to wait and have at least three ready to go before pulling the trigger on the first so you can release on a schedule as fiction readers love a series that they can walk through if they like the first enough.

 

[Dave Wilma]

Except HBO's Rome wasn't very authentic
.

I base my comment on a statement from a history professor on a radio program: authentic, but not accurate. I am open to more information.