s an author, have you chosen - or would you choose - to write fiction about real historical figures or purely fictional characters in a historical setting? Or do you portray historical figures within a story that is mostly fiction about fictional characters? Why did you make that choice?As a reader, do you have a preference? Why?
Please share your answer in the Comments.
I am fascinated with everyday people's lives, so although my first is about a king and a queen, they are figments of my friend's and my imaginations. I intend to pursue completely fictional characters in historical settings in most if not all of my future novels. I am more interested in how average people interacted in these intriguing times. And I must admit I prefer novels that at most drag historical figures through like props or preferably offer me the more obscure. Just personal preference.
So let's hear from you!
I'm kind of torn - in Truckee's Trail, I had to work with historical characters about whom practically nothing was known, so I had to flesh them out from what little was actually known. In the Adelsverein Trilogy, I had completely made up main characters - but with the occassional historical figure wandering through. Frankly, I had a lot more freedom with the second, even though the very most well-known of the historical figures were very, very well known. Fortunatly their appearances were brief. It's more fun to do the obscure, and to make up characters than be strait-jacketed into writing something lengthly about someone who is very well known.
ReplyDeleteNan, thank you for inviting me, I am moved. My core genre is men's adventure but attractive to women because I incorporate romance and humor. My protagonist, Steven Burr, is now a franchise. I have posted over 71 blog entries on a host of subjects on MySpace.com/nuetzel and the readers are overwhelmingly women. I love it. I'm over 5100 blog reads. So I must be reaching someone.
ReplyDeleteI have exactly one historical novel under my belt, 2027, New Madrid, Missouri. I made up characters but they were drawn from real life and the census of the period. They did the things that people did then and they spoke their words, both immigrants and Native Americans.
I fit them in to the events of the period. Well, I'm told.
As a reader, I don't care what hole it comes out of, I just want a good, honest, well edited read.
Thank you so very much for asking me.
John
My genre of choice is science fiction, and I just kind of fell into historical fiction. My WIP is a sort of hybrid of both: it's baseda around real historical events, and has real people in it, the better known ones acting more or less as they probably did in real life. But two of the main characters are totally fictional, and there are some "Harry Potterish" elements in it,but they don't "change" anything that happened. Personally, I feel that if I tried to write a fictional biography of someone, I would feel quite restricted; I generally prefer having fictional characters interact with real people and events.
ReplyDeleteAnne G
For my historicals, I invented a 17th Century family but put them into a situation that actually happened and introduced some famous characters to play cameo roles. I like reading books like that to, but my agent tells me this 'old-fashioned' style is not being sought by publishers just now. What they want for womens' fiction is a strong historical character with the story written about them and the actual events that happened in their life - a mixture of historical fact fleshed out by situations which might have occurred.
ReplyDeleteAs a reader I don't mind either, there's a limited amount of historical fiction that I can stand about the same person, though.
ReplyDeleteAs a writer, I'm always surprised that more books aren't being written about real gay historical characters - Wilde, Edward II and Arthur Rimbaud are getting a little overdone.
My sister and I have published one novel, To the Ends of the Earth, under the pen name Frances Hunter, and our second novel, The Fairest Portion of the Globe, is coming out in early 2010. Both novels feature Lewis & Clark as the main characters, and almost all of the other characters are actual historical figures.
ReplyDeleteWe really like doing the research about the time period and characters and then weaving them into a story. As a writer I've found it easier and more fun to write about real-life characters. The stakes are higher, because these are people who made immense contributions to history. The emotion is heightened for me, and you can paint a story on a wider and more epic scale than one that concerns ordinary joes.
It's also a challenge because real life isn't a story, with goals, rising action, and shattering revelations. Our approach to this problem was to choose incidents in which little was known about what really happened. Our first book is about the mystery that surrounds the death of Meriwether Lewis. Just three years after returning from his western expedition to a hero's welcome, Meriwether Lewis was found shot to death in a lonely inn on the Natchez Trace. What happened to him? How did he fall so low? Was it suicide or murder? And since no one really knows ... who better to solve the mystery than William Clark?
Our new novel is an international thriller that concerns Louisiana—a land of riches beyond imagining. As far as historical characters go, we have many, including George Rogers Clark, the washed-up hero of the Revolution and unlikely commander of a French renegade force; his beautiful sister Fanny, who risks her own sanity to save her brother’s soul; General “Mad Anthony” Wayne, who never imagined he’d find the country’s deadliest enemy inside his own army; and two young soldiers, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who dream of claiming the Western territory in the name of the United States—only to become the pawns of those who seek to destroy it.
As a reader, I don't have a preference for historical or made-up characters. I have many favorite books (such as the Patrick O'Brian seagoing series) in which the characters are fictional. There are also some great books, such as Citizen Tom Paine by Howard Fast, in which the historical characters are brought to rough and rowdy life.
I don't think historical figures have to be dragged through like props, as Nan says, whether they're featured players or just cameos. These were real people with pain, flaws, desires, and dreams. I think as long as a writer remembers that in fiction, his/her job is to tell a good story with emotional impact, both approaches can work.
My preference is to write about an actual person in history. I love to read novels about fascinating women in history, especially when they are in first person format.
ReplyDeleteI've read so many books about the Tudors and English history, that I'm actually getting a little bored. Hence I really enjoyed Chris Gortner's latest book on Queen Isabella of Castille.
I'm currently writing a first person narrative of Queen Mechthild, 10th century queen of Germany. Writing it has been very challenging because 10th century record keeping was scarce, however, I've been digging and researching for years, so I now have a comfortable knowledge of her entire life and am able to fill in what I don't know with some fiction.
After that, my next project will be on another 10th century queen.
As an author I prefer real historical characters, though as a reader I will read anything that intrigues me or captures my attention. Famous people are rarely born famous, they become so either because of their own drive and ambition or because of circumstances and events, and, as a novelist, I am interested in exploring that.
ReplyDeleteJust speaking for myself and co-author, we didn't choose actual people (Lewis & Clark) for our protagonists because we thought it would be easier. We were just captivated by their story, adventure, and friendship and what they achieved. It **seems** easier to me to write about real people, but that might just be a personal preference.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, I don't feel intimidated about making a real-life person into a novelistic character -- that is, putting words, emotions, motivations on them. We do a lot of research and try to be true to the person, but in the end for us it's all about building a creative and exciting story with the building blocks of the research.
I think I might feel more intimidated about making a more recent historical figure into a character in a novel -- one of the Kennedys, for example. But I have seen it done successfully too.
I go for Historical Fiction. I realy like to find some find facts later on in other books. Most of the time when I finish a book, I try to find some informational books just to get some extra background information.
ReplyDeleteNan, would the novel about Llewelyn's marriage be Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman?
ReplyDeleteIt has sold in the hundreds of thousands and continues to sell well around 30 years down the line. When readers are asked for their favourite Penman novel they tend to cite either The Sunne in Splendor or He Be Dragons. I have a friend who nearly missed her own wedding due to being so engrossed in that book. So it really is a case of one person's meat being another's poison. I loved HBD myself and I must have read it around 4 times and never had a problem. Of course, if it's not the Penman and you're referring to a different novel about Joanna and Lleweylyn, my apologies and I'd love to know what it is in order to read it!
Elizabeth, I don't know what would make you think I felt any differently. I adore Sharon Kay Penman's work. It is some of the best historical fiction I have ever read. I love both Sunne in Splendour and here Be Dragons, have read and enjoyed When Christ and His Saints Slept and Time and Chance, and I look forward to reading Falls the Shadow and The Devil's Brood. I am not as into the Justin de Quiincy mysteries, but they are extremely well done. I admire how Penman handled the exigencies of having to stick to the history in Here Be Dragons. It can't have been easy. That's what I was addressing.. the difficulty of storytelling when you have to tailor the story to the facts. If HBD had been pure fiction, I am sure Penman would have telescoped some events, but she could not, so she made it work anyway.
ReplyDeleteNan Hawthorne
As a writer, I prefer working with ficitonal characters because I handle them better. If I could write about real people, I suspect I might have chosen to be an historian! That said, I may have to include some historical characters in future mysteries, but I would rather deal with the lesser ones because I would have more leaway in developing character. As for books that deal brilliantly with historical characters, my favorite, hands down, is Sharon Kay Penman.
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