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| Exploring the Creation of Fictional Worlds |
Since I’ve been
writing historical fiction, I’ve read a few opinions about it that might have
made me consider the whole enterprise a complete waste of time! Such as:
“historical fiction can never be authentic”, “historical fiction is a lie”
and “historical fiction invariably fails to portray the strangeness of
the past”.
But, surely, that can’t all be true? Otherwise, no one would want to write it, let alone read it. For those of you who haven’t come across these negative opinions before, let me explain…
Yet imagining the
inner lives of characters (historical or fictional) for readers to experience
is surely exactly what historical novelists attempt to do.
So how does a writer
make the characters of a novel set in the fourteenth century seem
mediaeval? I want the readers of my novels to put them down feeling that they
have been immersed in the mediaeval world, yet without really noticing its
“mediaevalness”, as might happen, for example, if they found themselves
wondering if this or that thing or image or phrase or thought was “authentic”.
To achieve an appropriate degree of authenticity, artefacts and
environments must be, or seem to be, of their time, and noticeable anachronisms
of fact or notion must be avoided, to save throwing the reader out of the
illusion. Mindsets (the characters’ thought-world) must be convincingly
mediaeval, and language, in narrative and dialogue, must reflect that
thought-world.
Which all sounds fine
in theory but how does it work in practice? James would presumably say it cannot
ever work, that historical novelists and readers delude themselves in thinking
the novels are in any way authentic. Yet writers do their very best to portray
their characters and settings with authenticity. They undertake months or even
years of research, in history books, in contemporary writings where they exist,
and in art, and they use their intelligence and their imagination to transport,
first, themselves, and then their readers into the inner lives of their
historical characters.
Occasionally, an error
of fact or understanding may slip through but, with the effort authors make,
and with the eagerness of so many thousands of historical fiction devotees who
happily allow themselves to suspend any disbelief in order to enjoy the story,
the enterprise (of writing historical fiction) surely is not doomed, as James
implied?
And I think what is
true of historical fiction is true of any fiction.
Historical fiction may
not be able to fully convey the experiences of the past, but it is difficult
for any type of fiction to wholly convey the experience of a character’s life,
especially if that character, for example, commits murder, or blasts off into
space to save the planet from a rogue asteroid, or perpetrates any number of
actions beyond the experience of the average reader (or writer).
Although this is, of
course, exactly what all novelists, historical or otherwise, attempt to do.
But it is also true
that the “facts” of history are continually changing, as the latest research
inevitably reveals previously unknown information and offers new
interpretations of historical truths.
Lee quoted a literary
critic who, in a Telegraph book review that year, had said the ‘historical
novel has always been a literary form at war with itself. The very term,
implying a fiction somehow grounded in fact – a lie with obscure obligations to
the truth – is suggestive of the contradictions of the genre.’
Richard Lee considered
that the critic, and others, misunderstood the nature of historical fiction,
saying that, anyway, surely all fiction is a lie ‘somehow grounded in fact’.
No one, he said, thinks that either Trainspotting or Bridget Jones’
Diary is true, but rather that ‘they were in some way drawn from life’.
Historical fiction is no more a contradiction than any other form of art, all
of which seeks ‘both accuracy and illusion’.
All fiction is an
illusion created by the writer’s imagination. Yet historical, no less than
contemporary, fiction must be sustained by a foundation of fact, creating a
sense of “authenticity”, in order for readers to accept the illusion as
temporary reality. Even fantasy fiction, science fiction and some forms of
thriller, despite being illusion writ large, must be founded, if not on fact,
at least on sufficient rationality or logic to sustain the illusion.
I found myself almost
apoplectic with indignation when I heard what that critic had written. He
seemed to be implying that historical fiction was somehow “invalid” as a
concept. Richard Lee’s comment rings true for me when he suggests that historical
fiction, like all art, aims to achieve both accuracy, or perhaps authenticity,
and illusion.
Illusion, not a lie.
* For more on Richard’s speech, see ‘History is but a fable agreed upon: the problem of truth in history and fiction, https://historicalnovelsociety.org/but-a-fable-agreed-upon-speech-by-richard-lee/
CAROLYN HUGHES started working life as a computer programmer, then a very new profession, but it was technical authoring that later proved her vocation, word-smithing for many different clients, including banks, an international hotel group and medical instruments manufacturers.
She’d written creatively for most of her adult life but, when her children flew the nest, writing historical fiction took centre stage. But why historical fiction? Serendipity! Seeking inspiration for her Masters project, she found a decades-old, handwritten draft of a novel, set in fourteenth century rural England… Captivated by the era and setting, she concluded that, by writing a novel set in the period, she could both discover the medieval past and interpret it – surely a thrilling thing to do! The first Meonbridge Chronicle, Fortune’s Wheel, was soon under way…
Eight published books later, Carolyn does now think of herself as an Historical Novelist. And she wouldn’t have it any other way…
Website: https://carolynhughesauthor.com
Twitter/X: x.com/writingcalliope
Facebook: facebook.com/CarolynHughesAuthor
Bluesky: carolynhughes.bsky.social
Fortune’s Wheel, the First Meonbridge Chronicle
How do you recover from the havoc wrought by history's cruellest plague
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