Historical Fiction

There are many definitions to the term "Historical Fiction". To me, real historical fiction is a bit more than just (say) a Victorian "period piece" that uses a historical setting but borrows little else from history. In my opinion, real historical fiction springs from some real historical situation and/or incorporates real historical characters.

Naturally, there is danger to historical fiction, particularly the mass media variety. The problem is that fictional events can accidentally find their way into the historical record; or at least into the popular perception of the historical record. After all, this is fiction. The author is free to put words in people's mouths, distort time-lines, and even create entire fictional events. In short, the author may do whatever it takes to make a readable story.

Fortunately there's another side to the equation. Good historical fiction pleasurably introduces readers to history, and hopefully sends them off searching history books and searching Internet sites to find the truth.

Here in the LSF, the historical fiction story that best triggered my curiosity was "The End of the Earth" by Seegee. That story left me searching English history to find the "real" story about the main character.

And oh yes! I happen to have a story "The Governors Daughter" which, by an odd coincidence, was loaded just today. It's set in the racially charged postwar USA south. Our recent discussion about race in spanking stories is one of the reasons why I finally finished that story. Reading Seegee's excellent story was the other.

Neither of those stories is a 5-minute read. I agonized over the need to squeeze a novel-worthy plot into an LSF-length story. Pour yourself a glass of your favorite wine and curl up with your computer.

Surely there are many historical fiction stories worthy of mention languishing in the library. This thread would be a great place to bring them to our attention.

Guy (GuySpencer)

I took a shot at the Thirty Years War with ANNE OF WULFSTEDT. The fictional kingdom of Palatine would have been somewhere in that region of Northern Germany during the intial years of the war, around 1630. The difficulty is creating a plot without taking too many liberties with actual history. I know that in mainstream novels historical accuracy is a must.

I always try with my "Victorian" stories to incorporate details relating to the time, and also amalgamate some real people and places into them. My favourite amalgamation was the Labia family of venice, (no that wasn't a made up family name or building), in Amelia's Victorian Adventure serial.

I guess I'd also include KINGSBRIDGE 1337 which was taken right out of Ken Follet's historical novel "World Without End" and TUMALO BEND 1895 which features a real historical event, Susan B. Anthony's tour of the West speaking out for women's suffrage.

Thanks Guy, there was no 'real' person I based the main character on. I did however put him in a very real situation and tried to make it as accurate as I could. My personal favourite historical fiction novels are the Flashman series by George MacDonald Fraser. No actual spanking as such, although he does cane a girl in the first one.

I always wonder, when reading autobiographies and the writer details a conversation that happened when they were six, say, how reliable that can possibly be. Of course, liberties are taken to create a readable text. The real Macbeth wasn't as Shakespeare portrayed him. And the Bard himself had his plays added to by later editors to fit the myth (eg Hamlet picking up and addressing the skull), as well as radically changed to suit contemporary taste (King Lear with a happy ending).

I'm working on a quasi-historical epistolary serial at present (A Victorian Adventure - apologies Runcy for the very similar title to Amelia's ones) and have a couple of real historical figures in there (William Lazenby who published The Pearl and spanko books such as The Romance of Chastisement (thanks to gail for the intro - they're personal friends!); and a Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks of the British Museum).

For me, though, it is language that is central to creating the illusion of historical-ness; trying to make sure the register, syntax and vocabulary (especially of a first person narrator) are in keeping with the time by imitating the style of writers of that era. And if that makes it long-winded and inaccessible to some readers, well, what else is new!

I've written two historical pieces on SL, both set in England at the time of the Civil War - "Fortunes of War, Parts 1 and 2". This is a period I know a lot about and am fascinated by, and the main character is an officer in the Parliamentary army, which represents my main sympathies. Some details are invented - for example, I've invented a royalist regiment - but the main events around the battle of Naseby and the siege of Colchester are accurate.

I agree that good historical fiction can make history come alive. Bad stuff annoys me by carelessness: for example, I read a historical novel on that very war in which there was a major battle at Turnham Green, then just outside London. What actually happened there was that the King's army arrived, found their way blocked by a far stronger Parliamentary force than they'd expected including the London Trained Bands (militia), and after firing a few cannonballs, retreated. This would have been easy for the author to have checked. Stuff loaded with stereotypes annoys me too - for example, to stay on the same period and region, that all cavaliers are dashing and all puritans are grim. Not so.

I enjoy reading historical fiction but writing even a short historical fiction story requires an awful lot of research. Often things you don't even think about until you start writing it.

Which is why I avoid 'em (writing them, that is). Too much like work. Maybe if I had a research assistant. My hat's off to anyone who writes these, and does it right.

TEM. Thanks for the history lesson. I looked both of these gentlemen up and found them fascinating. Lazenby moved his operation to Paris after being run out of town by something called the Postal Protection Act or 1884 and sold his work via mail order back across the channel and made money. Another small factoid in the lore of Le Vice Anglish.



barretthunter. Could you have those stories loaded here at the LSF? I'm familiar with the period myself, though from the naval side of that war, and would enjoy getting your take on events then. Just like edb's Sixth Battle Squadron, you never know what historical oddity will make for a good spank story. Grin!