 Drama: October 14, 2015 Issue [#7248] |
  Drama
This week: The Flair of Writing Historical Fiction Edited by: Joy  
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"Fiction is truer than history, for it is in fiction [and drama] that we can understand the hidden life of the characters."
E. M. Forster
“But the tale or narrative set in the past may have its particular time-free value; and the candid reader will not misunderstand me, will not suppose that I intend any preposterous comparison, when I observe that Homer was farther removed in time from Troy than I am from the Napoleonic wars; yet he spoke to the Greeks for 2,000 years and more.”
Patrick O'Brian
“Why did people ignore the lessons of history and their own senses, deny a law of life immutable as the seasons, and erect twisted barriers against it in their minds? He didn't know why, but they did. They wept for the goodness of half-imaginary yesterdays, yesterdays beyond altering, instead of anticipating and helping to shape the good of possible tomorrows. They found things to blame for the flow of events they wanted to stop and could not. They blamed God, their wives, government, books, fanciful combinations of unnamed men--sometimes even voices in their own heads. They lived tortured and unhappy lives, trying to dam Niagara with a teacup.”
John Jakes, Love and War
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”
L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between
“Historical novels are, without question, the best way of teaching history, for they offer the human stories behind the events and leave the reader with a desire to know more.”
Louis L'Amour, Education of a Wandering Man
Hello, I am Joy , this week's drama editor. This issue is about writing the historical fiction.
Thank you for reading our newsletters and for supplying the editors with feedback and encouragement.
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Welcome to the Drama newsletter
Historical fiction has a sneaky way of getting under our skins, be it through the antics of Huckleberry Finn, the romance in Gone with the Wind, Borodin’s opera Prince Igor, or Shakespeare’s plays. Even a person who scorns historical anything cannot avoid to come in contact with such fiction in one form or another.
Although there is no clear-cut definition for historical fiction, we usually see the fiction as historical when the plot of a story takes place in a setting in the past, but how far past? By the rule of thumb, it is fifty years. In my opinion, if you have to research the setting and events of any time in the past without depending on your own memory, the fiction you write should be considered historical, whether it takes place several centuries or millenniums ago or during the 1990s.
The popularity of the genre in western literature goes far back into the Classical Greek times, highlighted by the Iliad, and continues in our day. During the last few years, writers' and readers' interest in historical fiction has grown, especially with the assistance of visual media and with the movies like Schindler’s List, Conan the Barbarian, Braveheart, Exodus, or The Last Emperor.
The question is, as writers how do we put our imagined stories in history? I believe it is a very good idea to begin with an extensive research, especially by digging into the cultural facts and period details as in costumes, speech, social status and gender concerns. To learn everything about the time and place in which the story will happen will give authenticity to our work since the feeling of authenticity is the most important factor.
One thing to watch out for is not to reflect our understanding and prejudices into the time of history when such understanding wasn’t even thought of or was derided or downright banned. A woman who would support today’s feminist concepts, for example, wouldn’t be able to take another breath of life in a time when women were believed to be only child-bearers and nothing else. To show the opposite would be like having a character make a call on his cell phone at a time when the telephone wasn’t even invented.
On the other hand, it is difficult to keep our own modern-day experiences from influencing the writing of any fiction, historical or otherwise. Still, we have to make every effort to imagine what life was really like for the characters within the context of their time period, whether we are writing about a famous historical person or an imaginary one. In short, whatever we write has to fit the historical facts of the era.
The basic steps to follow when writing historical fiction are:
 Research: This is the most important thing to do before writing down the first sentence. Keep in mind that history is not always 100% correct, and the further back we go in years and millenniums, the hazier the information becomes, but in any case, the truth of the social and cultural data is always central to historical fiction.
Characters: All characters must act according to the time they are in. You might take some creative liberties by going inside their heads and have them express through their thoughts their perspective on the society they belong and the human condition. Otherwise, have your characters behave as the society and the time require them to behave.
Plot: Imaginary events should be blended smoothly into historical ones while making sense and ending with a reasonable solution for that time.
Conflict: The dilemma that involves the main characters has to be realistic for that period.
Dialogue: The speech patterns, the manners while people speak, and their word choices should reflect what people know and accept in that specific era, whether they are afraid to say what is in their minds or not.
Descriptions: Events, relationships, props, scenery, and all other details have to be defined as they were and described vividly.
As the last word, historical fiction is a broad genre with a few limitations. Unlike the study of history, however, it is multi-dimensional, allowing imagination and critical thinking and accepting several different points of view. I believe, for the sake of the craft, writing a few historical stories is as important to a fiction writer as studying formal poetry is to a serious poet.
Until next time... 
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 This Issue's Tip:
A powerful technique of adding to the conflict of a scene is to center two competing emotions against each other; these could be felt and acted upon by the same character or by two different characters.
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Feedback for "Magical Realism"
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dwarf2012
Thank you for explaining magical realism to me. I think I have read stories like that but didn't know what they were.
Thanks for the feedback, Tessa.
I am glad the NL was helpful.
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Nixie Martell cheerleader 
Hi, Joy. You're a well-read and informative author. I read the Outlander series years ago, but this is the first I've heard of a genre Magic Realism. You're right. I accepted everything in that story because I trusted the characters.
My daughter was so involved in the series, when the last one (?) came out, she couldn't bear to read it. The intensity of the read moved her so intimately, she feared getting caught up in their lives again.
Magic realism is a bit like Paranormal vs. Supernatural? Briefly, Paranormal may one day be explained by science. Not so with Supernatural.
Thanks for the thought-provoking read.
Thanks, Nixie, for the cheers.
I didn't touch Outlander when it first came out sometime during the nineties, as I had thought it could be badly written pure fantasy. Only lately I read all the seven books and loved them. The last and eighth book is just published, I think, during the last two-three months or so. I didn't get around to reading it, either.
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Osirantinous 
Thank you for including my story, Joy, and for explaining magical realism. Looking over the items in my port, this hybrid mode seems to be something I do rather a lot! Would you consider this mode to be closer to supernatural than the other genres you mentioned? That's what my stories tend to get tagged as these days.
My pleasure and thanks for the input, Osirantinous.
I believe, at this time of its evolution, most of magical realism lies in what is real, but it has a supernatural or fantasy or sci-fi thrown in every now and then.
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