Last autumn I took part in a panel discussion at the Historical Novel Society Conference called The Lying Art: Tensions and Issues at the Fact/Fiction Interface.

The authors on the panel Elizabeth Chadwick, Ian Mortimer (when he's being a historian, James Forrester when he's being a novelist), Barbara Ewing, Daisy Godwin, Harry Sidebottom and your truly, and it was a really lively discussion - lots of disagreeing!.

It obviously might interest anyone writing historical fiction, but also anyone who's grappling with the perennial questions that come up when you're using real factual material in your fiction - what you must be faithful to, what you can change, what you can ignore.

http://historicalnovelsociety.org/the-lying-art-panel-discussion-from-hnslondon12/

That was absolutely fascinating, thanks for posting.

I love the idea of writing historical novels one day - maybe I'll even try, knows? There are several periods I find really compelling. But I wonder if it's possible to write characters, particularly from periods far distant to our own, and avoid trying to put some sort of modern gloss on them?

I've heard it said, for example, that however many years separate person x from us, at some level we will share certain basic values and attitudes, but I've always struggled with that. What do you think?

You're welcome, Astrea - it was a good discussion, wasn't it.

But I wonder if it's possible to write characters, particularly from periods far distant to our own, and avoid trying to put some sort of modern gloss on them? I've heard it said, for example, that however many years separate person x from us, at some level we will share certain basic values and attitudes, but I've always struggled with that.

I think that it's always difficult because I'm sure there are some very basic human drives which all humans have in common - and yet what we take for granted as "human nature" is actually very contingent on culture.

It's hard for us to imagine a nice, good man simultaneously being passionately and committedly in love with a woman, and essentially thinking of her as inferior in some important ways, for example.

Taking that example, how much of his mindset can you convey, without alienating the modern reader? And should you? After all, it's a historian's job to evoke the past accurately, but it isn't necessarily ours: we're writing stories which must work for the modern reader. If you did it "properly", you'd stand a fair chance of turning off quite a few of your readers who just can't get past his saying that of course his wife shouldn't be allowed out alone, let alone her agreeing with him. (Though I'm sure WWers are already thinking of ways to finess that one...)

On the other hand, if you're too modern with such a situation, you'll get other readers readers not being convinced - and if you do that too often and the contract between writer and reader begins to break down, and they begin to lose interest in the story. Mind you, sometimes your "too modern" things are well-researched and accurate, but readers have too rigid an idea of how people behaved then and don't believe you even when they should... That's another kind of finessing you have to do, to convince them.

I know that makes it all sound horribly complicated, but it isn't actually in practice, although I don't actually know the answer - I don't think there is a definitive one. You feel your way, and go by your own instincts, finesse things where you have to (see above) and listen to your trusted readers but don't necessarily do what they want.

If you did it "properly", you'd stand a fair chance of turning off quite a few of your readers who just can't get past his saying that of course his wife shouldn't be allowed out alone, let alone her agreeing with him.

Yes, exactly. I've seen it done by having a female main character who is anachronistically modern in outlook, and having her meet a similarly maverick male counterpart...not sure how I feel about that.

I toyed with a really fun idea I had about an female version of C J Sansom's Matthew Shardlake, for example, only at Mary of Guise's/James V's court. I had to give up, though, because there was just no way I could think of to give her the kind of freedom she would have needed to get up to the various adventures I had in mind for her. I would have been happy to tell the tiny fibs, but didn't feel I could stretch the 'truth' as much as I would have needed to.

Ah well, there's still the alternative history route. And I still haven't written the definitive historical novel about the Highland Clearances!

<Added>

and yes, I do realise I have just outed myself as a bit of a history nerd

I had to give up, though, because there was just no way I could think of to give her the kind of freedom she would have needed to get up to the various adventures I had in mind for her.

Yes, exactly - either you make her anachronistically liberated, or you're at risk of writing a very dull book. Digging to find real tension and drama inside a convincingly contstrained life is really hard.

One reason my first novel based on Elizabeth Woodville didn't work was because even though she's an "elite woman", as the jargon has it, she STILL wasn't there for so many of the real high drama. If I'm going to write childbirth scenes, I blimmin' well want to write battles as well. And there's only so many times a miry messenger can ride up and throw himself at her feet to describe it all, without sinking the whole novel.

Having said that, of course, it is possible - particularly if you cast your MC adrift in other ways. Your salvation can be in the detail of real lives too, when you research - running castles and businesses, say, even if it is only because their fathers and husbands are away on crusade: humans always transcend the stereotypes.

Hmm. Maybe I'll have to revisit the idea, with Mary herself taking central stage. She was such a strong-minded, capable woman, and I think she's been rather sidelined by her daughter's fame. I'm sure I could find enough intrigue to go around in her very eventful life.

Yes, she must have actually have been very active and energetic, given she was a widow and the Regent... A good example (like Eleanor of Acquitaine) of how powerful women are known as powerful in their lifetimes, and it's often the historians who don't see these large figures right in front of their eyes - so the women are erased from History.

You could have a lovely time with her as a child of the Guise, as well - all those intrigues - and the contrast of the French court and the Scottish one. (She says, knowing zilch about her beyond hundreds of childhood re-readings of Jean Plaidy's Young Mary, though not as many as of Young Elizabeth)

<Added>

Of course, there is the option I went with for ASA, which is to divide the story between a man and a woman. But that was partly because I'd totally fallen for Anthony by then.

You could have a lovely time with her as a child of the Guise, as well - all those intrigues - and the contrast of the French court and the Scottish one.

I really could, couldn't I? Hmmm...

Yes! You really could! G'wan - you know you want to...

Thanks for posting that, Emma. Really interesting

One of the (many) things that led me to 'resting' the historical strand of my wip was getting mired in worries over whether what I was doing with would be considered "okay", should the book ever be published. (My suffragette character was inspired by real but not all that well-known suffragette, but I then heavily fictionalised - now almost everything about her is invented, except for a handful of dramatic militant actions which are taken from her real life, which are absolutely essential to the story).

I suppose there's always the author note option, saying what was real and what was invented. I read very little that could count as historical fiction (and am far from a history buff!) but I remember seeing a similar note in Adam Foulds The Quickening Maze. Are such notes standard, common or reasonably rare?

Very standard - quite a lot of historical fictioneers feel strongly that you ought to be honest about what you've changed from the record.

I don't - as you could guess from that panel! I did put a historical note in A Secret Alchemy, but not to explain what ws "true" and what I'd "invented" - which are such slippery distinctions anyway. Because Elysabeth and Antony's stories were told very episodically (though I was super-careful to make it all make sense) I did put in a Historical Note just to give the basic story, so a reader who was curious could fit the bits they read into the larger trajectory.

was getting mired in worries over whether what I was doing with would be considered "okay", should the book ever be published.

I find this stuff incredibly frustrating - and not in a good way, not a creative sort of frustation at all. It's such a sterile argument one has with oneself, every bloomin' time... I'm not surprised you got mired in it.

And judgements about "okay" are all about feeling judged - in a bad way.

I think ideally you just decide what's okay for you - make up your own ethical system, with perhaps a little help from any authors you admire who's written about their system (see my PhD ), and forget about the other, tiresome voices. They're not the ones who know about making a story which works.

It's such a sterile argument one has with oneself

Yes, sterile is exactly the right word. It's stopped me writing this particular thing more than once. Although my MA tutor said that he'd played much faster and looser with history with his book on Russia, and was firmly of the opinion I should just get on with this and not even consider such questions. But I'm still not so sure.

Perhaps part of the problem is that I don't particularly like, or relate to, the term historical fiction. I see my novel as a contemporary novel being about the differences between now and then but with the accent firmly on the now - the past matters mostly because of what it shows about the present-day characters & society. I'm not in the slightest interested in writing biofic, or in sticking to the historical record and only inventing between the gaps or anything of the sort...

Ali Smith refers to the same suffragette I'm inspired by in the opening pages of Boy Meets Girl, and just includes an acknowledgement giving the real name and citing the 2006 book suffragette history book which gives an account of her early life. But then Ali Smith covered the story in a few pages (if that), rather than a third of a novel!

I've downloaded your PhD commentary from the British Library/ EThOS - thanks for reminding me of that

<Added>

"or in sticking to the historical record and only inventing between the gaps"

This makes it sound like I haven't done any research, which isn't the case. I've read everything I can find on her in print, including newspaper archives but there simply isn't that much, as she was pretty much written out of suffrage history until recently. And now there's so much I've invented from before and from after the short period of her life that is documented that I can't really see much connection between my character and the original inspiration - except that I've retained militant actions, which are crucial.