Historical Accuracy

I have been thinking a lot about historical accuracy as I work on these medieval French assassin books. Lucy had asked (quite a while ago—sorry Lucy!) if I would talk about historical accuracy on the blog, and since I was discussing historical research in general, I thought it would be a good time to address it.

But first, a warning: I am not a purist. If you are looking for someone who holds up pristine historical accuracy as the One True Shining Purpose, I am not your girl.

For one thing, I think historical accuracy is an elusive beast, especially the farther back in time you travel. But that very elusiveness is exactly why so many historians tackle time periods that have been written about before: because things change. Sometimes it is the actual information and facts that change—new discoveries are made, new methods of dating or interpreting old facts emerge. But other times it is merely US who have changed, our perspective on history. A great example of this was the influx of histories in the seventies that were told/viewed through the eyes of women or minorities who’d been involved in the historical events, but whose side hadn’t yet been told.

There is also great disagreement on a lot of historical concepts and facts. Just trying to define the middle ages or medieval time period for example, can lead you on a long and twisting goose chase. Some declare it ended in the middle of the 14th century, while others claim it ended in 1450, where still others claim it ended in 1492. You can find solid historical arguments for each of those dates. The truth is, you can often find a variety of sources that will support an even wider variety of interpretations.

So which does a writer choose?

The one that serves the story they are trying to tell.

Some writers are writing in order to convey absolute historical detail and accuracy and take great pride in that, as well they should because it is so tricky. But others (like me) are mostly interested in evoking the sensibilities and flavor of a time period. I don’t mean that we slap historical costumes on 21st century characters and calling it historical, but rather we try to explore the mindset and worldview of earlier times, but in a way that is accessible to readers.

This is especially true for me since I write historical fantasy. I am already drawn to the murky, under explored parts of historical periods—their folk beliefs, superstitions, relationship to Other, and their spiritual anomalies—things that most real historians have traditionally steered clear of.

Then there is the added layer of conveying the history in the story as the people of that time understood it, or so that it is accurate when viewed through our 21st century lens. A great example of this is that I’ve been dinged in a view Theodosia reviews for being inaccurate about mummies, and I so want to ask this person to please point me to their research. Not because I want to argue, but because the four sources I consulted all supported my dealing with mummies and the researcher in me would love to examine this source that disputes that. Or is her source a more 21st century source rather than the information Theodosia and other Egyptologists would have access to in 1907?

Another example is that even now, they is still disagreement and dispute as to who really reached mountain peaks first or who the first man to discover the north pole truly was.

You begin to see the complexity.

My medieval France book is proving the most difficult, not only because the time period was recorded in such a subjective manner, but because most of the earliest sources are in French! Middle French at that, and I simply am not dedicated enough or willing to wait long enough to learn that language before I write this story.

What I am doing for this book is dipping my hand in the cauldron of what we know of the events at that time and pulling out those that are most relevant to the story I want to tell. There are vast amounts of historical facts and details I am not even touching—to do so would turn an already huge book into an encyclopedia! But even more important, they aren’t relevant to the story itself.

My own guidepost, touchstone, call it what you will is that the history serves the story. (Again, I want to reiterate that this would never fly if I were writing historical fiction rather than historical fantasy!)

Pre-Writing: Research

Ah, research. One of my own personal versions of crack. Whether writing historical, fantasy, or contemporary, solid, judicious research can make a book come alive.

It can also be one of the easiest areas in which to become bogged down due to 1) becoming overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of information and a desire to get everything perfect and 2) it’s a lovely way to procrastinate and avoid doing any actual writing.

The way I keep from getting overwhelmed or lost in a never ending maze of historical research is that I break it down into stages. In the prewriting stage, the point of my research is to get a broad overview of the major events, players, and temperament of the historical time period in question. If I’ll be using or referring to real people or events, I make sure I know enough about them so that I can adapt accordingly. In fact, early on, I will often make up a timeline incorporating those historical events that will be happening during the course of the story.

But perhaps more important than the major events and players, is the thing I called temperament. This incorporates not only the mood and tone of the historical period, but also the worldview of the people who lived in those times. I thinking trying to capture the worldview and convey it somewhat accurately is one of the keys to making historical fiction feel like more than a costume drama.

The mindset of those who lived in the Victorian Era was different from those who lived in the Edwardian Era. Medeival men and women had wildly different ways in which they viewed the world when compared to those that lived during the Renaissance. As writers, I think one of the most important research tasks we have is to be able to capture the essence of those views.

However, that worldview must be tweaked in such a way as to make sure the characters are relatable for today’s reader. I think the exception to this is if the main focus of the story is to capture a particular historical milieu and have it be the point of the story, but my own personal feeling is that character and story take precedence over historical accuracy. (Which I will talk about in my next post.)

Another really important point about historical fiction (including fantasy) is this: the story should be so integral to the events and constraints of the time period that it could not take place any other time. It could not be plunked down in another historical time period and work. So if you have a character and plot idea and you’re trying to choose between a Colornial, Renaissance, or Victorian setting, the chances are your plot and character are not fully grounded enough in their time or place. If you’re just at the idea stage and still fleshing out the plot and character, then that’s different.

For example, I get asked a lot about why I set Theodosa in Edwardian times, and the answer is, very simply, that particular story couldn’t have happened at any other time. A hundred years earlier and travel was much slower and women traveled to Egypt much less frequently and a woman archaeologist—while scandalous enough in 1907—would have been nigh impossible in 1807. Plus the Rosetta Stone hadn’t yet been cracked and no one knew how to properly read hieroglyphs, so Theo couldn’t have translated the various texts. Plus, the general view at the time was that it was perfectly fine to acquire artifacts from lands not one’s own and take them to a museum and archaelogical digs were minimally supervised.

If I were to have set it in modern times—well, the story couldn’t have happened in today’s world. Egypt is very much in control of its own excavations and discoveries, travel and access is now nearly instantaneous, and modern politics would have provided a huge barrier. Plus, we know so much more now that we did then and nearly all the really big archaelogical finds have been made.

Thus 1907.

So that’s what I look for in the first round of research, learning enough to anchor both the story and the character’s worldview in the time period. And then it’s a stop and go sort of thing. I’ll begin writing until I run into something I don’t know. If it totally stops the story from going forward, then I’ll stop and research it. If I can keep going without it, I put a note in brackets. [what were some games Edwardian kids played and what toys did they have?] and keep going. That way I avoid the procrastination game.

Oh, one other thing I do in these early, pre-writing stages is that I do the research necessary to assemble the setting of the book. Determine what cities or towns I’ll be using, or make some up based on real towns. I pour over old maps and photos of old towns and castles, trying to get a vivid picture of the setting in my mind and then create enough of a map or blueprint that I’m not constantly having to stop once the writing begins to figure out where in the heck I am.

(And the reason I’m talking about research now is because I do it before I create the template that I referred to in last week’s post. I’m pretty much doing these posts in the exact order that I do them for a book.)

Back Away From The Research!

This next project I’m working on is set in Medieval France and requires tons of research. I mean, tons! It needs way more than even the Theodosia books, which were extremely research heavy. Research is also one of the means through which I enter my story world. By immersing myself in research, the world of Edwardian England or Medieval France becomes real enough to me that when I close my eyes (which I do a lot. It’s called napping and is highly valuable exercise!) I am there.

One of the reasons this project requires so damn much research is that the worldview of someone who lived in Medieval France is radically different from our contemporary mindset, or even the mindset of a hundred years ago, and its that radically different worldview that attracts me to that age. But in order to evoke it on the page, I really have to know more than what sorts of clothes they wore, houses they lived in, and food they ate. I need to know how they thought of themselves in relation to the world.

The other thing I find is that there are wildly different interpretations of medieval life, with some authors claiming love was never a part of any marriage or betrothal and others claiming that theory is ludicrous and that while noble marriages were political beasts, there is evidence that some love matches occurred. At first this can be wildly frustrating, but after enough of these contradictions, it ends up being very freeing to me as a writer because if the experts can’t decide, then it means we don’t know with absolute certainty, so I can pick which theory works best for my story.

Of course, there will be some reader whose read the theory I didn’t choose, and will take me to task for getting research incorrect, but one of the things I’ve learned is that you can’t please every reader. It is impossible. For every story decision you make, for every character attribute you select, for every piece of research you incorporate, you risk alienating some reader somewhere. The thing I think we have to come to grips with is that it is okay, expected even, to not be every readers’ cup of tea. Ultimately we have to make the choices that resonate the most with us and trust that there is a sufficient body of readers out there for whom our choices will also resonate.

Okay, that was a tangent, Now where was I? Oh yeah, some people claim that research can be an avoidance technique, but even with the piles of it I do, I have never found this to be true for me. The thing is, my process has had over a dozen years now to mature and take shape and the one thing I know to be true is that writing is my favorite thing ever, and I don’t lack discipline for writing. I don’t need to force it because I will always come back to it. I can hardly force myself to take week’s vacation. So if I don’t feel I’ve done enough research, it is not because I’m avoiding writing, but because I truly haven’t done enough research or I still need time for the story or voice to jell.

If I try to cut the research short, the voice doesn’t fully ripen and it sounds off and clunky or anachronistic. In fact, I sometimes wonder if all the advice to write every day, and that warns against too much research doesn’t contribute to stories being written before their time? I’m a firm believer in the role of the subconscious (read: the girls and boys in the basement) in sending up some of the best stuff for our stories—but they need stewing and fermenting time.

The other reason I’m inclined to keep on with my research is that much of the time I will find the perfect plot element or the answer to a thorny story problem in the research—I consider that the writing gods reward for keeping at the tough slog through the genealogy charts of long dead French land barons (and isn’t google the most amazing thing ever!) and staring at maps until my eyes cross (because in medieval power and political struggles—land IS power and military strategy—it is absolutely integral to the story).

When I do need to back away from the research is when my poor brain becomes over saturated, like a lawn that’s been watered too long so that all the water just runs off onto the sidewalk. When my brain starts dribbling out my ears into puddles on the table, I know I need to stop. For now, at least. But the research process continues throughout the writing of the entire book.

A Researching We Will Go

Some weeks it feels like I spend 80% of my time doing research and world building, and only 20% of my time writing the actual book. This is one of the reasons I’m such a firm believer in the “don’t have to write every day” theory. The truth is, without the research or the world building, I can’t write the story. I have characters acting out against white board in my head, and there is no life to them or the scene because I don’t know what’s happening.

This week for instance, I spent a huge amount of time researching street maps and neighborhoods in London, along with an old secret society called The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Since my next few scenes involved a secret society (The Arcane Order of the Black Sun) I had to give myself a crash course in mystical occult societies of the time before I could write about one effectively.

Last week, I got completely sidelined by massive amounts of research into German and British Naval Power at the turn of the century and spent more hours than I care to acknowledge hunting down information on the battleship Dreadnought.

But the beauty of it is that once I’ve got the research and world building firmly in mind, then I can produce pages much faster than if I’d tried to slog through without the research.

Which is why I shoot for weekly goals rather than daily ones. Right now, because the process is so research heavy, I shoot for 25 – 30 pages a week. That will give me time to write plenty of drafts, with lots of resting time in between.

Um, that’s the manuscript that’s resting, not me.

I like to let the story ferment a bit, just like a lump of yeasty bread dough, because when I come back to it, I always find that lovely, interesting things have risen to the surface, which make the revision process it's own special brand of fun.