Progress and accuracy

[erastes]

2000 words yesterday. Total word count 28,000. I’m so happy! It’s got to the stage now that I could probably write an outline and submit it to Perseus for consideration for their next Spring release, but I’m a little nervous because if False Colors and Transgressions don’t do well, there might not be a next Spring release… Aw buggrit. I know that I should just do it. My motto is “don’t ask don’t get” after all… Well, one of them, at least.

There’s a couple of interesting discussions about historical novels and the accuracy thereof on the net at the moment.

Fanficrants discusses it

Hayden Thorne discusses it

Both are worth reading, AND the links, if you haven’t seen them before-and as always the comments too.

My view is pretty well known by readers of this blog. Like Hayden, I think that if you write gay historical fiction and completely sweep the problems gay men would have had under the carpet, then you are doing the men from those times a disservice. And after all, if all you want is pretty uniforms, fancy clothes and hot gay sex you can easily make it AU, or in the future with steampunk Victorian or sci-fi Elizabethan. Of course one doesn’t want to read a book all about the horrors that being gay might mean—but I think that the fear has to be there when necessary.

I wouldn’t ever state that I am anything other than a flawed human and I know that there are mistakes in my books—Alex pointed out one in Transgressions yesterday where I’d referred to “shells” as cannon fire, because to me, shells, shot, cannonballs are all interchangable terms, but of course… they aren’t at all, and if I’d checked that out, I’d have realised it! It just shows you how easily you can be tripped up.

Comments

[the-sea-to.livejournal.com]

Of course one doesn’t want to read a book all about the horrors that being gay might mean

Whoops.

[zehavit-lamasu.livejournal.com]

I am taking it I am the yaoi fangirl sneered at with the "whatever"... so... whatever... it is a fad of people claiming to be serious writers to write off yaoi which is sad because it has its place and I am a bit scared of the notion that fiction writers have a "duty" to the people of the past...

Sometimes it IS all about escapism and just the way I can choose not to read something that is too serious for my taste - a more serious reader can easily ignore a genre that is all about frivolity.

I like the accurate fiction and I like the heavily anachronistic one just the same. Don't make me choose and please don't ruin my enjoyment by forcing me to read out of duty... I have done my stint in the army - I am done with serving causes I don't believe in!

Sorry if I drag in the wank :(

[erastes.livejournal.com]

No, I am fairly sure it wasn't you, hun.

Yaoi is a totally different medium and doesn't at all play by the same rules as historical novels.

One can still write a fluffy fun piece of escapism, but even that should be properly researched. To read a piece of crap that has people drinking tea in 14hundred, have a 12th century girl in Scotland called Jamie, that sort of thing - it's insulting-to the reader. It says "well, my readers aren't going to care, so why should i?"

And part of the trouble is, that some of the people writing heavily anachronistic stuff actually think that they are writing historical novels. And also, the danger is that people believe that this crap is true. Look at how many scottish books there are with men running around with blue faces and kilts, simply because writers use Braveheart as their source material.

I do think we owe a duty to get our facts right. But that doesn't mean that a book has to be Po faced and serious. I hope I proved that with Hard and Fast, at least.

[zehavit-lamasu.livejournal.com]

Hahah - I think we are approaching this from two different angles... which is where the confusion is.

You see - I am an avid romance reader(trashy het romance as well as fluffy to kinky yaoi) and I walk with eyes wide open into those books expecting them to dish nothing but fetish... I believe that the writers AIM for nothing but that as well.

I agree that if a writer APPROACHES the task of writing a historical novel rather than lets say - pirate or viking romance or regency yaoi - then they should put an effort in... I only hope they don't take it too far and use terms that alienate readers... I rather replace dead phrases with more modern one and damn the accuracy I want to be able to ENJOY it...

I am still concerned about the use of the word "duty" , it is a bit to strict for me and I fully believe fiction should have freedom . A writer who allows anachronisms under the pretense of being a serious researcher may deserve scorn but I would hesitate demanding that he should stop writing all together.

Personally - I like both sides. It hurts me at the moment when so many serious writers bash yaoi because I love both the silly and the serious... stuck in the middle and rather touchy - I apologize ;_;.

[vashtan.livejournal.com]

i'm totally on your side - and I do think we owe it to readers' intelligence *and* our forefathers/mothers to at least make a reasonable effort to get stuff right.

[ggymeta.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

Try writing it. >_< My biggest headache is trying to walk the line between 'being historically accurate' in fiction, where I HAVE TO BE; and having fun with suspension of belief in globl - where editors expect a bit of the unrealistic.

I have fans on both sides of the fence, and sadly neither side likes sitting in the middle.

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

To me it depends a lot on how the writer (and publisher if relevant) is presenting the story. If it's presented as a historical, then I expect it to be reasonably accurate. I majored in history so within my areas of knowledge I expect to catch things that the average reader wouldn't. But still, if a book is offered to me as a historical then below a certain level of accuracy, yes, I'm going to start sneering.

Part of the problem, too, is that the things which are wrong aren't usually cases where the writer was clearly trying to accomplish something -- wanted a certain kind of plot or character, wanted a certain tone for the narrative, was deliberately going for some over-the-top or zany humor, or anything similar -- and therefore made a change in order to support their purpose. Rather, so many of the inaccuracies (at least the ones I see) are in things which would've fit into the story perfectly well if they'd been done correctly. If someone's writing a medieval, for example, set in 1252, what could possibly be gained by having the noble family in their castle sit down and eat turkey? They could have had swan or peacock or goose and it would've fit the scene perfectly while being accurate -- unlike turkey, which is a New World bird and unknown in Europe at that time. That's not an author wanting to give their readers a fun story; that's a lazy writer who can't be bothered to do even the most basic research.

If you want to write a "fun" pirate book or whatever, pure rollicking escapism with historical accuracy thrown out the window, then fine -- don't present it as a historical. Call it a historical comedy, or a historical Yaoi, or a historical fantasy. Make it steampunk or some similar riff off of an earlier era. Write about space pirates or Elf pirates or anthropomorphic tiger pirates -- as a bonus, tigers actually do like water.

I don't think it's so much an issue of the accuracy of the story as the accuracy of the packaging. Calling a book a "historical" means something specific, and if that's not what's being offered then that's like selling a sack of oranges labelled "Carrots." It's not that there's anything inherently wrong with oranges, but someone who's expecting to get home and find carrots in their sack is going to be annoyed anyway, and the fact that the carrots are at least the right color isn't going to help.

Angie

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Hear hear. I'm NOT bashing yaoi, nor, did Hayden mean to - Hayden's roots are in Gundam Wing, as mine are in Potterdom. Just because we have an opinon on what we look for in an historical novel and one that is labelled as such, we are not saying what anyone else likes is WRONG or asking them to take sides.

I do a lot of beta-ing for people, because they come to me as a more experienced writer and believe me I can tell the difference between someone who's writing something as historical fantasy or is attempting to get the details right or who doesn't give a fuck whether the details are right or not as long as the breeches come off and there is shaggage.

Langley gets around the problem by having Regency Gays in Space, where there is pretty gay men in uniform, and the accuracy isn't a problem.

[tharain.livejournal.com]

:2000 words yesterday

MUCH better than me. I'm still in POO.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I have been terrified to ask you about it, as every time you ping me you haven't mentioned it.

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

No, I didn't think you were bashing Yaoi. It just sounds to me like some Yaoi fans/writers might be miffed because their stuff isn't being taken seriously by the historical crowd, which is kind of missing the point. And same from the other side -- someone who is bashing Yaoi for being historically inaccurate is using the wrong measuring stick.

And I've certainly read plenty of (het) historical romances where the writer obviously didn't do much research, or chose to ignore a lot of it for some reason of her own. But those books were on the same shelf as the other historical romances whose writers are actually focusing on the historical part.

I have very little respect for people who just throw in whatever-all because they can't be bothered, whether the mistakes are historical or science/tech or cultural or whatever. But for the folks who are putting in the effort to produce some specific result, that's a completely different issue. In those cases, I think the problem is more in the marketing, as I said -- the trick is to get the right books into the hands of the right readers. Market it for what it is, not for what has the largest audience.

I don't even have a major problem with OK-homo historicals, if they're clearly labelled or marketed that way so people who like them (of which there are quite a lot, and they should be able to find the books they want to read just like the rest of us) can find them and people who dislike them can avoid them. Just calling everything a "Historical" whether it's strictly accurate or OK-homo or historical fantasy or dino-punk or Yaoi or whatever, and making the readers gamble with their book budget, is the biggest problem IMO.

Which is remarkably like my rant about the labeling of erotica, erotic romance and romance, but anyway.... :/

Angie

[aphephobia.livejournal.com]

It's not just insulting to the guys of the time, it's insulting to the reader. And for history buffs (I'm not so much one, so I'm probably easier to bluff in that respect) it kills the continuity. Good writing suspends the reader's disbelief enough so they can get lost in the story, which is why research on historical fic is so important. Having tyre-tracks in a Western, bandaids on King Henry's neck, and fucklods of helicopters in a WW1 piece just... kill the mood. Ditto on the 'let's ignore that being gay is completely illegal' thing historically.

There are so many other genres where it doesn't have to be a big deal. I'm sure people could get creative with time-travel, even... but yeah. In historical stuff, accuracy is one of the thiungs that provides interest to people who don't know much, and which convinces those who do.

[rwday.livejournal.com]

I think that if you write gay historical fiction and completely sweep the problems gay men would have had under the carpet, then you are doing the men from those times a disservice

Exactly. It's like writing about black people in 1840 and ignoring racism and slavery. The bad stuff doesn't have to dominate your plot, but it ought to at least be a part of your background and should influence how the characters behave if you want to have any semblance of realism.

I remember reading somewhere (possibly some writer's blog?) that when writing an AU, like a Regency where everybody's okay with homosexuality, it's even more important to get the rest of the details right to make the world believable. People will accept the big change if the little details are right.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

I don't even have a major problem with OK-homo historicals, if they're clearly labelled or marketed that way so people who like them (of which there are quite a lot, and they should be able to find the books they want to read just like the rest of us) can find them and people who dislike them can avoid them.

Hear, hear!

And I think that Erastes would agree with that. It's not the fact that books about gay pirates in space exist--hell, if I objected to that, I wouldn't like Jack Harkness! I love steampunk and no one is claiming that's historically accurate. I like alternative history and historical fantasy (like the Lord Dunsany series, for example). I don't know much about yaoi--I only became aware of manga and anime a few years ago, when I was hospitalized--but I've read a few manga and seen a number of anime films and series, and loved them.

No, what bothers me are the historical romances that pass themselves off as being heavily researched and historically accurate when they're not--the kind of stories that will talk about characters taking a trip from Massachusetts to Mississippi in 1863 and forget about a minor detail like the American Civil War.

It isn't only authors that are responsible for this. The inspirational imprint of Harlequin is in thrall to the Association of Christian Booksellers. Among the words you can't use in this imprint's historicals are "Father" and "priest." The Christian Booksellers, you see, will not admit that there was once a time when everyone who was Christian and not a citizen of the Byzantine Empire was Roman Catholic. Which means that these medieval historicals have to falsify history and describe all priests as ministers five hundred years before Protestants existed. It's stupid, but it's true. And the publishers maintain that they have to follow these dictates by the Christian Booksellers, or they won't have a place to sell their books.

Just calling everything a "Historical" whether it's strictly accurate or OK-homo or historical fantasy or dino-punk or Yaoi or whatever, and making the readers gamble with their book budget, is the biggest problem IMO.

It is. I suspect that the publishers are trying to maximize their audience. I can't really blame them for wanting to make as many sales as is humanly possible.

I also suspect that many publishers are not fanatics about history, and do not know that the books they're publishing aren't accurate. They probably figure that as long as it has something to do with history, it's historical, right?

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

The world would definitely be sadder without Jack Harkness. :D

Have you read Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy series? Great historical fantasy mysteries. The pivot point is that King Richard I was almost killed, and the experience shocked him into actually going home and paying some attention to his kingdom, so the Plantagenets still rule the Empire today. Also that magic exists and has been studied and codified like science. They have a Victorian feel to them, but the differences because of the cultural shift -- not just in the British Isles, but all over the world -- are nicely thought out.

Among the words you can't use in this imprint's historicals are "Father" and "priest."

I've heard about that, yes. :/ It strikes me that "Inspirational" romances aren't actually "Christian" any more than steampunk, Yaoi and historical fantasy are "historicals." But then, I've known Christians who don't consider anyone who's not a member of their specific sect to be a "real" Christian; this sounds like the same attitude.

a time when everyone who was Christian and not a citizen of the Byzantine Empire was Roman Catholic

There were Coptics in North Africa, and Nestorians in the East (farther east than Byzantium), but they weren't Protestants either so your point still holds. [wry smile] It sounds like most of the people who own Christian Booksellers (or at least some organization which (claims to) speak for them) are of the type of Christian mentioned above who think that only their specific flavor of Christians are "true" Christians. [sigh]

I can't really blame them for wanting to make as many sales as is humanly possible.

I'll blame them, then, for short-sightedness. We're back to someone selling me something labelled "Carrots" and my getting it home and finding out that it's actually oranges. The fact that the color is correct doesn't make me any happier, and I probably won't buy produce from that vendor again. So yeah, they'll make sales -- once.

And yes, there are definitely publishers putting out historicals who don't know squat about the history. Bad enough when they let garbage through (or at least when they label it incorrectly), but some of them get actively involved in the process and insist in pissing in the soup. I remember when Judy Tarr first started writing historicals -- I think it was with her first one, which was about Alexander in Egypt -- she used accurate Egyptian names for the Egyptian characters, but the publisher objected on the grounds that the names were "unfamiliar" to readers. Could she use more familiar names instead? I forget exactly what was suggested, but they were along the lines of Bob, Mike and Oscar. [headdesk] Luckily Judy wasn't a baby author (she'd published a lot of successful fantasy and SF previously) so she stood her ground and was able to keep it from going all to hell. A new writer being published for the first time might've had to cave, though, and that would've sucked.

Angie

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Have you read Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy series? Great historical fantasy mysteries. The pivot point is that King Richard I was almost killed, and the experience shocked him into actually going home and paying some attention to his kingdom, so the Plantagenets still rule the Empire today. Also that magic exists and has been studied and codified like science. They have a Victorian feel to them, but the differences because of the cultural shift -- not just in the British Isles, but all over the world -- are nicely thought out.

Oh, yes, I've read those. Those are wonderful. And a great example of alternate history, as well as a world where magic actually has rules about what will work and what won't.

There were Coptics in North Africa, and Nestorians in the East (farther east than Byzantium), but they weren't Protestants either so your point still holds. [wry smile]

I'd heard of Coptics (though I wasn't sure how long they'd been around in North Africa). I don't know what Nestorians are, though. I should research before I make statements about religion.

We're back to someone selling me something labelled "Carrots" and my getting it home and finding out that it's actually oranges. The fact that the color is correct doesn't make me any happier, and I probably won't buy produce from that vendor again. So yeah, they'll make sales -- once.

I agree with you. The problem is, I think, that the publishers who are trying to sell to the widest possible audience don't realize that there are different kinds of historical fans.

Mystery publishers have learned to differentiate more, I think. I've seen publishers market books as true crime/based on a true story, police procedurals, amateur detective, cozies, gritty reality series, espionage/political paranoids, private investigator, and historical mysteries. You don't get mystery publishers saying, "Well, all these books have to do with murder, so I guess we can sell them all to the same audience."

Ideally, romance will realize that it needs to differentiate between genres more, calling the books what they are. A steampunk book should be labeled steampunk. A wallpaper historical should be called a wallpaper historical and marketed as such--I'm sure there are people who would like to read books that just have a flavor of history, and who love to know they aren't getting anything else, just as the fans of strictly accurate historicals would love to know if they were buying a truly accurate book or a wholly inaccurate one.

I don't think that the romance publishers are doing this, because they're afraid they'll cut into their own profits. I think that it would expand them, really; people would be able to shop more easily for what they wanted, rather than buying carrots and getting oranges. Or vice versa.

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

It's usually the things you think you already know that are the problem :) I'm torn, because my own inability to get things completely right gives me a lot of sympathy for the occasional gaff in a book, such as the medieval turkey or the tea drinking Saxons. It's so easy to do, when you think you already know. I can't demand something of other writers that I know I can't achieve myself.

But on the other hand I hate to find unexamined modern attitudes in a book which is about a time when people thought differently than we do. I suppose I don't object so much to the occasional mistake as I do to a simple refusal to even try to look at the world through different eyes.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Occasional mistakes.. yes, and I'll pass them over. It is easy to do-but it's pretty easy to spot an author who has researched well and thoroughly and an author who makes an inadvertent gaffe....

I'm with you on the modern thinking, and thank you for your comment on Jonathan - I hadn't even thought of that aspect of him, but yes, he's not at all concerned for the ultimate fate of the witches but only concerned that they get a fair trial.

:)

There's nothing worse than every regency girl being a reformer - see Tracey's notes about a book we both once read where the girl simply refused to do anything in line with her era. She'd probably have been locked in an asylum in reality. Hm.. now I've bunnied myself.

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think you can tell the difference between an author who has done their research but made a mistake, and one who hasn't even bothered with basic research. I have to admit that I don't usually manage to get to the end of the second type.

Actually (I always seem to think of films rather than books for examples) I loved The Knight's Tale, despite the flagrant not even bothering to get clothes and setting right, because the story itself seemed very medieval. The motives of the characters, the way people acted and the way things resolved were very right for the era, even though the physical details were not. I don't think you could (or should) get away with that in a book, but it was very interesting to see.

I wonder whether it would be an interesting idea to write a contemporary in which all the characters had 18th Century attitudes. Would it make it easier for people to spot the disconnect between outer and inner worlds that way round?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I actually started a Potter fanfic along those lines, where the rules and manners of the Regency had returned, but it never got finished - but it was fun to do!

And yes, the Knights Tale is an excellent example - the silly music and clothes were easy to put to one side because of the characterisation and the story itself. Ah Heath. *sigh *

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

You know, thinking about how romance is marketed on the het side, maybe they're afraid of messing up the system they already have. They do an awful lot of product segmentation already, they just do it differently, and adding in a further differentiation based on subgenre would really complicate things.

If you go into a bookstore and look at the romance section, most of the books are stand-alone titles. But last time I was paying attention, those are actually the minority. Most of the het romances sold are "category" books, the Harlequins and Silhouettes which are marketed as lines rather than individual books or authors, and which turn over each month rather than sitting on the shelf for however long.

Each line has its own characteristics, so if you're into contemporaries where the two main characters meet in the first chapter, but there's a murder and they distrust each other, but still have sex by chapter ten, then split up again over some misunderstanding, but both are working on solving the mystery and each realizes the other is innocent by chapter twenty-two so they start working together, and there's some climactic fight where the woman is in deadly danger the chapter before the end but then the guy swoops in and rescues her, then the boink like bunnies, you can probably find a line that'll give you five or six of those every month, all with identically designed covers so you can find them easily.

Note that the subgenre is built into that -- the mystery romance -- along with the woman-in-peril and misunderstanding-obstacle and whatever all else is in there. So if they segmented their subgenres (or would that be sub-subgenres, since we're already starting with "historical romance" as a subgenre which needs to be further divided?) that'd add another order of magnitude of complication to how they organize their offerings each month.

This is just something that popped into my head while reading your comment, so I don't know if this is actually the problem or not. It might be that they just don't get the problem, or don't care. I'd have a bit more sympathy, though, if the reason they don't address the issue is that it'd make some other aspect of their business horribly complex. [ponder]

Angie

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Note that the subgenre is built into that -- the mystery romance -- along with the woman-in-peril and misunderstanding-obstacle and whatever all else is in there. So if they segmented their subgenres (or would that be sub-subgenres, since we're already starting with "historical romance" as a subgenre which needs to be further divided?) that'd add another order of magnitude of complication to how they organize their offerings each month.

That could well be the issue--a complication that would make distribution or marketing or even sorting the books untenable.

I do wish that a publisher would tell us if that's the issue, though. It would be good to know.

[megleigh.livejournal.com]

The more I read of these kinds of posts, the less like a 'real' writer of historical fiction I feel. I gotta tell ya, contemporary is easier (although there's no less research in some ways).

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Pish. You are a real historical writer because you CARE about the research. *smites you with the diva stick *

[megleigh.livejournal.com]

lol I really wasn't intending to sound like a diva. Some discussions on this topic, and that of ethnicity in fiction recently have left me feeling somewhat rattled, is all.

Now I tend to over analyze every word I write. Got to find the happy medium.