tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5502671101756463249.post447885934296570672..comments2024-03-23T12:38:46.260+00:00Comments on The History Girls: Ahistorical Fiction by Y S LeeMary Hoffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06241989732624913706noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5502671101756463249.post-68398425756139109342014-09-06T19:52:52.308+01:002014-09-06T19:52:52.308+01:00I can't decide. I want to say yes, but I also ...I can't decide. I want to say yes, but I also want to make a sustained argument explaining why it doesn't apply! I guess that ultimately I don't feel Maddie's flight to France *would* have changed the course of received history, even if it *might* have. It would have been viewed as a fluke, or she would have fired. Soviet women in WWII DID fly combat missions in mixed male/female fighter squadrons and most of us still don't know this. British women ferry pilots received equal pay with men as early as 1943, and yet it wasn't till 1987 that British Airways hired a woman as a commercial pilot.<br /><br />I think my dragging my heels at this is tied to the reason I don't write fantasy: I take great pleasure in placing these weird possibilities in the known world, because hey, maybe that really happened! It is probably a flaw in my own perception of history - what makes me a fiction writer (and a folklorist) rather than a historian. I am heavily into the idea of "what might have happened" as a distinct possibility. <br /><br />But if I admit I'm not a historian, that does pretty much amount to me saying there's a distinction. So, YES. After all that.E Weinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15589774091145087020noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5502671101756463249.post-53397450254514734992014-09-05T19:37:42.146+01:002014-09-05T19:37:42.146+01:00Thanks for joining in, E Wein. To start, I want to...Thanks for joining in, E Wein. To start, I want to make it clear how much I love and admire Code Name Verity as a work of historical fiction. (That sounds like craven sucking-up but after some thought, I decided it was more cowardly not to say it.) I take your point about not wanting to label the whole work of fiction as "outside" or "alternative", especially if doing so implies a lower standard of historical accuracy. I don't think it should. As you point out, we work so very hard to get it pitch-perfect.<br /><br />My recognition of ahistorical elements within a work of historical fiction is a response to questions about/objections to the probability of such events (female combat pilots in WWII, a women's detective agency in 1858). It started with a reader's question about why I'd chosen a framework that seemed predicated in fantasy, yet written a story that was bound by realism. Her question made me realize that I should explain why I was deliberately stepping outside common historical conventions (Is it very likely? Does it have a direct precedent?). For me, this is the difference between Maddie's flight into France and, say, Thomas Cromwell's unspoken feelings for Jane Seymour in Wolf Hall. We can't prove that either happened, but in the latter case, nothing in the well-worn course of received history changes. In the former, it really might. Do you think that's a distinction worth acknowledging?Y S Leehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18330808933361167527noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5502671101756463249.post-90456003119311183612014-09-05T10:50:00.983+01:002014-09-05T10:50:00.983+01:00The passage from my author's note reads: "...The passage from my author's note reads: "Despite my somewhat exhaustive quest for historical accuracy, this book is not meant to be a good history but rather a good story." I wanted to remind readers that Code Name Verity is not a textbook and shouldn't be used as one. (I have already stumbled across someone using Code Name Verity as a "source" for Gestapo torture techniques - UGH!)<br /><br />I don't feel that I've taken liberties with my plot-based "what-ifs" that aren't taken all the time in ANY kind of fiction. Within the boundaries of my historical setting I haven't created inaccurate historical facts, but rather have created a plot (which I hope is plausible) based around the facts we know. I haven't changed the *rules* of the time and place of my setting, if you see what I mean. Although I've made up events that maybe never occurred (and isn't that fiction, straight up?), there's no reason to argue these events couldn't have occurred, or that the consequences wouldn't have played out the way I've imagined them playing out.<br /><br />So I don't think of my books as "ahistorical" - though I realize I am defending myself and maybe "protesting too much"! But readers with real life ties to the events I've depicted don't protest, "That's not precisely what happened to my own mother/uncle/flight instructor"; they tell me, "Thank you for making these events known to a wider audience."<br /><br />Nor do I think the example from your own work, in which you give your character the right mix of advantage, intelligence and good fortune, is "ahistorical." Again, it's a "what-if" situation placed against an accurate backdrop of time and place. The impulse to defend fiction against "lack of evidence" is HUGE (I just did), but though I relate to deeply to that impulse, I feel that we're doing ourselves a disservice to apply labels like "outside" and "alternative" to our work (unless it really is, of course).<br /><br />We work a heck of a lot harder than fantasy or contemporary fiction writers in terms of struggling for an elusive perfection of temporal accuracy - research, tone, mores, and all the petty details of daily living -they're HARD!<br /><br />Regarding ahistorical devices in YA - I actually think that the fact-checking and copyediting process is more demanding in children's (and by extension, YA) fiction than it is in adult fiction. But perhaps there is a certain open-mindedness in the readers that makes them more forgiving (hence the need for more stringent editing?).<br /><br />OK, I will stop now. Thank you for generating this interesting discussion! <br /><br /><br />E Weinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15589774091145087020noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5502671101756463249.post-20708706805537362012014-09-04T17:26:17.161+01:002014-09-04T17:26:17.161+01:00What an interesting question, Sue. Insofar as youn...What an interesting question, Sue. Insofar as young readers are more tolerant of ahistorical devices because they have fewer preconceptions of What Historical Fiction Is? Absolutely. But I hope things won't stay that way! In the same way that genre snobbery is beginning to give way, I hope the perceived hierarchy of adult/YA/children's fiction will also crumble.<br /><br />Carol, absolutely. I was specific about historical fiction above because I'm leery of broad claims that I don't have space to support! But I think we're talking about the same thing: a window into an experience, or a fresh way of seeing the world.<br /><br />Lydia, I'm interested in the sense of responsibility you attach to the afterword. Do you think it's inappropriate to invent a plausibility/possibility and not tag it as such?Y S Leehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18330808933361167527noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5502671101756463249.post-2969104702886076202014-09-03T22:50:22.863+01:002014-09-03T22:50:22.863+01:00All very thought-provoking...and I can't quite...All very thought-provoking...and I can't quite decide if I agree about this ahistorical thing being more suited to children/ya. I must confess that I do rather like making clear in an afterword what elements I've based on actual events and where I've been inspired by possibility, just as I'll say if characters really existed or not. But maybe I'm... No, actually, not maybe... I am a dreadful pedant. Lydia Sysonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04613876235125755967noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5502671101756463249.post-29974576279488228262014-09-03T21:31:09.314+01:002014-09-03T21:31:09.314+01:00Your quote: "These specific historical leaps ...Your quote: "These specific historical leaps allow writers a different way of asking the big question at the heart of historical fiction: what if?" <br />Is this question 'what if' not at the heart of all fictional writing? At drama school it was one of our BIG questions as we took on the cloak of other human beings. I was trained by, amongst others, teachers from Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio in New York and it what the test they always laid at our doors, What if you were…<br />Also, to discuss!<br />Carol Drinkwaterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05837854482139736944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5502671101756463249.post-20545302190605033192014-09-03T18:34:27.738+01:002014-09-03T18:34:27.738+01:00Perhaps ahistorical devices have more of a place i...Perhaps ahistorical devices have more of a place in children's and YA books...? Discuss!Sue Purkisshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09084528571944803477noreply@blogger.com