I don't know. I don't want to post there because I'm not looking for an argument. But I really doubt Willis meant "who doesn't love death and destruction?" I think she probably meant it was a rich subject because of the things she mentioned. There was a lot of horror and heroism and everything in between. Who wouldn't want that as a backdrop for a story? It's a fascinating period of history.
And as far as history goes, at some point I think we have to let fiction be fiction. No author writing historical fiction is going to get it all right. The OP said implied that she spent 30+ years studying an obscure historical period. What professional writer has that kind of time to research?
I already complained in one of your last posts about Dan Brown's egregious falsehoods put in the mouth of his character, so I DO get wanting to at least not say things that are totally false. But I do think fiction writers do (and should) get a certain amount of leeway as their goal is to tell a story and not write a textbook of historical fact. I don't think it's uncommon for fiction writers to even acknowledge things that weren't accurate but which they changed for the sake of the story. Does it make it better or different if a fiction writer puts a disclaimer at the front of the book?
I'm just curious, because while sure, you should be respectful of history, if it were me, after reading this, I would be awfully intimidated to even try to write historical fiction, thinking that the scholars are going to flay me for not being respectful enough. And while I don't always like Willis' books, I've never found her to be disrespectful of her subject matter in the ones that I've read.
I don't know, I complain as much as the next person when a subject matter I know well (usually science) is misrepresented, but at what point do we take a step back from that because it is fiction?
That's a tough line to draw, totally. I myself won't read any of the Jane Austen continuations or detectives because I haven't read one yet that didn't have errors within a page or two. But other readers find them wonderful and they sell in zillions. So who is right?
Perhaps this is why many writers consciously create alternate worlds, so they can tell their story, but the moral imperative toward verisimilitude isn't quite as harsh.
In the case of Connie Willis, it would seem to me (from my distance) that she earns well enough to pay a British historian to do a Britcheck of her ms--but it's always easy to point fingers.
Yes, totally! I think it'd almost be "easier" to write fantasy, because at least people can't tell you you're wrong. They probably will anyway, and of course I put "easier" in quotes...
That is true of Willis - she certainly could pay a historian to read her draft. I always thought of her as a fantasy author, though, rather than a historical fiction writer, so maybe I give her more slack because of it. (And I'll freely admit I have not read the Blackout books, so maybe these tread closer to historical fiction.)
I stick to a universe of my own creation so I can make up all the history I want. And I play around with parallel universes to boot to make things even more interesting. I have a real world story I'd like to write someday but the amount of research and intimate knowledge I would need of two major league subjects is rather daunting. Much more fun to simply make up my own major league subjects. :-)
I also found the novels flawed (although I did find things to like in them). But I suppose I was able to look past some of the inconsistencies simply because the premise of the books was in fact that history was being...bent. In other words, I'd assumed some of it was intentional.
Also, I guess I always thought Willis' 'historians' were supposed to be creepy and hubristic, not because true historians in our time are, but because the time travel tech had warped the field in unfortunate ways by being a magnet for Indiana Jones' types and others who would indeed treat history like their own personal playground.
I'll put my two cents in because I've been writing historical fiction, with four years in those exact trenches.
First of all, I don't think you're wrong about what Willis meant; the problem is that her phrasing was too flippant for a topic that has personally affected the lives of a lot of people reading it. If her books had been praised for their deep understanding of the Blitz, it probably would have been okay; but this happens in the context of people criticizing her for not getting it at all.
No, we don't have thirty years to research. (I had maybe six months for each book, and had to switch centuries each time.) But there's different kinds of Getting It Wrong, and people react to them differently. I just read a mystery novel set in early Imperial Rome, which had two kinds of Getting It Wrong; one irritated me, and one didn't. I don't mind that the real Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus was about ten years older than he's depicted in the story, or that in reality Silanus didn't come back to Rome until a year later; I don't know my history well enough to spot that on my own, and the author acknowledged it in the notes at the end anyway. I do mind that this Roman protagonist and narrator describes the woman who comes to him for a favor as "a tough cookie," and sprinkles various other cliches of hard-boiled detective prose throughout the text. It's jarring and out of place, and isn't quite carried off with enough panache to pass muster as a wacky stylistic choice.
People tend, in my experience, to be more offended by getting the spirit of it wrong than the letter. Characters acting like modern Americans (or Brits or whoever) shoved into historical costumes -- especially if the "bad guys" of the story are the ones who think and behave in period-appropriate manner. Again, if you're cruising along telling a fun, light-hearted story, and you pull it off well enough, people will often forgive you. But if your book is Serious Business and you're horribly out of tune with the reality of the period? Then people will be a lot more annoyed.
It is hard. No doubt about it. And you're never going to please everybody (though that isn't a license to tick off everybody). I haven't been flayed yet, though there's a few points I can think of where I probably should have been. :-)
I don't think hard-boiled detective prose would bother me. The spoken language was very slangy and it's useful to convey that fact; these were people who referred to your head as your "jar" and said "munch" all the time instead of "eat", and one word migrated in meaning from "to be sent" via "to push, to shove" to "to go away" - almost literally, "to push off". Translating the idioms literally wouldn't give the right feel at all.
What does bother me is getting the social situation wrong, particularly family dynamics.
It takes a very, very good author to manage period idiom well, and quintuple the challenge if it's in a different language. But the hard-boiled thing carries such distinct associations for me that I found its use here jarring. As I said, though, with more panache, it might have worked. (I am unexpectedly fond of A Knight's Tale, for example, which is gleefully anachronistic in so many ways.)
I would love that movie without reservation if you could just get rid of the damned love interest. The blacksmith was FAR cooler! Hook up with her instead!
Now, it's precisely the associations that would make it acceptable to me; Roman society was very much a cross between Raymond Chandler's world and "The Sopranos"
Thanks - I'll have a look for it. An interesting period, with the Mob ruling the Western World. Augustus gets a good press because he came out on top, whereas he's got a lot in common with Napoleon and 20th century dictators.
It's set right after Ovid's death, so during Tiberius' reign, but it digs heavily into the end of Augustus' rule, and nobody comes out smelling like a rose. Very much a political mystery, rather than an evidence-based "detective" story.
It's part of a whole series, too; that one's the first. Enjoy!
And as far as history goes, at some point I think we have to let fiction be fiction. No author writing historical fiction is going to get it all right. The OP said implied that she spent 30+ years studying an obscure historical period. What professional writer has that kind of time to research?
I already complained in one of your last posts about Dan Brown's egregious falsehoods put in the mouth of his character, so I DO get wanting to at least not say things that are totally false. But I do think fiction writers do (and should) get a certain amount of leeway as their goal is to tell a story and not write a textbook of historical fact. I don't think it's uncommon for fiction writers to even acknowledge things that weren't accurate but which they changed for the sake of the story. Does it make it better or different if a fiction writer puts a disclaimer at the front of the book?
I'm just curious, because while sure, you should be respectful of history, if it were me, after reading this, I would be awfully intimidated to even try to write historical fiction, thinking that the scholars are going to flay me for not being respectful enough. And while I don't always like Willis' books, I've never found her to be disrespectful of her subject matter in the ones that I've read.
I don't know, I complain as much as the next person when a subject matter I know well (usually science) is misrepresented, but at what point do we take a step back from that because it is fiction?
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Perhaps this is why many writers consciously create alternate worlds, so they can tell their story, but the moral imperative toward verisimilitude isn't quite as harsh.
In the case of Connie Willis, it would seem to me (from my distance) that she earns well enough to pay a British historian to do a Britcheck of her ms--but it's always easy to point fingers.
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That is true of Willis - she certainly could pay a historian to read her draft. I always thought of her as a fantasy author, though, rather than a historical fiction writer, so maybe I give her more slack because of it. (And I'll freely admit I have not read the Blackout books, so maybe these tread closer to historical fiction.)
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Also, I guess I always thought Willis' 'historians' were supposed to be creepy and hubristic, not because true historians in our time are, but because the time travel tech had warped the field in unfortunate ways by being a magnet for Indiana Jones' types and others who would indeed treat history like their own personal playground.
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First of all, I don't think you're wrong about what Willis meant; the problem is that her phrasing was too flippant for a topic that has personally affected the lives of a lot of people reading it. If her books had been praised for their deep understanding of the Blitz, it probably would have been okay; but this happens in the context of people criticizing her for not getting it at all.
No, we don't have thirty years to research. (I had maybe six months for each book, and had to switch centuries each time.) But there's different kinds of Getting It Wrong, and people react to them differently. I just read a mystery novel set in early Imperial Rome, which had two kinds of Getting It Wrong; one irritated me, and one didn't. I don't mind that the real Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus was about ten years older than he's depicted in the story, or that in reality Silanus didn't come back to Rome until a year later; I don't know my history well enough to spot that on my own, and the author acknowledged it in the notes at the end anyway. I do mind that this Roman protagonist and narrator describes the woman who comes to him for a favor as "a tough cookie," and sprinkles various other cliches of hard-boiled detective prose throughout the text. It's jarring and out of place, and isn't quite carried off with enough panache to pass muster as a wacky stylistic choice.
People tend, in my experience, to be more offended by getting the spirit of it wrong than the letter. Characters acting like modern Americans (or Brits or whoever) shoved into historical costumes -- especially if the "bad guys" of the story are the ones who think and behave in period-appropriate manner. Again, if you're cruising along telling a fun, light-hearted story, and you pull it off well enough, people will often forgive you. But if your book is Serious Business and you're horribly out of tune with the reality of the period? Then people will be a lot more annoyed.
It is hard. No doubt about it. And you're never going to please everybody (though that isn't a license to tick off everybody). I haven't been flayed yet, though there's a few points I can think of where I probably should have been. :-)
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What does bother me is getting the social situation wrong, particularly family dynamics.
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It's part of a whole series, too; that one's the first. Enjoy!
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