Ancient & Medieval Historical Fiction discussion
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Bobby, can't see that photo. I think because you are logged in to FB. You may have to log out of FB and then get the link and post it.
Terri wrote: "Bobby, can't see that photo. I think because you are logged in to FB. You may have to log out of FB and then get the link and post it."I'll try that. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...
Nope. Did not work.
Hmmm... it works when I click on it. I'll try and copy it again in the a.m.
It only works if you're signed into FB. I don't know why it's doing it for this one as I've had my links work fine before.
Could it be a privacy settings issue?
I've posted pics quite a bit....first time its failed.
Anne wrote: "I saw it Bobby-LOL"Thanks for the reinforcement, Anne. Now I really don't know why it doesn't work for all eyes.
Folks:If you're looking for a good set of laughs today, take a peek at this site. I laughed so hard on some of these paragraphs my stomach hurt. Check out the one for Historical Fiction:
http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2012win....
Les
That is some bad writing!
--That's 'Children's Literature'? --I like the Persian monk
--The 'Fantasy' winner is satire, come on, judges, where's your sense of humour?
--pretty sure the runner-up is meant to be funny too. Isn't this a comp for undeliberate humour?
--and our own 'Historical Fiction': "...the clunk of the guillotine reminded Marie Antoinette, quite briefly, of the sound..." Can't they see the brilliance in that 'quite briefly'?
--'Science Fiction' winner. "...back into the tentacles of the alien who loved me" I found oddly touching.
Bryn:I totally agree with you. I thought the "quite briefly" was simply brilliant... and hilarious. People who do writing workshops should use that as an example of how a tiny phrase can turn a plaintive sentence into a work of art!
Les
I thought the 'quiet briefly' was a brilliant example of bad writing. :) Quite briefly is stating the obvious.
Buwahahahahahahahahahaha. Those are awesome. One does wonder what the heck the writers were thinking!
I don't believe they were thinking. :D
Margaret, Terri:C'mon folks, these were contest winners for bad writing! Let's give credit where credit is due. That had to be hard work (haha). One only wonders what the contest LOSERS wrote. In fact I'd like to leave it at wondering... I don't think I have the stomach to actually read them!
Les
Lester wrote: "Margaret, Terri:C'mon folks, these were contest winners for bad writing! Let's give credit where credit is due. That had to be hard work (haha). One only wonders what the contest LOSERS wrote. In..."
OMG, Les. That is a seriously scary thought!
I'm adding Hound to my wee library programme (not GR) and saw something that might surprise the author George Green: Born 14/07/1793
Sneinton,Nottinghamshire, England
Died 31/05/1841
Nottingham,Nottinghamshire, England
Clearly the wrong man.
Ha. Yeah. I think George is still with us...if he isn't..then who is it that posts in this group!!
Terri wrote: "Ha. Yeah. I think George is still with us...if he isn't..then who is it that posts in this group!!"The Ghost of Georges Past?
Haha. Margaret. That is very funny!! Well done. :D
Margaret wrote: "Terri wrote: "Ha. Yeah. I think George is still with us...if he isn't..then who is it that posts in this group!!"The Ghost of Georges Past?"
Perfect! haha
Doorknobs notwithstanding, puir wee man.
Here is an interesting article by Tessa Harris at the Huffington PostTo see article at the Huff Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tessa-h...
Treading Warily Through History
14/02/13
Writing historical fiction with real-life characters at its core is a bit like negotiating a minefield that's already been swept. As long as you keep to the tried and tested path you'll be safe.
By that I mean that as long as you stick to the basic facts, the accepted road map which draws on events that are a matter of record. But if you stray - beware! If you're not blown to pieces by eagle-eyed critics, then there'll still be readers out there keen to take pot shots at you.
Some of our greatest writers have ventured on this course. Think Shakespeare, Dickens and Tolstoy, not to mention Robert Graves, Colm Toibin and Pat Barker. Yet if combining fact and fiction is nothing new, it has always been viewed with suspicion by purists. Virginia Woolf, for example, deplored Lytton Strachey's original decision to garner the facts with invented passages in his book, Elizabeth and Essex. 'Truth of fact and truth of fiction are incompatible,' she told him.
Most historical novelists will tell you, however, that they have no desire to ride roughshod over the facts. Many are indeed respected scholars as well as writers of fiction. I am thinking of novelists like Alison Weir and Philippa Gregory who both go to original sources. In fact the latter struck literary gold when she took the trouble to delve into the archives herself. That is how she came across a tiny footnote in an original document stating that Henry VIII had to seek dispensation for his marriage to Anne Boleyn, not only to divorce his first wife Catherine of Aragon, but also because he had been sleeping with Anne's sister. This led Gregory to write her best seller The Other Boleyn Girl, which was subsequently made into a successful movie.
Kings and queens seem to be especially favoured by historical novelists, although several presidents and many artists, writers and actors have also had their names taken in vain for the sake of literature. As well as Hilary Mantel's hugely successful Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, there have been countless other novels that have at their heart real characters: Peter Carey's The True History of the Kelly Gang, Michael Cunningham's The Hours about Virginia Woolf and Joyce Carol Oates' Blonde about Marilyn Monroe to name but a few.
Yet all these writers would probably tell you that they are storytellers first and historians second. Take, for example, Bernard Cornwell, with 50 novels to his name. Most of them are historical, ranging from the early 19th century Sharpe series to his latest 1356, set at the time of the battle of Poitiers in the Middle Ages.
In a recent interview he said: "If you are wanting to write historical fiction I always say, you are not an historian. If you want to tell the world about the Henrician reformation, then write a history book but if you want an exciting story, then become a storyteller. Telling the story is the key."
And there's the rub. There are an awful lot of (bestselling) writers who don't let facts get in the way of a good story. (Mr Cornwell, I hasten to add, is meticulous in his research and is certainly not one of them.) And yet I would argue that if you can stick to the facts, then your story may well be all the better for it because, as the saying goes, truth is very often stranger than fiction.
History will always be open to interpretation, whether it is written as fact or incorporated into fiction. No matter how objective the writer tries to be, there will also be insurmountable obstacles to impartiality. Events and characters will always be filtered through our contemporary lenses and there will always be doubters and detractors, just as there are apologists. One writer's hero is another one's villain.
That is why I believe it is so important to work to ground rules in historical fiction. There are basic facts which should be rigidly adhered to. Yet even here we can run into trouble. Take for example Gore Vidal's Lincoln. The writer claimed that his work contained nothing but "agreed upon facts." But, as the president of the Abraham Lincoln Association, Frank J, Williams pointed out; Vidal did not tell us who had agreed them.
That's where, I believe, the author's note has a very important role to play. It gives the writer the opportunity to set the record straight, if necessary. If certain facts have been skewed or emphasized for the sake of the narrative, then it provides the chance to put things right. If liberties have been taken with locations, for example, for the sake of the narrative, then the writer can hold their hands up and say so.
A mature student of the Italian Renaissance once related how her tutor had recommended that before she started studying any academic literature she should read Sarah Dunant's The Birth of Venus to give her a flavor of the fascinating period. Surely that has to be one of the over-arching goals of the historical novelist: to so imbue the reader with a sense of wonder and passion about their chosen subject that they, too, are compelled to set off into the minefield of history without worrying too much about treading on a mine.
It's all about the author's note for historical fictions as the thing that is oft forgotten is the 'fiction' bit. I am guilty of pointing out inaccuracies, usually when they significantly impair my enjoyment of the book/story. If I have to consciously think "okay, this is just a fiction, it's an interpretation" while I'm reading, the author hasn't done a good job..UNLESS there's the safety net of an explanatory author's note. Then all is well again and I can sit back and enjoy.
I agree with you D, sometimes writers put to much of their own twist on history and I have a hard time trying to tell what is fact and what is fiction. It takes the joy out of reading a historical fiction novel that could have been good.
And I agree with you both. Some twist is okay. Some twist 90% of us readers would not even notice, but an author should not mess with written history too much or on the big things.For example....Battles that took place, should still take place. The historical winners should still be the winners. If the King is historically killed on the field he should still be killed on the field.
...and William Wallace shouldn't have an affair with the Queen. :)
Terri wrote: "...and William Wallace shouldn't have an affair with the Queen. :) "*giggles*
So Scarrow too has out ebook novellas at cheap prices? 'ebook exclusive', 80-90 pages, $3.21. This is a random thought. I wonder how these serials -- are they called? -- are going down.
Yes, I wonder.As we know, Christian Cameron has them to. I suppose they would be about the same price?
Reminds me of the 80's when you could buy a band's 'Cassingle'. :)
I loved cassingles back in the day. Now I think they might have just been a money suck.
I've spotted more since on Amazon. Obviously the in-thing.
Leslie wrote: "I loved cassingles back in the day. Now I think they might have just been a money suck."Agreed!
Bryn wrote: "I've spotted more since on Amazon. Obviously the in-thing."I can see them working, but then I can also see Amazon becoming awash with millions of them. And the quality will be questionable on most no doubt, because people will start looking for the quick buck and writing quality will play second fiddle.
I'd fear they're hastily written. Instalments, but are they stories?
I imagine they will make double profit on them, especially if they are a well known author. They will make profit on them as a single unit, and then when there is a run of them I bet they will then also start selling them as a short story compilation book and there will be 4 stories in each.
All I know is they make my collections feel incomplete on the shell. Like those paper versions are pining for their electronic counterparts to come and sit with them. It's a sadness for me.
Terri wrote: "I imagine they will make double profit on them, especially if they are a well known author. They will make profit on them as a single unit, and then when there is a run of them I bet they will then..."Some are already appearing in multi-author anthologies. Which I suppose is one of the ways books started...
Most of Dickens was written as serials for magazines
True. No idea how they turned out masterpieces that way, but they did.
Crystal wrote: "Most of Dickens was written as serials for magazines"Conan Doyle too.
Bryn wrote: "I've spotted more since on Amazon. Obviously the in-thing."I believe publishers now put it into a lot of book deals that the authour is supposed to create at least 1 short story as well as a novel all using the same characters. I think the short stories are supposed to be for marketing or to tide readers over while the next in a series is written
Tim wrote: "I believe publishers now put it into a lot of book deals that the authour is supposed to create at least 1 short story as w..."Interesting, Tim. Thanks for the info.
That is interesting info, Tim. Thanks.
I'm not opposed to the interim short stories/novellas. What I don't like is when they are only available as an e-book. While I can see having e-book shorts to widen potential readership, limiting it to that media alienates those who've already bought in. A couple of authors that I've read their entire catalogues up until now have begun doing just that and it chafes my saddle sores.
Ancient & Medieval Historical Fiction
Books mentioned in this topic
The Berry Pickers (other topics)Fortune's Child (other topics)
Hild (other topics)
Sharpe's Command (other topics)
Edenglassie (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Amanda Peters (other topics)Nicola Griffith (other topics)
Bernard Cornwell (other topics)
Bernard Cornwell (other topics)
Allan Hands (other topics)
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I am sure it is an easy mistake for an author to make. But to not catch it during the many rereads they do and then during the editors proofing....well, you'd think surely someone was paying attention during the proof readings..