Aline Soules

Poet and Fiction Writer

Historical Fiction

Historical Fiction and Language

As I write my historical novel, I become more aware of the challenge of selecting the right words for the time period in which my novel is set, namely WWII.  Recently, in a critique group, a member flagged the word “partner,” which I’d used to describe the man who is in a relationship with my female protagonist.  Of course, she was absolutely right.  “Partner” is too modern a word and takes the reader out of the time period.  “Relationship” wouldn’t be right, either, but, fortunately, I didn’t use that.

In recent years, as I’ve read various historical novels, I’ve noticed this problem more frequently, even as I make the same mistake myself.  I read a novel set in 16th century Scotland and, in response to a “thank you,” one character said “no problem.”  Problem.

Language has always evolved and changed (hence the term, “living” language), but I’ve had the sense that it’s shifting more quickly now.  Regardless, it’s important to keep the fictive dream alive by using the right language for the historical period of my novel.

How do I try to do this?  

  1. By reading novels that were written around that time, to try to implant in my own mind the way sentences were crafted and words were used,  
  2. By relying on my critique group to point out words, phrases, sentences, that don’t ring true, and
  3. By seeking beta readers (when the time is right) to get their help, too.

Do any of you have other ideas to address this challenge?

Image Credit: https://www.123rf.com/photo_17197026_abstract-word-cloud-for-fiction-writing-with-related-tags-and-terms.html 

Travel Restrictions and Writing

Travel restrictions might not sound like something that connects to writing, but our growing inability to move about our planet has a direct bearing on how we view the world and how much freedom we have to explore in words the world we observe.

A few years ago, the State of California began to list states that were “off limits” for work-related travel that would be reimbursed.  As an employee of Cal State East Bay, this list applied to us.  As the last few years have passed, the number of restricted states has grown for reasons primarily related to behaviors and beliefs with which our state does not agree.  As of August 20, 2018, the list was as follows:

 

  • Alabama
  • Kansas
  • Kentucky
  • Mississippi
  • North Carolina
  • Oklahoma
  • South Dakota
  • Tennessee
  • Texas

Image credit: https://www.citizenvox.org/2017/12/14/banking-behind-closed-doors/

If you are a historian or a mathematician, for example, and your disciplinary association holds its annual meeting/conference in Kentucky or Texas, the state won’t support you financially or in terms of “release” time to attend that conference.

While I’m all in favor of polite disagreement, I worry that this limitation encourages us connect with only those who share our beliefs and values.  There has been concern about this in the online environment, but it also applies to face-to-face connections.  If we are discouraged from inter-relating with people in states that carry policies we oppose, how will we—or they—have any hope of understanding each others’ points of view, even if we continue to disagree?

For a long time, globally, places have been “off limits.”  As a child, I remember being taken to Ephesus and, even at a young age, feeling a sense of amazement and awe, and a desire to visit again when I was older.  Today, I have reservations about traveling there for safety reasons, and many parts of the world are on a growing list of “some day, but not now” destinations.

As a writer, travel is an important element of expanding our view of the world and our beliefs about issues, regardless of our writing genre or our subject matter.  For a historical fiction writer, the need for travel is more specific.  We can read extensively about a period and a setting, but nothing is better than going there for oneself.  For a travel writer, I can only imagine what this limitation must mean.

 

The Truth of Fiction

I have the privilege of teaching an adult creative writing class through Scholar OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute).  A good many of the participants are writing memoirs or fiction based on memoir and I often hear comments such as “That’s the way I remember it.”  While I honor their intent to be true to what they remember, I also know that, in the words of the amazing poet, Stephen Dunn:

…what we choose to say about our past becomes our past. That other past, the one we’ve lived, exists in pieces that flicker and grow dim…Every time I save, I exclude.

(From “Memory,” in Riffs & Reciprocities: prose pairs.  New York: W. W. Norton, 1998)

What is the memory we struggle to share in memoir, in fiction, be it based on memoir or on history?  What part is true and what part imagined? What part is what we think is true?  The answer is complex.  Our early lives come to us both when we live them and, because our memories don’t appear to go back to infancy, when others (parents, older siblings) tell us what they remember.  As we grow older, we have our own memories, but how much do we mis-remember?  Perhaps, the “truest” part of memory is the emotion those memories evoke, however accurate or inaccurate.  Similarly, when we write fiction based on memory or on history, how “real” or “true” are the “facts”?

This leads to the issue of “fictive truth.” The distance of fiction can often lead to emotions and insights we don’t experience when we are given a story that purports to be “the truth” or “fact” or “memoir” or “history.”  As Stephen King wrote:

“Kids, fiction is the truth inside the lie, and the truth of this fiction is simple enough: the magic exists.”

Quote taken from Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/256247-kids-fiction-is-the-truth-inside-the-lie-and-the

Image credit: http://www.doublequotes.net/quotes/stephen-king-quotes-fiction-is-the-truth-inside-the-lie

I have often thought that psychology is best served through fiction because we can live vicariously through the lens of that distance, knowing the story isn’t “true” or “real,” thereby enabling us to embrace it fully in ways we can’t embrace our own challenges directly.  Perhaps this is one reason why I continue to write, so that I can explore my own challenges through that distancing lens.  The joy of writing fiction is often in the way that fiction surprises me as a writer.  My hope is that if it surprises me, leads me to an unexpected emotional experience or an insight that gives me an “aha” moment, so, too, it will surprise my reader and give my reader a similar experience or insight.  

That’s the pleasure of writing and the satisfaction of the age-old three-way contract among the writer, the book, and the reader.

Fiction in Truth, Truth in Fiction

I’ve just come back from a “literature” tour in the UK.  Our group combined touring places of literary renown with meeting living authors.  One of the most interesting experiences was comparing biography and biographical fiction.  At the Ways with Words ways_with_words_dartington_hallfestival at Dartington Hall, Claire Tomalin spoke about writing biography, specifically her two works on Dickens and on Dickens and his mistress, Nelly Ternan.  At one point, she considered fictionalizing the latter work because there is less information about Ternan than about Dickens; however, in the end, she chose to stay with biography.  I then thought of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and its sequel Bring Up the Bodies, both of which present Thomas Cromwell through fiction while resorting to Mantel’s extensive research into the details of his life.  This raises the age-old question:  how do we get at “truth” or, at least, “truth” as each of us sees it?  What makes one writer write biography, choosing what to include and not include about a subject?  What makes another decide to fictionalize a subject?  Which path offers the closest “truth” of a subject, particularly one who can no longer refute what is said?  The answer is probably both routes, depending on the author and on the subject, but the subject is endlessly fascinating.