The Reality About Historical Fiction

I know many people who write historical fiction, exploring every era from the Bronze Age to the Dotcom era (yes, that is now part of history.) And within that category, a debate usually emerges about when it changes from writing for a genre to historical fiction. If I had an answer, there would no longer be a debate. However, I can offer some guidelines on knowing which is which.

The real sum of the discussion comes to how much reality we want in the story, and how much we want to educate our readers. These two can easily be merged together, but when they run into conflict, it becomes the author’s choice as to which side wins out.

First and foremost, the author needs to have a fairly sound idea of any historical anchors that will be included in the story. If this historical discussion is about fictional characters traveling west after the Civil War, then the only mandatory historical anchors will be environmental – horses, covered wagons, different makes of rifles and so forth. These become interesting research pieces, but do not have to drive the story more than the characters. Most everything else can just be a façade of the western trails – Piedmont Ridge, the Wild Northern Plains, Remington Junction can all be landmarks even though none of them likely existed. That’s okay – our characters didn’t really exist either, so they would be right at home. The only environmental anchors that bind our fictional characters are those of history. If the characters settle down in the state of Arizona, well, Arizona wasn’t a state until 1912, so it’s safer to call it the Arizona Territory or do some research on names other than state.

The amount of reality we pour on our fictitious characters is now up to us. If our west-wandering characters go through a real town that has particular relevance to the author, there’s nothing wrong with making that place as real as possible. Including details, descriptions and even pictures of the town is perfectly allowable. The only real warning is to remember that the story is about characters. Before spending five pages describing Cheyenne in 1882, consider whether so much description would break the pace of the action. Maybe two pages is fine, or perhaps five pages spread throughout the chapter. Good historical writing should not feel like a history lesson, it should feel like a fully fleshed-out story that just happens to be in a particular point in time.

Now, if your purpose is to bring the reader fully into that era, you can introduce historical figures. At this point, your responsibility is to try and write them as sincerely as possible, which requires all that much more research. If you write about an encounter with Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain), it will be to everyone’s benefit that you have some understanding of the character and not just introduce someone spewing out quotes from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Conversely, you can introduce a very esteemed but nameless author that you imply to be Mark Twain but never say so, thus letting you off the hook.

On the one end of historical fiction, I would offer Caleb Carr’s The Alienist as a very good example. The very name offers an introduction into its historical point – an alienist was the original title for a psychiatrist before the whole Freudian movement caught hold. Carr depicts New York in the late 19th century in all its gritty glory and brilliant disgust. It is very evident that he researched the works of sociologist Jacob Riis and others to recreate the tenement districts through the city, filled with fictitious characters who all fit that reality. The few historical anchors are worked in very well (including an appearance by Riis himself), but our fictitious protagonists and villain would never be found in a history book. New York City comes to life, though very little reality is ever involved.

The other side of this, however, would be something like Erik Larson’s The Devil In the White City (I’m from Chicago, so I have to mention this). This book is often considered historical non-fiction because it anchors itself on the underlying reality of its main characters, who conveniently have substantial documentation about their lives. The novelistic approach of this story – narratives knitting together individual events into one continuous story – relies more on the presentation of facts with presumptions to fill in the gaps. There is plenty of room for creativity, but very little for improvisation or telling the story that you want to tell (if it differs from the real story).

(I should also note that Larson’s more recent book, Dead Wake, telling the events around the sinking of the RMS Lusitania, is just as riveting for those who don’t want to read about Chicago and the nefarious H. H. Holmes.)

The most common form of historical fiction is when we write about our long-lost ancestors. True, they really existed, but unless their lives were as well documented as most national celebrities, any stories about them will have to be anecdotal or mostly built on assumption. While this makes the story fiction, it can still be very much anchored in reality. At this point, it is up to the author to find the best way to do justice to their family. And when it comes to the author’s personal story, well, that gets into writing memoirs. That will be the next post.

External Versus Internal

Drama, action, and narrative can each be sorted into two categories: external and internal. Most readers overlook this simple fact, but to be fair, readers do not care about which group is used, as long as the story keeps moving. As writers we always need to consider these touches, because they each make different contributions.

Let’s look at a simple thriller: A plane crash-lands high in the mountains, and the survivors have to find a way to make it back to civilization. We see this one done quite often, from the short story, Ghost Walkers (later turned into the movie, The Grey), to the true-to-life novel, Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (also made into a movie.) This is simple survival, but the tension and dramatic build come from two completely different areas.


In external drama, the problems come from forces beyond the control of the main characters: brutally cold weather, the thin air of high altitudes, or a pack of wolves stalking our characters. Everything actively threatens our characters, from running for their lives to trying to traverse the unyielding frozen tundra that seems to challenge them at every step. This technique has its pros and cons:

• It builds suspense, as the characters are surrounded by danger
• Reader becomes sympathetic to this trapped situation
• Characters lose depth because they appear reactive, not proactive (at least in the beginning)

Internal drama, such as in Alive, plays off of tension rather than the suspenseful build from the threat of the unknown. No packs of wolves pursue our survivors, and the brutal conditions are manageable, if not comfortable. Rather, the internal drama is the inevitable question of survival, and how far our heroes are willing to go to that end. There is an ever-looming threat around these people, but the threat is when they might have to make some horrible decisions about survival. Here, the up- and down-sides are very different:

• Tension builds as the characters weigh the terrible decisions
• The reader knows something must be done, but does not know when the choice will be made
• Internal action is driven by narrative, which is far more difficult to write than a scene about running from a pack of wolves

Now, these two stories are strong examples of their respective camps, and perform well because they each do a good job working within their self-imposed boundaries. They also mostly avoid giving in to the pitfalls of their genre – when an external drama gets weak, it is easy to throw in an unexpected event like an avalanche; for an internal drama, a three-page narrative about why a character is so conflicted about facing a particular decision. Stories can be very successful just living in one camp or the other.

However, blending the two approaches and balancing them accordingly can be very engrossing. In keeping with our plane-crash survivor theme, I suggest Lord of the Flies. This classic blends together these two dramatic approaches, creating a well-balanced combination that offers the best criteria of each while countering their weaknesses. Of course, writing with this kind of balance takes that much more work and incredible patience to get things just right. If you are not sure whether it is worth it, let's just say that more people have heard of Lord of the Flies than Ghost Walkers or Alive.

When a writer approaches a story, one question that should always sit in the back of their minds is, “How should this conflict be played out?” When the writer asks themselves that simple question, they should consider the pros and cons of each one, and decide which contributes the most to the story. After that, it’s just a matter of writing.

Seeing the Internal Character

Several posts on this blog have talked about the intricacies of character development. However, nothing is more difficult than the first step - figuring out who that character is. Not just name, rank, and number, but who they are relative to the story. This can be difficult, so I thought I would offer an exercise in figuring out how to bring out the important parts of a character.

The character is you.

Before you get alarmed, I will use myself as an example to show how this exercise works and what there is to gain. It's fairly simple, and of course, when you do the exercise, you don't need to publish, print or save one written word. Just try this out and see how it feels.

I start with a simple narrative beginning: "I looked in the mirror and tried to recognize the man in the reflection." (Side note: Never describe your character in a first-person narrative by looking in a mirror. It is a worn-out cliche.) At this point in the exercise, I start writing about the various features in the mirror: The blue eyes, the receding hairline, that little scar on my cheek that is only visible if someone knows where to look. I rattle off a whole list of those things, just exploring odd details and seeing what they say. The way the bridge of my nose tells everyone I once hit a steering wheel with it, the way my eyebrows hop about when I laugh, that one tooth that doesn't match the rest. I lay out every trait possible.

Now here's the fun part. Make up some story arc. Anything. You are preparing to go to work. Heading out on a first date. Meeting a son you never knew you had. Heading to Uzbekistan for international intrigue. Preparing to rob a bank. Give your character a very specific purpose (that you are not legally obliged to follow through with).

Once you have that, compare all those things you described about yourself with the mission you are heading to. Think about whether those qualities about yourself are relevant to the thing you are doing. Is the quality you described totally relevant? Totally irrelevant? Or is it a possibility, a quality that can be described in a way that fits the situation? Does the hairline make a difference for that trip to Uzbekistan? Would that barely noticeable scar matter on a first date - or does it make you very self-conscious when you are trying to relax and enjoy yourself?

The important part of this exercise is actually two-fold. First, a critical part of this is to ask ourselves if something is worth mentioning. We all have different hair, eyes, ears, skin, teeth and so on, but we don't need to discuss them in the narrative if they offer nothing to the story. Unless my story pivots around my receding hairline, does it matter whether I describe it or not? Does the bent bridge of my nose motivate characters or press along the narrative? If it doesn't, maybe it is not worth mentioning.

The bigger part about this is a little more intricate. Let's say that the whole nose thing doesn't factor into the plot. That's fine, but we can actually use it to bring out other internal points. If this story is about going on a first date, the broken-nose issue can be used as a springboard for bringing out the character's insecurities about going on this date. The nose itself doesn't matter, but it becomes a device for showing the character's internal traits that don't show up in the mirror. The receding hairline won't push the plot, but its influence on the character can shift his actions. Maybe it makes the character wear a hat, or try to comb his remaining hair in a way to conceal everything. To really emphasize the point, the character can consider the horrors of a comb-over as a last-ditch way of hiding the sin of his hair.

Exercises like these are how we drag out not just the external traits but the internal dynamics of the character. This way, we understand not just how they look, but how they react and feel. The character gains depth and we can write them as complete people that the reader can relate to. If the reader never finds out about the eye color, well that's fine. But if that whole nose thing is used properly, the reader will not just know about the character's insecurities, but they will wonder about just how it was broken. And at that point, they are invested in your character.

The Serious Business of Writing Humor

People have their own preferences, but in my opinion there is nothing more difficult than writing humor. The act of writing a joke is brutal and uncompromising, and requires a high volume of failure before even one laugh is available. For something that is supposed to be entertaining, writing humor is no joke.

And if writing jokes is difficult, it is even worse to read other people’s works or see their performances and watch it come off so effortless, so easy. Great humor flows very naturally, but the work put into it is enormous. There are obvious exceptions – a rare few great comedians and authors were born with a very natural rhythm that made their very existence amusing. However, if you are not Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams, it might help to exercise those skills needed to write humor.

First and foremost, humor is about the unexpected; that turn of a phrase or event that breaks from the pattern in an amusing direction. We all basically understand this premise, but when we write, we follow a structured path. We move along story arcs, plot development, and the flow of the narrative. Humor is the opposite of this, so sometimes we need to deliberately stretch our mind in a different way and force ourselves to move outside of the expected path.

Here are some simple exercises that are worth trying to move outside the familiar. The first is a simple one – proverbs. Find a list of familiar proverbs – a Google search of “list of proverbs” should do just fine. Pick out the most familiar ones, the ones you know the best, and make a list out of them. Then, for each one, rewrite the meaningful part into something different, preferably into something having nothing to do with the original. Then do this again and again and again – ten times if you can. An example is, “A man without vices is a man without virtues.” (paraphrased from Abraham Lincoln). This can now be rewritten as, “A man without vices… “

… is not a man

… did not do it right

… always wants to borrow my vice

… does not work for the government

… should never plan the bachelor party

And so on…

They won’t all be winners – that’s not the purpose. The purpose is to stretch beyond expectations and write an original ending. Doing this exercise will be a strain at first – like any good workout – but eventually they develop the muscles needed to step beyond the expected.

Another part of humor is taking it far enough to be funny. When people first experiment with new styles, techniques, and so forth, it is often by dipping a toe in the waters of the new adventure, and pressing slowly into this new area. Humor is about diving into the deepest part and exploring everything available before deciding whether shallow waters might be better.

Most great humorists – whether they are authors, comedians, writers or performers – usually have several common traits: They have formal experience in improv, acting, communications; practiced their craft regularly; observed the world from different angles; and looked for alternative connections no matter how bizarre. This gives them the ability to not only create a humorous story or anecdote, but to create ten of them on the fly and give you the best one. It all looks effortless, but there is a lot of work in making it look easy.

Here’s one more simple exercise: Finish the sentence. Take any comparative statement and finish it with an original closer. This exercise in one-liners was what my father always referred to this as The Dozens, where two people would go back and forth with something like, “Your mother’s so fat…” then closing it with original lines such as “… the other mothers in the neighborhood orbit around her.” Last one to drop a good line wins. This seems simple but again, it requires practice, patience, and an open mind. Try these, but go somewhere other than the “Your mother” genre – that one’s overdone. Take on serious ones, weird ones, personal ones and mean ones, and just make as many answers as you can. Here’s some starters:

We grew up so poor…

My little brother was so ugly…

Our neighborhood was so dangerous…

With practice, this becomes easier, and with practice, this definitely improves your writing.

And as a final note, give yourself permission to write bad stuff. You’ll write a few bombs, and that’s okay. All those great jokes, sketches, and one-liners were the best of the best. The rest of the list had more than its share of losers, and that’s how the writer knew which ones were the best.

The Basics of Style

For any famous author, their writing style is clear and distinct, and can be carried through many voices. Stephen King is most commonly associated with horror, but his story collection in Skeleton Key shows many different techniques, and the surprising fast-paced, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon creates horror through the eyes of innocence. Horror is one of the most impressive styles to write in, and it probably sells the most screenplays.

And it’s probably not what you should write.

I never tell someone to not try writing in a particular style, but rather I tell them to try everything. Try horror, romance, thrillers, philosophical narrative, and anything else they want to commit to words. This might show the aspiring writer a thing or two about genres, but it will get the person writing enough to find their own voice, and voice informs style.

My father was an artist; his style best described as neo-classical romanticism. When he was a student, he would study Renaissance Era masters and try to be the next Raphael (The Italian artist, not the Ninja Turtle). He would also hound his teachers to offer critiques that could make him more like those great painters. And they refused to grant his wish.

Finally, one of his professors must've just had enough, because he offered a very simple critique. According to my father, the professor said, "You want me to compare your work to Michelangelo? Da Vinci? Then you're horrible. You will never be one of them, nor should you. You don't have the talent to be a Raphael. You do have the talent to be an excellent Pressler, which Raphael never could be. So be that."

What my father took away from that is his real talent and his natural skills were far better suited for something other than becoming another Renaissance painter. However, by studying the great artists, he developed a set of tools that allowed him to work on his personal style once he found it. That personal style served him well for the rest of his career.

When we write, we are strengthening our toolkit. When we stretch out our comfort zone and decide to try writing poetry, free-verse, or whatever, we are adding new tools to our kit. When we combine these two talents, we learn not only how to do things in a different way, but also what we like, what moves us, and what affects other readers.

If your goal is to write a particular way, then by all means try everything you can to develop that specific set of skills. However, never be afraid to go outside that range and find new ways to express yourself. Whether it works or not is not the point. It is a chance to find something new and become a better you, so that when you really latch on to something that works, you have a full set of tools to build something excellent.

Criticism – Our Best Enemy

“It’s better than half the crap I’ve read.”

– The first critique I ever received

When we first realize how much we like writing, we become literary juggernauts. We are unstoppable in our ability to generate poems, prose, and narrative. Our ability feels limitless, our capacity to create is as endless as our desire to keep on writing.

We usually float back to Earth about two seconds after we receive our first critical appraisal, and we land with a hard thud. It’s hard to stand up after that first critique.

If we want to continue to be writers, this is where we have to stand up, dust ourselves off, put an icepack on our bruised ego, and try again. Our impulses might tell us that the best way to avoid another critical beating is to stop creating stuff to be critiqued. Perfectly natural, but not very helpful if we want to refine our craft. Rather, we need to find a way to not get beaten so badly next time. We need to learn from our mistakes, and apply those lessons to our next piece.

I can hear the response now – “Learn from our mistakes? That’s your big piece of advice? I’m not a six-year-old watching the Care Bears – I need something I can use as a grown-up!” My response is always a reminder that grown-ups are the least-likely to learn from their mistakes because they are more likely to think they know it all. That little fallacy prevents people from really developing anything other than a sizeable ego.

When we are incredibly interested in doing something, part of our passion should be directed toward trying things out then figuring out whether or not they worked. We should be very open to what others have to say, because at the end of the day, the one thing everyone else has in common that you don’t is that they are seeing your work strictly as a reader. They are your audience, so anything they say has the potential to move you forward in your writing career – if you let it.

One thing I always try to promote in my writing workshops is discussion. When someone reads a piece, I want to make sure people offer input that the writer can take in and possibly build from. The most important thing that can be offered is what message they “got” from the piece. If a listener says, “I didn’t get it,” then that’s a pretty important review. It doesn’t mean the written piece was bad or wrong, but rather it is the opportunity for the writer and the audience to engage in a discussion. Maybe the message wasn’t communicated clearly, or maybe the style just wasn’t something the audience would get into. Perhaps nothing really jumped off the page – it wasn’t wrong, but nothing was really great about it either. With some good discussion, all parties involved can take away a little something that builds on their work.

While feedback is important in building a writer’s skills, there are some do’s and don’ts for critiquing:

• Moderation. Taking criticism is like getting a tattoo; sometimes it’s easier to do a bit at a time so we don’t pass out from the pain. Give each lesson a chance to set in before going further
• Be constructive. Offering criticism should be on a positive note. Saying, “This scene was boring,” doesn’t help as much as “this scene needs stronger verbs,” or “the pacing of the action was often broken by description or long dialogue.” And if you receive a criticism of the former kind, ask for some elaboration, or discuss it further so you can find out how to make it better
• Re-explaining rarely helps. A common response to “I didn’t get it” is the writer explaining the scene to that person, hoping that they will “get it.” That doesn’t help, unless that writer plans on going door-to-door, explaining that scene again to every reader. Rather, a writer can learn the most by saying, “Well, this is what I was going for: [brief summary] What was missing?” This starts the discussion mentioned earlier but in a positive direction.
• Opinions are not always criticisms. Here are some opinions: “That character is mean.” “The mood is pretty dark.” “Everything is hyper-sexualized.” There is nothing wrong with offering opinions such as these; they are the reader’s perspective. The problem starts when the recipient of these opinions did not intend to write about a mean person in a dark, sexy world, and takes them as criticisms. This can either degenerate into a useless argument with the writer insisting it’s a light-hearted young adult romance and the reader shaking their head in denial, or it can open the door for some questions: What elements felt dark? What actions were mean? How would you turn down the sexual volume?

Last and most important, most criticisms are advisory in nature. Grammar and spelling aren’t criticisms, they’re corrections. All other matters should be at least thought about before being dismissed. If one person in a group doesn’t like a particular style but the rest do, maybe that’s okay. If not everyone agrees about an appropriate level of profanity, well, that happens. But as we take our beatings from critique after critique, we should first ask of any comment, “What can I learn from this?” Everything in that answer makes us a better writer, and in the end, that’s all that counts.

The Simple Story of Ultimate Conflict

I have been in a bit of a comic-book mood since the passing of Stan Lee, but this has its benefits for my inner writer. A common theme within the comic genre is the big conflict – a major battle between titanic powers – Superman versus Doomsday, for example (I know Stan Lee had nothing to do with Superman). Such a battle royale is an external conflict that might not apply to all stories – or any story where Superman does not exist. However, such a massive collision of power can always be found on the internal battlefield, and can be even more dramatic since the battle within the character can rage on for a long time.

Fighting is conflict, but not all conflict is fighting

Internal conflict should play some role in any extended narrative, as it provides depth and complexity to the main character. This might be a secondary issue to the main plot in, say, a thriller novel, but its existence should complement the external story. Where things get tense, however, is when the primary conflict is internal, with the external conflict secondary to that arc. It’s a lot easier to walk away from a fistfight than from the battle inside one’s own mind.

An internal battle can start from a simple external event that starts digging up all the moral issues and questions in the hero’s mind, and even forces the hero to rethink their own personal code. Let’s go through an example with our favorite hypothetical character, Tom:

Tom finds out that his coworker and lifelong friend, Phil, has been skimming a little money off the books at the large company they work for. Under normal circumstances, this is a fairly simple dilemma with a few obvious routes to choose from. Tom could report him to management, he could stay silent to protect Phil, or take the compromise route and tell Phil to stop before it gets out of hand. Simple enough, right?

Now let’s turn it into real internal conflict.

Internal conflict comes out the best when external situations run against the principles of the main character. The example above is merely an external dilemma to be reconciled. However, once we show Tom’s principles, the conflict emerges. Let’s say that Tom is passionately loyal to those around him, and the two things he is most loyal to are his friends and the company he works for. Now that loyalty is challenged, as choosing one side means betraying the other. Now the problem is not about Tom making a decision, but Tom wrestling with the internal forces that prevent one side from winning the day.

Of course there’s the compromise to the situation – talking to Phil about defusing the situation. If this is a simple escape, we can turn it into more problems, thus turning up the tension. Phil can explain that he is in debt to some very bad people, and he needs to clear the debt or those people will go after him and his family. Now Tom is forced into a different situation. Can he help his friend out of the situation before the company finds out? Or can he at least cover Phil’s track for a while until everything is paid off? And how does this make Tom feel to betray the company to which he is so loyal and devoted?

Now let’s turn it up more. The company sees the figures do not add up, and the auditors start looking into things. Furthermore, Tom is one of those auditors. Now there is the slow burn of the external conflict in a suspenseful build, but Tom’s internal conflict is magnified because he could be implicated in this as well. Now we have a tug-of-war between his friendship, his company loyalty, and saving his own bacon.

The external story could survive well on its own, using the internal conflict as a secondary arc. However, using the internal issues as the major focus brings Tom out as a complete character. When we pay more attention to Tom and how this problem tears at him, haunts his dreams, aggravates his ulcer and hurts all his other relationships, we develop a closeness to him that does not develop when the attention is on the external issues.

Every story needs conflict, and the stronger stories use both external and internal sources to push along the narrative. The point to consider as you develop the story is where the real fun leaps out, and how to work with it. Superman versus Doomsday was an easy choice for external conflict. However, most other stories carry a rich adventure within the mind.