I have to admit I'm a proponent of presentism in my own work, which leans commercial, and I noticed that one of the agents on the State of the Industry panel commented that presentism is fine so long as it is applied consistently throughout the novel. In this age where media channels are cross-pollinating, and print, ebook, audio, video, short-form video and all of that collide, I can appreciate both strict accuracy and presentism. I was shocked when Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots met in The Serpent Queen, but I was entertained, and the real facts were only a Google Search away. Call it speculative historical fiction if you will. And what about the modern take Shonda Rhimes has applied to Queen Charlotte? So commercial, and such a hit. This summer, I'm going to a museum exhibit of the Queen Charlotte costumes at a castle in Sweden, which Shondaland has taken on the road. The primary question you identify--what is real and what is not--should be welcomed by historical fiction authors, IMO. It's what we do. And then there's a great middle ground--what could have happened, but probably did not. Even the hyper-accurate Hilary Mantel suggests a series of mutual attractions between Thomas Cromwell and various women that aren't really supported by the record, but theoretically could have existed. And the series really seized on those hints in the book. I think supplying these elements added more than entertainment value, as the record is incomplete, and the man probably had emotional attachments, perhaps with different women than Mantel chose, of whom we know nothing. And, I really enjoyed your HNS panel showing that all these forms of our craft can coexist.
I also thoroughly enjoyed Shondaland and welcomed how contemporary the past became in her retelling of history, which provoked a lot of enjoyable discussion that I enjoyed. Your comment on the "great middle ground" or filling in the gaps, made me think about the Author Note. I think on behalf of our readers the clearer we can be in explaining the decisions we made in our narrative, the better. The reader can then judge for herself whether she agrees.
This is such an important topic, and people will no doubt be all over the map. Thank you for writing about it. I would have loved to be at the presentation. I am leery of presentism when it distorts what really happened. In a world where facts no longer matter, the line between fact and fiction is further blurred and impacts historical perspectives. We know two people can look at the same event and draw different conclusions, past or present. The point is they look at the same event, not different events. Yes, I know history was mostly written by white men (sadly), but when it's all we've got, it's all we've got. We can infer lost voices, of course, and we should. And we should incorporate new evidence, which makes history fluid and ever changing. That's exciting. Bridgerton and Hamilton, however, play loose with facts and present a slant that may help modern viewers feel good, but they do not illuminate history. They entertain.
Personally, instead of presentism, I appreciate it when historical fiction writers stay true to documented facts and build appropriate sensitivity into their stories. One of the finest examples of this among recent publications is Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson. Johnson is a Black author, and she does not shy away from the horrors of slavery. She boldly uses the harsh, ugly language of the period. The writing is raw and gripping and hard to read sometimes. What I appreciate most is that she doesn't soften or sugarcoat this part of history. She doesn't try to protect modern readers or fear offending them. She brings them a powerful truth.
Am I for strict accuracy in historical fiction? No. It's, well, fiction. Writers have room to bend facts to serve a story. And part of historical fiction's role is to entertain. But I think it's really important to know how far to bend the historical record and to know and be clear why, or historical fiction writers may lead people away from a better understanding of the past rather than enlighten them, which feels irresponsible to me.
I, too, have read Yellow Wife. It's a thunderous book and an excellent illustration of your point. I'm appreciating the accountability for a historical fiction writer not to lead people away from a better understanding of the past and so crosses the line into rewriting history. Thank you.
After reading and commenting on your post, I ran across this quote by Hillary Mantel that seemed to fit the theme here: “Facts are not truth, though they are part of it - information is not knowledge. And history is not the past - it is the method we have evolved of organizing our ignorance of the past. It's the record of what's left on the record.”
A thoughtful, probing essay. In the end, I think we write about what fascinates us — the questions, the conflicts, and the challenges. And what fascinates us is largely impacted by the era we’re living through. In that way, it’s impossible to get away from presentism, even when writing about the past, because, as you’ve so beautifully written here, it’s a lens or perspective for understanding our world.
Joan, congrats on all your success with this amazing novel! It was never in doubt.
Balancing past “history” with the writing of fiction is a fine line that we all walk, but also I believe that’s what makes each story unique. The writers perspective is why and how we can read multiple stories about the same event or time period or historical figure. I love discovering how different writers “see” them and interpret them. Wonderful essay! 💜
Me too. It's akin to finding out how a conversation was "heard" by many and interpreted in different ways, through the lens of our own experience. Thank you, Patty!
This was my favorite panel at the conference. Congratulations on raising such an important and complex issue with such intelligence and subtlety. One frequent question is whether novelists should invent and embroider when so many readers assume fictional portrayals are fact. On the other hand, sticking solely to the known historical record can be misleading too. History has omitted so many stories and distorted others. I often find that good historical novels capture a kind of human and emotional truth that the documented evidence has left out.
I appreciate this idea that "good historical novels capture a kind of human and emotional truth" - because it speaks to the universality of the human experience across time. Thank you!
Interesting article. You raise a lot of "tricky truths" about historical fiction. I wonder if you've read an article published in The New York Times by Megan Marshall called "How do you like your history: with imaginative leaps or grounded in fact"? If you have an email I can use, I could send it to you.
My mother had a position like your grandmother’s: she was a labor-and-delivery nurse with decades of experience (who had borne five children of her own), and had to deal with a succession of young, male supervising physicians, straight from medical school and still wet behind the ears, who would come in and try to tell her how to do her job. Unlike your grandmother, my mom was bitterly aware of the job she felt cheated out of: she had wanted to be a doctor, but her parents wouldn’t hear of it.
When I created a character based on my mom, I wrestled with presentism: I yearned to give her a career change that was unlikely given the historical circumstances of her life in the early 70s. Instead, I gave her a voice, to criticize her restrictions and invite the modern reader to share her experience. (And I did find a plausible new professional path for her that was not exactly what she had dreamed of, but that granted her greater autonomy and satisfaction, and made better use of her capabilities.)
I think that writing historical fiction is crafting a multi-directional conversation between the reader, the character, any extant historical facts, and the author’s perspective and purpose. The differences between the present and the past are part of what we’re talking about, and I don’t think there’s one correct way to negotiate that conversation. Sticking as strictly to the recorded facts as possible is just one conversational gambit, as is playing fast and loose with history for the purpose of provocation. I appreciate Author’s Notes that acknowledge what can be documented and what can’t, and any artistic liberties that were deliberately taken. The only time I object to ahistorical writing is when it appears to be the result of laziness on the part of the author (which generally isn’t indicative of good writing anyways, at least to my taste).
Thank you for these thoughtful comments. Your mom's story beautifully illustrates the author's balancing act. The yearning to fulfill our character's desires. The struggle against the cords of strangling culture from the past. We are our characters' advocate after all. I love your answer to your character voice and also objection to lazy writing.
In my experience, what you assert is the #1 question — "how much of this is true?" — can be avoided or suppressed in a major portion of readers when the author is willing to go far out of his/her/their way to deceive and ensure the reader willingly leaves suspension of disbelief for a state/zone of absolute belief that the story is a mere 5-10% removed from non-fiction.
"Have you ever read (or seen) an historical account you didn’t like because you felt it was too inaccurate? If so, tell me about it."
Several popular examples: "Beneath A Scarlet Sky", "The Tattooist of Auschwitz" and "Cilka's Journey".
Your comments are alerting me to how important it is that readers be critical thinkers. Now I'm thinking of examples, especially explicit, political propaganda that seeks to sway the public to believe lies. Such an important reminder. Thank you.
I have to admit I'm a proponent of presentism in my own work, which leans commercial, and I noticed that one of the agents on the State of the Industry panel commented that presentism is fine so long as it is applied consistently throughout the novel. In this age where media channels are cross-pollinating, and print, ebook, audio, video, short-form video and all of that collide, I can appreciate both strict accuracy and presentism. I was shocked when Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots met in The Serpent Queen, but I was entertained, and the real facts were only a Google Search away. Call it speculative historical fiction if you will. And what about the modern take Shonda Rhimes has applied to Queen Charlotte? So commercial, and such a hit. This summer, I'm going to a museum exhibit of the Queen Charlotte costumes at a castle in Sweden, which Shondaland has taken on the road. The primary question you identify--what is real and what is not--should be welcomed by historical fiction authors, IMO. It's what we do. And then there's a great middle ground--what could have happened, but probably did not. Even the hyper-accurate Hilary Mantel suggests a series of mutual attractions between Thomas Cromwell and various women that aren't really supported by the record, but theoretically could have existed. And the series really seized on those hints in the book. I think supplying these elements added more than entertainment value, as the record is incomplete, and the man probably had emotional attachments, perhaps with different women than Mantel chose, of whom we know nothing. And, I really enjoyed your HNS panel showing that all these forms of our craft can coexist.
I also thoroughly enjoyed Shondaland and welcomed how contemporary the past became in her retelling of history, which provoked a lot of enjoyable discussion that I enjoyed. Your comment on the "great middle ground" or filling in the gaps, made me think about the Author Note. I think on behalf of our readers the clearer we can be in explaining the decisions we made in our narrative, the better. The reader can then judge for herself whether she agrees.
This is such an important topic, and people will no doubt be all over the map. Thank you for writing about it. I would have loved to be at the presentation. I am leery of presentism when it distorts what really happened. In a world where facts no longer matter, the line between fact and fiction is further blurred and impacts historical perspectives. We know two people can look at the same event and draw different conclusions, past or present. The point is they look at the same event, not different events. Yes, I know history was mostly written by white men (sadly), but when it's all we've got, it's all we've got. We can infer lost voices, of course, and we should. And we should incorporate new evidence, which makes history fluid and ever changing. That's exciting. Bridgerton and Hamilton, however, play loose with facts and present a slant that may help modern viewers feel good, but they do not illuminate history. They entertain.
Personally, instead of presentism, I appreciate it when historical fiction writers stay true to documented facts and build appropriate sensitivity into their stories. One of the finest examples of this among recent publications is Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson. Johnson is a Black author, and she does not shy away from the horrors of slavery. She boldly uses the harsh, ugly language of the period. The writing is raw and gripping and hard to read sometimes. What I appreciate most is that she doesn't soften or sugarcoat this part of history. She doesn't try to protect modern readers or fear offending them. She brings them a powerful truth.
Am I for strict accuracy in historical fiction? No. It's, well, fiction. Writers have room to bend facts to serve a story. And part of historical fiction's role is to entertain. But I think it's really important to know how far to bend the historical record and to know and be clear why, or historical fiction writers may lead people away from a better understanding of the past rather than enlighten them, which feels irresponsible to me.
I, too, have read Yellow Wife. It's a thunderous book and an excellent illustration of your point. I'm appreciating the accountability for a historical fiction writer not to lead people away from a better understanding of the past and so crosses the line into rewriting history. Thank you.
After reading and commenting on your post, I ran across this quote by Hillary Mantel that seemed to fit the theme here: “Facts are not truth, though they are part of it - information is not knowledge. And history is not the past - it is the method we have evolved of organizing our ignorance of the past. It's the record of what's left on the record.”
Wow - especially the last line. "Organizing our ignorance of the past" We truly know so little. Thank you.
A thoughtful, probing essay. In the end, I think we write about what fascinates us — the questions, the conflicts, and the challenges. And what fascinates us is largely impacted by the era we’re living through. In that way, it’s impossible to get away from presentism, even when writing about the past, because, as you’ve so beautifully written here, it’s a lens or perspective for understanding our world.
This comment reminds me to art. How artists can be prophets for their own times by listening and responding to the energy of our times. Thank you.
Joan, congrats on all your success with this amazing novel! It was never in doubt.
Balancing past “history” with the writing of fiction is a fine line that we all walk, but also I believe that’s what makes each story unique. The writers perspective is why and how we can read multiple stories about the same event or time period or historical figure. I love discovering how different writers “see” them and interpret them. Wonderful essay! 💜
Me too. It's akin to finding out how a conversation was "heard" by many and interpreted in different ways, through the lens of our own experience. Thank you, Patty!
This was my favorite panel at the conference. Congratulations on raising such an important and complex issue with such intelligence and subtlety. One frequent question is whether novelists should invent and embroider when so many readers assume fictional portrayals are fact. On the other hand, sticking solely to the known historical record can be misleading too. History has omitted so many stories and distorted others. I often find that good historical novels capture a kind of human and emotional truth that the documented evidence has left out.
I appreciate this idea that "good historical novels capture a kind of human and emotional truth" - because it speaks to the universality of the human experience across time. Thank you!
Interesting article. You raise a lot of "tricky truths" about historical fiction. I wonder if you've read an article published in The New York Times by Megan Marshall called "How do you like your history: with imaginative leaps or grounded in fact"? If you have an email I can use, I could send it to you.
I would love to read it - thank you! joanferndz@gmail.com
My mother had a position like your grandmother’s: she was a labor-and-delivery nurse with decades of experience (who had borne five children of her own), and had to deal with a succession of young, male supervising physicians, straight from medical school and still wet behind the ears, who would come in and try to tell her how to do her job. Unlike your grandmother, my mom was bitterly aware of the job she felt cheated out of: she had wanted to be a doctor, but her parents wouldn’t hear of it.
When I created a character based on my mom, I wrestled with presentism: I yearned to give her a career change that was unlikely given the historical circumstances of her life in the early 70s. Instead, I gave her a voice, to criticize her restrictions and invite the modern reader to share her experience. (And I did find a plausible new professional path for her that was not exactly what she had dreamed of, but that granted her greater autonomy and satisfaction, and made better use of her capabilities.)
I think that writing historical fiction is crafting a multi-directional conversation between the reader, the character, any extant historical facts, and the author’s perspective and purpose. The differences between the present and the past are part of what we’re talking about, and I don’t think there’s one correct way to negotiate that conversation. Sticking as strictly to the recorded facts as possible is just one conversational gambit, as is playing fast and loose with history for the purpose of provocation. I appreciate Author’s Notes that acknowledge what can be documented and what can’t, and any artistic liberties that were deliberately taken. The only time I object to ahistorical writing is when it appears to be the result of laziness on the part of the author (which generally isn’t indicative of good writing anyways, at least to my taste).
Thank you for these thoughtful comments. Your mom's story beautifully illustrates the author's balancing act. The yearning to fulfill our character's desires. The struggle against the cords of strangling culture from the past. We are our characters' advocate after all. I love your answer to your character voice and also objection to lazy writing.
In my experience, what you assert is the #1 question — "how much of this is true?" — can be avoided or suppressed in a major portion of readers when the author is willing to go far out of his/her/their way to deceive and ensure the reader willingly leaves suspension of disbelief for a state/zone of absolute belief that the story is a mere 5-10% removed from non-fiction.
"Have you ever read (or seen) an historical account you didn’t like because you felt it was too inaccurate? If so, tell me about it."
Several popular examples: "Beneath A Scarlet Sky", "The Tattooist of Auschwitz" and "Cilka's Journey".
Your comments are alerting me to how important it is that readers be critical thinkers. Now I'm thinking of examples, especially explicit, political propaganda that seeks to sway the public to believe lies. Such an important reminder. Thank you.
What an important article and so well explained Joan. Great job and the subject much needed., Big thanks for breaking it down!