Well I doubt a reader could tell what is factual in my novel and sequel, from what is fiction. Though I am sure some can, but they blend so nicely they might find somethings that are 'real' to be fiction.
I think the OP just wanted a discussion - he's not saying he's freaking out over the dilemma of whether or not he should portray facts, so I don't really see any "overthinking" anywhere. In any case, it's a legit concern I think. I haven't read Wolf Hall, but I've heard apparently it's got terrible reviews by some readers because they expected bodice rippers and got a heavy dose of history instead I never verified this but heard it as a comment from my historian ex. What the OP's getting at isn't really about readers googling stuff up. What he's getting at is in areas where most readers would be so certain of something to be true that they wouldn't even second guess themselves. They wouldn't google, because it would seem so "obvious" to them that they would think there's no need. The only example I can think of right now, unfortunately, is horned Viking helmets. Every Viking helmet ever on TV has horns. That's historically untrue. Female Vikings warriors also existed. As a reverse example, I remember watching on Planet Earth that where the Mayans lived, there were no rivers. They had lakes and extensive underground cave systems connecting these water reserves. Then I watched Apocalypto and there was a frigging waterfall. Who would google whether rivers and waterfalls should have been there? No one. You'd just assume it's right because well, they're in a jungle somewhere - why not? On the other hand, if there were no rivers and let's say the film made a point of maybe the characters struggling to find water, it might have been flagged as "unrealistic" because "why weren't there any rivers? There should have been!" In the film, the kidnappers freaked out over the solar eclipse, which was how the MC escaped from his captors in the first place. The same historian ex, whom I watched this with, laughed out loud and said the Mayans were perfectly aware of what the solar eclipse was and would never have behaved that way. These would be examples of the film makers pandering to popular myths of how people "in the past" were ignorant about the sun and earth etc. If you flipped it and had the Mayans react very normally towards the solar eclipse, you might have ended up with lots of people complaining about it being "inaccurate" and therefore "unbelievable". So while it's true the reader can look things up if they cared enough, the point I think is that most readers would be so sure that they're right that they would never look it up, and that's the problem. However, as for what I'd do about it if I wrote historical fiction - I'd see who my audience is. Am I aiming to sell this to the average commercial historical romance reader? Yes? Then these accuracies probably don't matter so much. Whereas if I were aiming for history buffs, or literary readers, historical accuracy might well be crucial. You have to consider how well-read your audience might be I think, and what they expect from the novel. Not everyone cares about historical details. But anyway, I would not willingly and knowingly include historical errors - I'd much rather put in a footnote and explain in an index at the back or something. Or the Da Vinci Code... Da Vinci is not a surname, much as some would like to think it was. I believe back when Leonardo lived, surnames didn't exist and Da Vinci simply refers to where he was from. Could be wrong though. I get most of these history tidbits from the same ex I keep referencing. There was once he wouldn't stop reading to me in Old Norse, oh my word... or trying to tell me about the Doomsday Book...
Oh good, I feared I had accidently stepped on your toes. Social interaction without facial expressions... Brings us back to how highly subjective this is. I would like to believe that all people are BayViews and would just look up what they find to be odd but... well, we all know that's not how things work on the internet. But I agree with you, it' probably for the best to go with the facts; though I would still think about the impression that thruth could leave on an audience and, if appropriate, include some sort of in-world explanation.
Well, now I think you're overthinking it. I never saw any marketing for Wolf Hall that suggested it was a bodice ripper, I don't think anyone who followed the author or read the blurb would think it was a bodice ripper, so if someone got the wrong idea about it from somewhere I think that's "someone"'s problem. And I really don't think Hilary Mantel's sales suffered too much as a result of any confusion. The only Viking TV show I'm aware of is, well, Vikings, and in looking at stills from that show I see no helmets but plenty of female warriors. (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2306299/mediaindex) So possibly things aren't as dire as you think they are? These don't seem like reverse examples to me - they seem like further examples of times when filmmakers presented something that was wrong and some viewers didn't catch the wrongness. Do we have any significant examples of times when an author presented something that was accurate history and there was a backlash against the truth? You're speculating about what would have happened if the Mayans reacted normally to an eclipse, but it's just speculation, right? Do we have times when readers have actually caused the sort of problems being worried about? Like, do we have examples of people complaining about how Vikings didn't use horned helmets and did have empowered women? I found https://www.ranker.com/list/inaccuracies-in-history-s-vikings/theodoros-karasavvas, but it seems to be criticizing actual historical inaccuracies, not imagined ones. Where are all these viewers/readers who are so over-confident in their historical knowledge and all these directors/authors who have been criticized for being accurate?
That pretty much sums up what I was trying to say - thanks On a side note, a guy who can read old Norse? That's hot. (side side note: it's she. But don't worry, it's happened before )
I don't think it's overthinking if it's actually happened that readers have been dissatisfied over a book being too historical. The question of the thread isn't "Is it a big problem" or "Would my sales suffer". Basically, you're right, it's a non-issue in as much as "Does it actually affect anything?" is concerned. Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the Viking horned helmets is a "dire" situation. I personally couldn't care less. It just happened that I dated someone who cared very deeply indeed and then all these random things got rammed into me that I still remember now. If you google "Viking helmet" though, plenty of them are horned. Basically, in short, I agree with you it's a non-issue. I'm not a historical fiction reader and nor am I into history much at all. Although, which historical inaccuracy that I mentioned were "imagined"? I'm not sure I understand.
The question of this thread isn't whether it's a problem to be historically INaccurate - the question is whether it's a problem to be historically ACCURATE, in a way that people may not believe is accurate. So the historical inaccuracies that you mentioned were interesting, but they didn't address the question of the thread. If you had examples of historical ACCURACIES that were a problem, that would address the question of the thread. Am I making any sense at all?
Theoretical example, though it's sufficiently twisty-turny that it's really a lousy example. I just find it interesting. I remember reading about a study in the United States, back when there was rampant prejudice against the Japanese. The study folks sent letters out to a bunch of motor hotels (note that any one of these facts may be wrong, but the general conclusion should be right) asking if they accepted Japanese guests. (Or possibly letters in which the researchers pretended to be prospective guests trying to make a reservation. I forget.) The vast majority of the hotels made it very very clear that they would under no circumstances accept Japanese guests. Then they sent a Japanese couple out (probably grad students) with instructions to behave in an utterly conventional, nice, polite way, to try to stay at each of those hotels as a walk-up customer. And a substantial percentage of the hotels rented to them. So if someone wrote a book based in whatever that decade was (30s? 40s? 50s? I don't think that the war was involved, so I'm excluding 40s) and had a Japanese traveller staying in a motor hotel, someone might argue that that was totally unrealistic. But apparently they'd be wrong. At least in this one situation, people's claimed racism was greater than their racism in practice.
Yes you are, and thank you for clarifying I'm just starting to find the whole discussion kinda hilarious though personally
Almost as though we're overthinking things and worrying about something we don't need to worry about?
I don't know - I feel like this discussion is taking time away from me trying to figure out how I'll deal with all the gorgeous, ripped gold-diggers who are going to be pursuing me after I win the lottery...
Mention antibiotics as just some spores that neanderthals were chewing on without any modern explanation about the medical benefits. They probably didn't know directly if they were painkillers or actually did something good. The exchange of females between tribes and wolf packs can be explained using instincts, experience and religion. Most people don't need a scientific explanation to avoid incest, they just aren't attracted to their sisters and the religion makes it taboo. When I defended myself against a school bully with surgical precision by resonating with my thumb against his vagus nerve, I'd never heard of the vagus nerve before. I just did everything on pure instinct after telling my primal self to go non-lethal on him. I was born with lots of weird knowledge about dodging spears and stuff that comes out in certain situations.
You're not wrong. Da Vinci, simply means 'of Vinci'. And that is by far the easiest betrayal of history to forgive in that god-awful book. As a lifelong student of art history, I at times had to remind myself not to take it too seriously. It's just a fun little romp through a make believe history. History Alert! The Knights Templar were far from the mysterious warlords they're often portrayed as... indeed, many of them were what we might call... BANKERS!
Thanks for the confirmation. Now I can cheerily diss Dan Brown with confidence I probably hate him a little more than is fair. He is my Stephanie Meyer... my E.L. James... Name an author you hate with all that you have. That's Dan Brown for me. Out of interest, did the adult world really take Da Vinci Code really seriously when it first came out? Or was it just because we were teenagers when it came out that everyone I knew (also teenagers) that they all believed Dan Brown was this enlightening revelation from the lies of the *Church*? Did/Do people actually think his book was wonderfully accurate? I still remember my friends taking it like the Bible (pun intended ) What other historical inaccuracies were there in his book? Given my utter hatred of him, I would very much enjoy knowing
I was already familiar with the ideas that Brown built the book around but he stitched a bunch of unrelated stuff together and bolted onto the outside of a premise that had been fairly shaky when it was first advanced decades earlier. I think the bit that amused me most, though, wasn't any of the historical or theological stuff (I'm used to seeing some fairly crazy things in that regard) but the bit where the old dude whose name I forget is lecturing Langdon on symbolism and telling him how the chevrons on army and police uniforms represent penises and thus the more penises you have, the more important you are. Of course, by his own interpretation, every country (bar the US from 1903 onward) that uses chevrons actually has wombs on their sleeves, as the chevrons face down, not up. The fact that the old dude was English also means there's a better-than-even chance that he's never actually encountered anyone who belonged to an organisation that used pointy-end-up chevrons or seen them except on American TV, so it seems really weird that he'd have been so confused by their symbolism.
@Mckk That's my view as well. I've been very quick to correct any errors I've discovered in my own work. I'm sure there are probably some still lurking there ...and if I find them, I'll correct them. It's just me. When I read a book that's set during a historical period, I like to 'believe' what I'm reading. That's why I think I prefer reading historical fiction written by people who are also historical scholars—people like CJ Sansom who has a PhD in History, and who writes popular detective fiction (The Shardlake Series) set in the time of King Henry VIII. I've checked quite a few of his interesting facts that were new to me, and found he was spot-on every time. That means I can read him with confidence. He really brings that era and that place to life. I think good historical fiction is a great way to study history, actually!
