Historically Accurate Fiction?

Look!  Can you believe it, another post!  I'm working ahead on some post because I currently have some down time in my life, actually I'm ahead on everything.  I just needed some documentation on that, because it'll be a long time before it happens again.  Now, that I'm done with this intro, onto the meat of this post!

Fiction (noun)- the class of literature comprising works of imaginative narration, especially in prose form (dictionary.com).
History (noun)- the branch of knowledge dealing with past events (dictionary.com).
Historical fiction (noun)- the genre of literature, film, etc., comprising narratives that take place in the past and are characterized chiefly by an imaginative reconstruction of historical events and personages (dictionary.com).

Hm, looking at those it's hard to see how they could ever fit together.  I mean one is made up things and the other is pure fact.  Opposites.  However, some how our mind can fit those two together and create an oxymoron is just beautiful, or at least in my opinion.  The question is how accurate does the story have to be?

Here are a few links that I think are a good summary:
Hilary Mantel and the Limits of Historical Accuracy
Historical Fiction o Fictionalized History?

Now, to my opinion on this (yeah, I know, you're celebrating;)).  I think that historical fiction is a sketchy area to tread.  Personally I like staying away from well known people that are large historical figures.  By that I mean the Tudors, any president of the USA, Martin Luther (the one in the 1500s, not the 1960s), and others.  I don't just don't like reading things about them that aren't true, I find that like writing about current people such as Kim Jong Il, Barack Obama, One Direction, Pope Benedict XVI-fictionally.  I know that many of the gossip magazines write fictional stories about those kind of people (sorry, but that's my opinion), but as authors I think that you should owe it to your readers to check your facts a little more.

Just a nice picture of the Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii)
at my zoo/school, don't know how they tie
into historical fiction...

I say to add facts to your story and make sure that it's historically accurate, but don't make it a non-fiction text book.  It is a story, meaning fiction.  Try not to bore your readers to tears.  Here's a little story of mine about books that are more non-fiction than fiction.  It was back in middle school, 8th grade to be exact, I had to read a fictional book about the Civil War and write a review on it to add to my poster about the Civil War.  I will tell you, I have only gone on SparkNotes once in my life and only once have I ever not read a book for a report-it was that book.  The first 20 pages were filled with facts upon facts upon facts, with little movement, just facts and descriptions about Gettysburg!  I couldn't read it.  Please, oh, please, do not overfill your novel with information.  Tie it into the text, say that you know that during the 1930s that people in the United States would sit down in the evening to listen to President Franklin D. Roosevelt for his fireside chats.  Don't just go:  My dad sat down in his leather chair and listened to the fireside chats that FDR gave.  Try ingratiating into the story, make it not stand out in the text, blend: I passed by the den, tip-toeing around the door trying not to alarm my dad.  From inside the room the soft, comforting voice of FDR projected through the room, my dad slumped in his old leather chair pressed his ear near the radio trying to hear the fireside chat better without interrupting the rest of the house.  Do you see the difference between the two passages?  Things are more in a story form in the second piece, but there are still elements of the fact in there.

Just one more little thing:  research matters when it comes to historical fiction, if you write it then you have to research it!  Just wanted to throw that out there!

What are your opinions on historical fiction?  What do you like, more info or more fiction?  What do you think about the fictional stories about important/famous historical figures?

Character Depth

Hello all!  I'm so sorry for my lack of updating!  There were computer issues and then there were life issues. At the end of August school started and has been a lot of work this year, but at least I get to go to the zoo everyday:)I'm going to try to start updating more regularly again.  Things are starting to calm down and I'm beginning to have a little more free time than I'm used to.

Picture of the Playbill

Okay, so onto the bulk of what I want to discuss: Character Depth.  I think that this really got my attention this past Friday night.  I was watching Broadway's Beauty and the Beast, which is my FAVORITE Disney movie.  I was watching the play and singing along to every song.  Everything was going great until right before the intermission; that's when it happened.  The Beast was up on one of the platforms singing "If I Can't Love Her" and my heart melted.  This was what the movie had been missing; this was the scene that I had unknowingly been waiting to see.  Everything about the song, the lyrics, the music, the voice, just made everything come together.  I was seeing what I had been longing to see, a sensitive side of the Beast.  His voice and words made me care for him deeper than what I had originally thought I should have.  I heard what he was thinking, what he was feeling.  I was seeing another side of him.  No longer was he this, almost, minor character to Belle's character transformation.  The Beast was a person, a person who felt scared to be falling in love, a person who didn't want to change, a person who just didn't go around roaring at everyone, he was a fully fledged character and one that I could relate to.  I don't know why they could have just allowed a little bit of the scared Beast show up in the film.  I know that they showed his changing after the wolf scene in the movie and during "Something There" but I don't think that it adequately portrayed the bruised and confused man inside.  Then again, those are my thoughts.  Just a little side note on Beauty and the Beast; it was amazing!  If this play comes to a theater near you I'd suggest that you try to go.  It was beyond amazing and the songs were fabulous, along with all the witty comments that I just adore!

Going on to the Character Depth part, I think that characters need depth.  Yup, that's it.  I'm sick and tired of all of these flat characters.  I mean, authors give the characters faults and quirks but I still don't think that is enough.  I love reading books where I think that I know each and every one of the characters.  People have pasts, people have wants and desires and strange ways of thinking things through.  People change sides, they make mistakes, they do stupid things to hurt themselves.  And those all have thoughts and decisions behind them.  Too often do I read characters that are just overblown stereotypes that do things for no apparent reason.  I'll admit it too that I have also written out characters that don't make much sense when I read back through my writings.  I like to think that I am becoming better at adding depth, but I know I still have a long way to go.

Relating back into the world of YA, defending your work by the pathetic excuse of "Well they're hormonal teenagers" is not acceptable.  I've read that excuse a few times before because of a random kiss or a random debate.  I can tell you for a fact that the excuse of being a hormonal teenager doesn't work for parents, teacher or any adults in the real world, why should it be an excuse for a fictional world?  It's not.  We teenagers are great strategist, well at least the ones I know.  We plan our outbursts, our date invitations, our kisses, our sex, our actions in general.  Occasionally we'll have a slip, especially after one of our plans blow up in our face and leaves us with an unsavory aftermath.  But in general we're pretty controlled group with a few outliers that mess up our image for everyone... (Sorry, homecoming was last Saturday and my distaste for my peers has only elevated, because I do NOT need to see that!)

It's a deep picture... I just thought that
we needed another picture for this post

Moving onward.  What can we do about this whole lack of depth?  I say we plan.  Bring out the index cards and notebooks.  I say we write down every little thing that we want to include about our characters and then write how things came to be that way or how they got there.  Does the character have a scar?  Where did they get that scar?  How did they get that scar?  Who was with them?  Did they go to the hospital?  Do they no longer do the activity that gave them that scar?  Is it visible?  Are they embarrassed?  Do people still make fun of them for that?  How do they think of themselves because of the scar?  Answer these question and any other ones for each little thing about your character.  It may seem tedious and a waste of time, but I think that it helps with the planning of characters.  Allow the characters to have many differetn layers, like an ogre ;).  One other idea is to bounce it off another person.  Ask if the scene your working on makes sense, if the character does what a normal person would do.  See if the character seems superficial or flat.  Ask someone for their honesty, no niceness needed.  You’ll be surprised how much information you can get from a fresh pair of eyes, especially in small details like this. 

I do believe that is all I have got to say on this.  Do any of you have any ways that your able to create Character Depth?  Do you have any good examples of this?  What are your opinions?  I'd sure love to hear them!