Historical fiction was the genre that made me fall in love with reading as a child. It’s still one of my absolute favorites today so it shouldn’t be surprising that I love writing it too. There doesn’t seem to be an agreed on standard for the role history should play in crafting story. For me though, I prioritize keeping the historical in my historical fiction.
A number of years ago, I attended an impactful talk at SCBWI’s Summer Conference by Deborah Helligman on writing history. Her book Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers, a non-fiction, had recently been published. She explained that even when writing a compelling narrative, the facts are the facts. She explained that, in non-fiction, characters can’t lean against a lamppost if there wasn’t a lamppost in the historical record. She stressed that dialogue for the characters must be limited to what they actually said. There are no assumptions or possibilities. There are facts. She ended her talk by telling the historical fiction writers in the room (paraphrase), that we’re lucky because we get to make everything up. She was being facetious. We’re bound by fact too, but with a very different set of rules.
That being said, I’ve read historical fiction novels that do just that. They make everything up. They sometimes write entertaining and compelling novels. They’re, in my opinion, writing fiction in a historical setting.
This isn’t how I approach historical fiction. I’m the chair of a historical society after all. I make plenty of things up, but I have a series of unwritten rules that I follow.
- I won’t change history
- I won’t create dialogue for a real person unless it’s something that they actually said (part of the historical record)
- I won’t change the behavior of a real person even if it only serves to deepen the narrative and has no effect on the outcome
- I stick to dates and won’t manipulate time
- Because this is still fiction, I give my self permission to write anything that is at all plausible
- My characters meet real people, but won’t interact with them in any direct way
Of course for every rule, there are exceptions. I think there’s a bit more room to play in picture books. And every project is different irrespective of the age of the reader. Sometimes facts are simply not knowable. If I were to write a novel set in biblical times, for example, I would likely need to reexamine my list. Also, I incorporated magical realism into my WIP (set in 1945) so when it comes to plausibility, I’ve strayed a bit, but not where history is concerned.
In my most recent picture book, Saliman and the Memory Stone, I fictionalized a true story. I needed a main character of a certain age, a journey that was more straight forward, and I also needed to soften the harsh realities. I made every effort to be certain that the story was still plausible by consulting with a team of subject matter experts. For more information on my research process, see my blog post: Researching Saliman’s World.
For my current work in progress (WIP), a middle grade novel set in 1945, I needed a rabbi to interact with the main character. The community is real and it’s a well established fact who the rabbi was. I wouldn’t attribute dialogue or action to him that wasn’t based on the historical record. This was problematic for my plot. What to do? I created a second rabbi (Rabbi Yosef) for the community that could act the way I needed him to act and say the things that I wanted him to say. I acknowledge the real rabbi and write him into historical scenes that he was actually part of. For example, I mention that he was to give a speech at the opening of the new synagogue and the children were assembled below the bima to sing. This was all real. My fictional character dramatically bursting into the scene was not. Could someone have made a dramatic entrance? It was plausible so that was good enough for me.
Keeping the historical in historical fiction is important to me. These aren’t the rules. They’re my rules. Create your own set of standards and have fun getting lost in a world where fact and fiction mingle.