Is it okay to majorly distort historical facts while writing a fiction story?

There is a whole genre of fiction which explore what would have happened if certain historic events turned out differently: Alternative History. If you market your work as part of this genre, then anything goes.

But this genre usually focuses on changes which have lasting consequences on a global scale, not just the lives of a few individual people.

If you claim or just imply that your work is historically accurate, then anything that contradicts historic consensus will be perceived as a research mistake on your behalf and will likely be seen as a flaw in your work.

posted over 5 years ago

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Philipp‭

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Is it okay? Well, it's likely legal (if the person is long dead anyway, and probably even if they're alive). You can do it. You might even get it published.

For a large number of readers, the answer is that, no, it's not okay. Though what percentage of that really depends on the details. Fictionalization of historic events is extremely common and things get really bungled.

Take the excellent book Hidden Figures, about black women employed by NASA as mathematicians and engineers as the first space flights were planned then executed. The author interviewed the actual women involved (those still alive) and many others who lived through that time period.

The book is nonfiction and, as far as I know, pretty accurate. Then it was made into a movie. The movie is wonderful and worth watching but, for those of us who read the book, it involves a lot of handwaving. They took characters that worked in different decades and made them all similarly aged friends in the same year. They completely changed character arcs to aid in the drama. For example, one movie character fought for years to become a supervisor (the white woman in charge refused to allow her) then finally got her promotion in the late 60's at the end of the movie. The real person with that character's name had been a supervisor starting in the 40's.

This sort of distortion is extremely common in movies, whether based on books or on historical research. Sometimes involving huge changes like putting together events that actually were a couple hundred years apart. It's not as common in books, but it happens.

So is it "okay" for you to do this? Well, yes and no. The question is, what can you get away with and who are you pissing off? If you add in scandal or things that might be libelous were the people still alive, you could be in trouble, even if legally you're in the clear. I mean, don't write a novel about Princess Di's early life as a pole dancer.

But a work about William Shakespeare in a relationship (that never really happened) with a woman who disguises herself as a man so she can take female roles in his plays only ever played by men (also never happened). YAWN Been there, done that.

I am one of those readers that hates inaccuracies like that but I still loved those two movies. I'm stricter about the books but often read and enjoy them anyway. It depends how—and why—it's done.

Make your choices meaningful. Don't change things because you're too lazy to research. Change them because they work better that way for your story.

posted over 5 years ago

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Cyn‭

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Getting your facts straight is one of the rules of literature. As with the other rules of literature, it is one thing to know the rule and know when to break it, but another thing to ignore the rule when it's needed. In the case of this rule, there is no substitute for knowing what the facts actually are. Only then can you justify presenting a different version of reality in order to serve the story. This is different from acting as if the facts are either not important, or as if you have rejected the facts because it does not suit you to accept them.

If you want your story to have an element that contradicts the best-supported version of events in the historical record, you should make it very clear (in some way) that you know what the record really says, and that you made this choice in order to explore a story with different conflicts in play.

If the historical record is well-known, and there aren't already an army of cranks who are pushing an alternate version of things, it may not be necessary to explicitly state that you are presenting an alternate history; everyone will grasp it readily enough. For instance, if Confederate States of America wins the American Civil War in your novel, everyone will know you are writing an alternate history and don't have a fringe agenda.

On the other hand, if the topic is already the target of politically-driven revisionism, you definitely should make it clear that the version of events in the tale should be seen as fiction. For instance, if you want to write a novel in which the Holocaust did not happen, do not fail to stress to the reader that you believe the Holocaust abso-{filtered}-lutely did happen.

In another case, it may be that the facts as known to history are familiar only to historians. So if your story has Julius Caesar married to a woman named Desdemona, someone unfamiliar with Roman history may "learn" this to be the case, and you should take the time to prevent misunderstandings.

Another case that requires a warning is when historians are honestly divided on what actually happened, non-historians are pretty much ignorant of this fact, and your story presents one of the versions vying for acceptance. In that case you would also want to advise the reader that the version of events you present is not the only reasonable interpretation of the historical record.

As to where you put this caveat lector, a brief author's note at the beginning should suffice.

posted over 5 years ago

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EvilSnack‭

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