Is it possible to narrate a novel in a faux-historical style without alienating the reader?
One thing that often annoys me in historical fiction or fantasy books is the dissonance between the writing style and the events and historical period described in the book. The writing is usually very modern, it's fast-paced and uses modern idioms and phrases. By contrast, I love reading works from the time periods themselves, as they often have a very interesting style. Just think of The Odyssey and how weird it is in comparison to a modern novel, or the Old Testament or Don Quixote.
When writing my novel, I would love to emulate the style of the period that I am writing about. I would actually like my narrator to be a character within the world, a sort of historian who describes something that has happened in his world. And from time to time, he might add personal opinion etc. So this is even more reason why the book should be written stylistically fitting.
However, I am worried that this will be off-putting to readers, who might actually interpret this old way of writing as "bad style", or find that it borders on parody. I love the Khaavren Romances by Steven Brust, which are basically parodies of Alexandre Dumas' D'Artagnan Romances in a fantasy setting, exactly because the writing style fits the setting so well. But he gets away with it because it's supposed to be funny at times. I want to make a book that's more or less serious and dramatic.
So how can I avoid this uncanny valley and make it clear to readers that this is done on purpose, and how can I get them to like it?
In Quebec, an artist named Fred Pellerin became famous with an approach very similar to the one you are describing. I fe …
5y ago
Include Excerpts written in the old style You say you want to focus on a character who recorded his lived experiences. …
5y ago
There are many elements of style, of the narrator voice, that have changed over time. @ChrisSunami talks about this, and …
5y ago
Your best bet may be a first person narrator. If your narrator is a character anyway, then the limited POV shouldn't b …
5y ago
> Is it possible to narrate a novel in a faux-historical style without alienating the reader? Presuming you mean "the m …
5y ago
There's multiple pitfalls to consider here: The first is the Uncanny Valley concern you mention in the OP - actually be …
6y ago
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In Quebec, an artist named Fred Pellerin became famous with an approach very similar to the one you are describing. I feel he doesn't alienate the public with his style because he invites them into national dreams that most can relate to.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42511. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Include Excerpts written in the old style
You say you want to focus on a character who recorded his lived experiences. This character could narrate their experiences in 1st-person reliable past-tense in a modern style, but then occasionally include excerpts from their diary as they write it, possibly in a 1st-person present tense or 3rd-person unreliable past-tense. Like this:
I found him pinned under his horse, bleeding from his shoulder where a spearhead
had slipped under his armor. I checked his pulse. Dead. I took out my quill and
laid the parchment on the flank of his horse:
On this the ninth day of the ſiege of CaſterWyne, I find before me the Noble Lord Granger, slain by the pikemen of ArchWood. Riding fearleſsly he fell upon the enemy and was knocked from his horſe. His armor is stained with blood and his noble crown,
I stopped writing. His crown wasn't there. I looked all around. It wasn't anywhere.
My pulse quickened. I grabbed the parchment, not caring if the ink smudged, and
shouted for the commander.
This would have a bonus of letting you show things about your character through the differences of what he writes in his diary vs how he describes it as a narrator. I didn't mean to when writing it, but the main character of my example doesn't seem too bothered by the death when he finds the lord, but then writes about it as if it's very tragic, revealing that he is writing probably not only for himself to read. Also if you have both modern style and old style describing the same event, you are effectively providing a Rosetta Stone that can help the reader learn to better understand and appreciate the old style.
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There are many elements of style, of the narrator voice, that have changed over time. @ChrisSunami talks about this, and brings the example of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel - one example I was going to bring. Let me give you some other examples, with the various effect they produce.
The translation of the Aeneid that I have standing on my shelf is a translation to Hebrew, that has been done using the language and turn of phrase of late 2nd Temple. (Contrary to what some might believe, the language is perfectly accessible. We Jews just have to be an exception to every rule, so we went and preserved a language virtually unchanged for 2000 years.) Such a translation choice sort of makes sense - the Aeneid was written around 20BCE, so translating it to the Hebrew of the day is not a total case of "what were you thinking?!".
While the language was that of 2nd Temple Judea, the style was of course that of Virgil - it was, after all, a translation.
The effect of such a text is not unpleasant, but it is weird. Words and expressions are used in ways they have not been used before - turns of phrase I have only ever seen in the context of one particular prayer, for example, are turned to other uses. The use makes perfect sense, but the weirdness is still there, even towards the end of the epic. At times, it threw me out of the reading entirely, and I stopped to observe the effect the words created. (I do not consider this necessarily a bad thing. But it is a thing that happened.)
This could be an effect you might wish to deliberately invoke. Still, you need to be aware that this is the effect that will be produced if the language you use is too old and context-specific.
A completely different example is The Lord of the Rings. The language Tolkien uses is not particularly antiquated. It doesn't strike you as either "modern" or "old", except when he seeks to invoke a particular effect. What Tolkien takes instead into the story is sensibilities that belong to a medieval ballad rather than a modern novel. He introduces characters, and tells us about them straight away, instead of letting them reveal themselves. The men in his story are "larger than life" in their heroic resolve and feats of arms, the women possess an unearthly beauty. They all act on "callings", not on whims. It could almost be argued that the hobbits are the only real, flesh-and-blood humans there, and they have somehow strayed into an ancient ballad.
Think of style not as one thing, but as a combination of elements. For each element you can decide separately whether, and to what extent, you want to have it "period" or "modern". Various uses of each element are possible, producing different effects.
I would agree with @Amadeus that stepping out of the language-style-sensibilities modern comfort zone would place more demands on the reader, making the reading somewhat "harder". However, I believe it also has the potential of being more rewarding, if you make good use of the tools in your hand. (Consider The Lord of the Rings as an example.)
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Is it possible to narrate a novel in a faux-historical style without alienating the reader?
Presuming you mean "the majority of readers", I don't think this is possible.
Most readers of fiction enjoy getting into the "zone" when reading, absorbing the story almost as if they are not reading, their imagination is fully engaged and the reading is effortless.
I do not think that is possible when the reading is work, when it doesn't meet their expectations of a modern story.
That said, I think you can stick to modern words that had equivalents in your time, and skip the modern idioms. You can look up both etymology of a word and the often the idioms.
Personally, when writing for medieval times, I eschew all idioms and make up my own.
You can also stick to attitudes, beliefs and science that is plausible for the time, these are easy to research.
But that is the limit of what I would try. I would make the prose and dialogue, minus modern words and idiom, easy to read without breaking the reverie of reading.
In my opinion, for the majority of readers, if the reader has to struggle through archaic grammar, or spelling, or words no longer in use or with different meanings, even one per page, they will give up and quit reading. I don't think they expect a novel to be work.
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Your best bet may be a first person narrator.
If your narrator is a character anyway, then the limited POV shouldn't be an issue.
With 3rd person narration, even if it's from the POV of one specific character, the narrator usually has a voice similar to that of the reader and it can be weird or off-putting to instead give the narrator the voice of the characters. That's not always the case, but you've pointed out cases where it is a problem.
Not all historical novels even have dialogue like the time period. But if yours does, a first person narrator would be expected to share it.
You might also consider the story within a story method.
If the narrator is telling one or more people about the events (which can be from that morning or last week or 20+ years ago), s/he would speak in the style of the times. This won't preclude the narrator being a character in real time. This is the sort of method that can be done poorly and stick out, but can also be done such that the story telling sounds like any other narrative book.
All that being said, be careful if you're recreating what you think is the way of speaking of "Biblical times." Not only was the language different (not just "not-English" but ancient versions of whatever language was used at the time) but we simply don't know the way of speaking. The narration is much later than the action and the style was not folksy or meant to be descriptive of the times.
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There's multiple pitfalls to consider here:
The first is the Uncanny Valley concern you mention in the OP - actually being able to write in the style of the time period to a suitable level of accuracy. Depending upon how far back you go it's not going to be far off attempting to write in a foreign language like a native speaker! By no means is this impossible - but it's going to take a significant amount of work.
The second is the question of whether doing so will alienate potential readers - and there's going to be potentially several reasons this might do that:
I'd expect preference for an era-appropriate style is likely to be a relatively minority opinion - I confess I don't have stats to back that up but anecdotally I've heard people mention the inaccessibility of the language used in period pieces as a negative, they read the period works in spite of this rather than seeing it as a positive.
Lack of authenticity - amongst fans of a particular form (whether it's in writing, art, music etc) there is commonly a distaste for recreations, no matter how well the style of a celebrated period may be imitated they know it's not the "real deal". I don't share that view personally so I admit I don't fully understand quite why it bothers them so much (when I've asked people to explain it I tend to get shrugs or comments of "But it's fake!" or "It's just so cheap!")
As you note regarding Steven Brust's works slight parody or comedy buys the author a great deal of leeway with the audience and more or less negates both of the above but that's not what you are aiming for.
Finally you express concern that the reader might consider it a "bad style" - well that's a distinct possibility. Nostalgia not withstanding there's a reason why styles and artforms evolve over time. The inconveniences of a Ford Model T might be charming in some contexts but I'm not about to swap my daily driver for one!
The framing device of using an in-universe narrator is a good one - and probably your best bet. It's a little gimmicky but will definitely get the notion of intent across and will provide a "justification" for why the style is used that will make sense to the reader.
how can I get them to like it?
You can't - people will like it or they won't. If you're aiming it for people who share your preferences then write it as best as you can for what you would like and you just have to accept that people like you will like it and others, well, won't. But that's okay - no work is going to appeal to everyone, that's not the point.
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