“Spirit of Freedom” memorial for the USCT and Navy service of free blacks in the civil war, Ft. Myers Fl.
I had opportunity to read the first chapter of an independently written work about a black man at the end of the civil war. If you haven’t ever seen this site before, I’d recommend you check it out: historical chapters.blogspot.com. The owner is an author herself and takes chapter submissions, posts them, and then invites comments and suggestions from readers. If you write historical fiction and want a short beta read of your best chapter, I’d recommend submitting something.
I was intrigued and started skimming, reading lightly so I could see the author’s command of military knowledge and in general civil war aptitude. Sometimes a little knowledge can be a bad thing. I found that there were some things that I knew were not exactly right from my own research into the USCT, officer selection, USCT regiment numbering, where they saw action, when recruiting started, etc.
I won’t comment further on the work in particular but it got me to pondering the role of historical record and forming a story around it. Clearly, if it is fiction it didn’t happen with these characters, with these thoughts, with these experiences etc. So, there is a level of license that is to be expected in any work of historical fiction. For me, I was derailed by the blaring inaccuracies (blaring because of what I know) and unfortunately could not finish reading all of it nor comment (it’s probably not a good practice for authors to comment unsolicited on other works lest the negatives be taken to heart and a tit for tat ensue where no one wins).
Personally, it is the little details that make the world work for me. It is fairly easy for me to read something written by someone with only a cursory knowledge of the civil war military to see some holes and then be thrown out of the world they are creating. So, I endeavor to be a detail oriented as I can (I will still find I’ve made mistakes by relying on memory for something that I could have easily looked up). This is not the authors fault, that I have a deep understanding and knowledge of how USCT regiments were formed and organized. For me, this just adds other levels to anything that I write in building a scene or making an interaction between two individuals. There are probably no details that are not usable in a narrative of fiction and there’s always another level of understanding to be had when researching.
I suppose I write this way for me or for someone like me and I lived in fear when I published They Met at Shiloh for this very version of me as a reader to pop up and find some detail that I missed or was incorrect about. I’ve not encountered that person yet (save for in the mirror). I have blogged before about this struggle Drama or History, who wins?. I’ve not resolved that yet, but this latest thing has only brought me closer to how I regard history and minutia of fact in story building. It has also for me highlighted the need to really know what I am writing about lest I become too cavalier with building that story and leave holes for someone to shoot through. Writing and publishing is hard work and we have our reasons for what we write and why.
If I want to be excellent at what I do I need to find that balance between story telling (and the freedom to tell the story) and historical fact and with some mind of me as a reader. I do not write nonfiction history. There are others who are far better at it than I. I want to teach through story telling and I think this is what sometimes drives my fanaticism in getting the details correct. For me, these details and teaching moments drive my story telling.
I’m not sure I’ve answered the question posed by this post satisfactorily for myself, but this has become the thing that has consumed me for these past few days.
Short story for Kindle.
Interesting post, Phillip. I think this is the reason why I shy away from historical fiction. IMO, to make a good historical fiction, the devil has to be in the details. I just can’t hack that. For me, the story is first, and sometimes what actually happened does not follow a nice story arch or has so many real life characters or interweaving threads and must-know backgrounds it can disrupt the story (not to say that some authors have managed to pull it off pretty well). It makes it all the more difficult when a historical subject like the civil war is so well documented and so well known by so many people. Its like you paint a bug bullseye on your back and say ‘fire away at my research.’
For me I suppose it depends more on how one is using the history. For many who write historical romance, in order to make a popular statement or use the story it is often that you find independent female protagonists doing things that do not fit the culture or the times and the attitude of the authors is to use the history as a backdrop only taking whatever license suits them. My own personal views on this is it does not portray an accurate view even if it is a story but that’s just me. In this instance I am writing about real units at real events and wanted to put the story around what might have been experienced from a small unit level so I relocated it but kept the embellished story of the storms and the creek crossings being washed out (a real happenstance but not to the level I wrote it for dramatic license) and continued on. Writing for civil war buffs and those interested in the war has opened up some of that fear of having my research called into question but so far that hasn’t happened. I think I’m probably not in the norm as far as my fiction and being somewhat fanatical about the portrayal within context and most who write historical fiction may take more license than I would, but each writer has an outlook and purpose for the story and mine happens to be a focus on soldiering, portraying things in the story most writers wouldn’t bother to.