: How can I write about historical realities that readers mistakenly believe are unrealistic? Readers have certain expectations about locations and time periods, things they "know". For example, people
Readers have certain expectations about locations and time periods, things they "know". For example, people "know" that everybody in the Persian Empire was brown-skinned, that houses in Ancient Rome were one or two floors high, and that up until the late renaissance people did not use forks for eating.
All the above "facts" are untrue.
Trouble is, people think they are true. If I write about white Iranians, five-floor Roman apartment buildings and Byzantines using forks, most readers would accuse me of jarring anachronisms.
Then again, if I forget the truth, and write what people expect, the experts would accuse me of not doing my research, and what's more, I would be dishonest and perpetuating misinformation.
Is there a way out of this conundrum? Can I somehow write what is real and true without being accused of it being unrealistic to the point of breaking the suspension of disbelief?
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@Caterina108
A dinner in a historical novel has little to do with forks. What the characters say and do, the intrigue and conflict and emotions are the story. But also, I'd say that 99.9 percent of readers (if this is popular fiction, not an academic paper on utensils) have given no thought whatsoever to whether people used forks in a certain year. Now, if it's important, a character noticing that there are forks, and being impressed because back in his village or castle or whatever, they can't afford or haven't ever seen forks, then that detail is part of the story and the character's development. Otherwise, there is absolutely no reason to mention forks at all.
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@Voss1744584
First of all, I wonder if you're over-thinking this. A lot of the phenomenon you're talking about seems to be bad-faith readers who don't "mistakenly" believe the historical realities are unrealistic, but who are pushing a view that they're unrealistic as part of sociopolitical agenda. The value of cutting them off in the text of your work seems questionable, but it is plausible that supporting the historical reality at the textual level will prevent them from convincing others to believe their version of history (and thereby treat your work as flawed and you as the one who's pushing a counterfactual agenda), so I think it's still worth considering what you can do.
I'm going to take your forks example to work with because it's not loaded in any way I'm aware of. I also don't know anything about the history of fork prevalence, so I'm going to make up some details with the idea that it's the principle that matters here.
So, if you're concerned readers will find forks unrealistic in your setting, don't just write that your characters are using forks. Describe them in terms of how they fit into your setting. For example if most fine forks in your setting came in via trade with another country or city, describe how the fork a character is picking up fits or differs from that in-world expectation. Is it an heirloom that differs from what's in widespread use at the time of the story? Is it something that shows great wealth beyond what most people would have? Or is it a simple piece of metal (or whatever material?) produced by local craftspeople? By doing any of this, you signal that you have awareness of how you intend that it fit into your world, rather than just haphazardly throwing it in. Then if someone comes to question it, they can check the historical facts and see that your intent matches them, rather than being able to assume "maybe you just got lucky that there were really forks in your setting".
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@Chiappetta298
Another option is to have characters in the story have a similar mistaken belief such that you can explain in the story itself the misconception.
For example, with respect to the ethnicity of Persians... you can have a character who has the belief that all Persians are brown skinned. When arriving, that can be a "surprise" to them and something they choose to dialog about in story (obviously you need to tie this into your existing characters/story more meaningfully than cherry picking something random).
However:
This works best if there are relatively few "facts" you need to clarify
It works better in a context where characters already have active dialog about their universe
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@Karen856
You're in luck. People tend to believe self-consistent and emotionally satisfying stories over facts! So you have nothing to worry about. Apart from writing a good story, which of course is the hard part... Ask any scientist about how hard it is to spread scientific findings in the presence of an alternative but objectively wrong narrative (e.g. vaccines, homeopathy etc).
On a personal note, after reading historical fiction I often notice how almost all my pre-story notions have been supplanted by the images of the book! To the extent that I really hope that the author has done their research properly...
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@XinRu607
This is a good case for those little out-of-character sideline blurbs at the top of each new chapter (don't know the english word - often printed in italics and blatantly not from the perspective of the main story).
For example:
Chapter 5 - The Big Feast
The personal table fork was most likely invented in the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, where they were in common use by the 4th century (its origin may even go back to Ancient Greece, before the Roman period). Records show that by the 9th century a similar utensil known as a barjyn was in limited use in Persia within some elite circles. By the 10th century, the table fork was in common use throughout the Middle East.(*)
----- Alice Bobster, The Forks of Middle-East
On the next day, our hero was invited to a big feast and ...
(And, if you feel so inclined, provide a list of science-y references in a addendum - exact page numbers etc.).
This adds a bit of spice to the book. Also, while the fork is probably just a random example and not a main story plot, especially adding such inconsequential facts would just feel nice to set the stage a bit.
(*) The actual quote is from the page on Forks on Wikipedia.
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@Si5022468
Add an afterword or appendix.
It's my favorite part of a book. Seriously.
Share your fascination with history. Explain which parts of the story are made up, and which are based on reality. Add sources for both, facts and ideas. It makes a good story more memorable, and might give the reader a treasure trove of references for further reading.
Examples:
Janet Kagan, Hellspark. Peter Watts, Blindsight. Science fiction, based on powerful ideas out of anthropology and neuroscience.
Pearl Luke, Madame Zee. Emma Donoghue, Frog Music. Historical fiction, based on real persons and events.
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@Alves689
Just be accurate and write a GOOD STORY.
If your story is dry and uninteresting, no amount of research will save you. People don't buy stories for their accuracy; they buy them for entertainment.
That's why badly researched stories can still be extremely popular. The story is what counts for readers. However, that's no reason why you have to be inaccurate to sell well!
Your question reminds me an awful lot of the author's comments on the "Helljob Series," 15 stories about the most dangerous professions written in the 1930s and originally published in Argosy magazine.
To quote his comments in part, originally published to readers of the magazine in the "Argonotes" section (bolding added):
All along I’ve realized the score on this and so I have checked and rechecked the data contained in the stories and I think I’ve got an airtight answer for every possible squawk.
Something else has amused me considerably. Writers, treating the same subject time after time in fiction, gradually evolve a terminology and a pattern for certain types of stories as you well know. This creates an erroneous belief in readers that they are familiar with a certain subject through reading so much fiction dealing with it. I’ve had to shed a lot of that for the sake of accuracy and I’m very, very anxious to have my hand called on some of it.
Oil well stories, for instance, always seem to have a villain who in the height of hate, drops a wrench or something down a well to ruin it. Dropping things into the hole is common. In cable tool drilling, so many hours or days are regularly estimated in with the rest of the work for fishing. The tools fall in, wrenches drop, bits stick, cables break, and wells are never, never abandoned because of it, or is it considered at all serious.
...
The process of digging up data is interesting when I can get these gentlemen to give me a hand. The navy diver here is responsible for the data and authenticity of this story. Going down off the end of a dock didn’t give me such a good idea of what it was all about after all. Never got so scared before in all my life. Something ghastly about it. And the helmet is enough to deafen you and the cuffs were so tight my hands got blue.
But it was lots of fun!
When these stories start to come out and when the letters start to come in calling me seven different kinds of a liar (which they will), sit easy and grin and shoot them this way. There isn’t anything reasonable in the way of criticism I can’t answer anent* this collected data.
It was either bow to popular fallacy and avoid all technical descriptions, or ride roughshod, make sure I was right and damn the torpedoes. Making the latter choice, I’ve laid myself wide open several times to crank letters. So be it.
—L. Ron Hubbard, 1936
The last paragraph is particularly telling. Get your facts straight, be very certain you know what you're writing about, and then write your story.
Or just stick with the inaccurate beliefs all your readers are used to. It's up to you. But that's not nearly as fun.
*anent: concerning; about
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@Kevin153
It might depend on the genre and style you are writing in, but from your description it seems you are mostly interested in more realistic historical fiction. If that's the case, there is nothing wrong with trying to be historically accurate. Knowingly putting in anachronistic elements just because you assume the readers expect it might get counterproductive, especially as interest seems to be gaining for more historically accurate fiction.
If you write light-hearted comical fantasy, then you can get away with lots of anachronisms, but many historical misconceptions get more and more known, so over time such unrealistic elements might move from the norm into parodies.
So, what methods can you use to present historically accurate but generally misunderstood elements?
1 Addressing the reader
This will only work if done in very strict moderation, and is best suited for social norms and behaviors. Alexandre Dumas used it with great finesse, when one of his characters did something which was considered normal for that historical period, but the reader would find shocking if done today (or in the author's era), the narrator mentioned in a few words that times and social norms were different back then. To make it even more subtle, you can describe the actions of a character, and then you can present the other characters around acting normal, not finding it strange at all.
2 The Watson
Have a character who is either clueless, or from a different culture, so you can explain things from within the setting. Of course, it has to be done in moderation, but it can work very well if it's not overdone. Make this clueless character have the same misconceptions about the setting as you would expect the average reader to have, so the misconceptions can be debunked by that character actually encountering "the real thing". Of course, you shouldn't make that character a strawman or too unsympathetic, because you might insult the readers by making them think you hold them stupid.
Using one of your examples about Roman apartment blocks. Have someone from a foreign culture visit Rome, while talking to his Roman friend, and as they walk around they encounter some insulae. The foreigner is surprised, and tells his friend that he thought Romans lived in one or two storied mansions with an atrium in the middle, with a fountain surrounded by pillars, just like he has seen it on paintings and heard it in stories. The local then mentions, that only the rich live in houses like that, the poor live in crammed five-floor apartment blocks.
3 Details.
If you mention a realistic (but not well known) fact only in passing, the reader might think you just slipped up.
If you instead make it an integral part of the story, describe it in more detail, make it fit into the setting, and show how it works, then the reader can get a feeling that it must be normal.
If you give enough importance and enough detail to it, you won't need the narrator or another character explaining it, it will look self-evident.
For example, there is the widespread myth that medieval swords were extremely heavy and completely dull bludgeoning tools, and you could cleave through plate armor by using the sword's weight to crush the armor. What to do in this case? Show, don't tell. If swords are drawn, it is an action scene. Don't stop the action for the narrator to start giving an academic lecture about HEMA, just show how the characters use the sword and the armor. Show how the fighter handles his well balanced blade with swift motions, how quickly he parries attacks aimed at his most vulnerable spots, show how someone slips up by hitting the armor with the edge of the sword which just bounces off without even inconveniencing his opponent while throwing himself off balance, and then finally show the elaborate techniques master swordsmen used to make a stab at the hard to reach vulnerable spots of an armor.
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@Sarah872
Have your narrator digress
Describe workers building a house in ancient Rome, tie it into the story later, to let it look like a Checkov's gun, then put in some historical facts integrating them into the narrative. Talk about forks, "which would later disappear until the late renaissance".
Annotate your book
When writing about something you know to be common misknowledge, write notes.
"¹Contrary to popular belief, forks were in use in Constantinoples" might be ugly, but it works.
Being ugly, you want to take this route only as a last resort.
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@Gonzalez219
In Fiction, Write about them as unusual; or give people what they expect.
Everybody expects unusual characteristics in their prominent fictional characters (protagonist, antagonist, mentors, sidekicks, minions, love interest, etc).
My protagonist almost always has some unusual mental or physical ability; much of the story is coming to grips with that. Think "Good Will Hunting", Luke Skywalker, even Han Solo. So it would not suspend disbelief if, say, the love interest of your MC is a white Iranian; and the novelty of that is mentioned, perhaps as part of the attraction. And perhaps other Iranians are prejudiced against whites.
Nobody demands strict historical accuracy in historical fiction; they know the characters and personal parts of the setting are made up, and often the prominent characters are "fish out of water", thinking thoughts ahead of their time, even with morals ahead of their time, (intentionally on the author's part so readers can relate to them better).
That said, if the truth ruins your story, tie it up, gag it and stuff it in a mental closet. Fiction is not the place to push uncomfortable truths; leave that to professors in classrooms or non-fiction end-notes, if a publisher will allow them.
Fiction is for entertainment. If you think something actually factual will break suspension of disbelief for more than, say, 15% of your audience, don't include it. That is what is meant by the advice, "Kill Your Darlings." Don't include something you personally love even when you are pretty sure it will diminish or break the reading reverie. When they say readers like surprises, they mean plot surprises within the reading reverie about character pasts, motives, or actions. In Star Wars, the double surprise of Vader saying "I am your father," immediately followed by Luke intentionally letting go to (apparently) fall to his death (but to be rescued). A lot of "Holy crap!" moments, not "How ridiculous..." moments.
For the type of things you are talking about, the only context in which those become interesting and cool is one in which the reader believes they are reading (hearing, seeing) something absolutely true that will not lie to them, a non-fiction book. A professor in an anthropology class. A documentary film. A scientific paper, or report of a discovery in Science News or New Scientist.
Only in fiction does a reader suspend a certain amount of disbelief, so only in fiction must you be careful not to break it. Typically the way this "contract" works is that the author will quickly reveal (in the first 5% to 15% of the story, aka first half of Act I), in strong hints or in full, all the crazy things needed in the story. If there is magic, it must be shown there. Not every possible kind of magic, but impressive magic.
If you have Caucasians in fifth century Iran, show them. If you have Byzantine forks, show them being used, five story buildings, show them being used.
However, I'd guess there is a 90% chance you don't need to show any of these things at all: You shouldn't include a risk of suspension of disbelief unless it is crucial to the plot of your story or to character development. (In most stories what is unique or highly unusual about prominent characters is necessary, they need to stand out in the reader's mind).
It is your responsibility to leave out any widespread divergence from what readers believe is the true history, whether that divergence is factual or not. The point here is not to educate but to entertain, and asking people to believe something they feel certain is untrue is not entertaining them.
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@Angie602
One of the joys in fiction is learning new things. For many readers of historical fiction, learning new details -- even contrary to their own expectation -- is a lot of the fun.
So you can definitely use these elements, and expect them to count in your favor. To make that work, you need to make it clear that your details are deliberate, not mistakes. Don't let them feel "Ha, what a moron"; instead, you need to couch it as "Hey, let me explain this to you."
A good way to do that is to supply not only the detail, but also some background:
Don't just mention that some of the Persians are white-skinned -- use their own words for those people; say where they're from; note how skin color is or isn't a factor for them.
When you bring in higher-reaching architecture, mention who built it, what it's for, who can allow themselves these impressive buildings.
Don't just name-drop forks -- mention what table-manners and customs and utensils are in use in that place and time; offer an opinion on what is or isn't polite.
If you're making a counter-claim against your reader's expectations, than adding the detail and context I'm describing makes your counter-claim stronger. It works on several levels.
Firstly, it signals to the reader: I have given this thought. This is not an absent-minded mistake. You avoid even the quick impression of having made an error.
Secondly, it helps tell the reader, "Listen, here's how this makes sense here; here's where it actually comes from." They can read that and go, hey, that actually does make sense. That can help them reorient themselves -- now that they realize this setting looks different than they expected, your description helps them understand better what how does look and operate.
And thirdly, it gives your counter-claim more substance that your readers can actually check -- they can look up the names and architecture and customs, even if it's just a quick Google to see if that's really a thing.
There are certainly other ways to weave these details in as well -- but this one seems to me the most straightforward, and an excellent place to start from.
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