Writing Historical Characters
I’ve been talking with several writers recently who are writing historical fiction based on family history. When writing historical fiction, incorporating characters based on real, historical people can feel tricky. Writing about historical family member adds an additional emotional layer. What are some things you should be thinking about as you write?
Who is my character?
Step one is probably the most obvious. Are you writing about a real person or is your character a blend of several people? Or completely made up? If you’re planning to use an actual historical person as your main character (think Marie Benedict’s Daughter of Egypt) then you aren’t just going to be researching the time period, but the person as well. Can you find letters they wrote? Journals? How deep into their minds and emotions can you get before you start writing? And not just them, but friends and family as well. We are lucky enough to have many people’s letters and journals saved in libraries and archives, even published in books. But when people don’t leave records of their thoughts behind, it makes things tougher. Because your readers still want to know what’s going on in those characters heads. What emotions they are dealing with as they face their challenges. And you need to keep asking yourself: am I close? Am I right? Or am I doing them a disservice here? You can’t change how they would react to something just because it is convenient to you and your plot.
Don’t Judge
Along those same lines comes the challenge: don’t judge. People in different times thought and acted differently. They may have had different values than you do. But it isn’t for you to judge them. Yes, your readers will judge them. But when you write, write with what your characters are thinking and believing and knowing all centered in your mind. Is your book taking place in 1860 Virginia? Then unfortunately, racism is a big part of how most of your characters are going to think and act. 1700 England? Women aren’t voting, or in fact, getting many rights at all. I'm currently reading the amazing historian Emma Southon's newest book Not Built in a Day, which is about slavery in ancient Rome. She points out that if you're talking about the ancient Romans (the ancient world anywhere really), cruelty to slaves is considered completely normal and just part of life. So if you're writing about characters living in ancient Rome, they will see people owning other people (and depending on their income, own people themselves), treat them badly, and think nothing of it.
Are you writing about a time period where people are trying to create change? Or debating change? Know what people were thinking and doing at the time and use that if you want to involve your characters in the slow movements that created social change. It's a fine distinction from judging your characters, but it is one to keep in mind.
Emotional Truth and Factual Truth
When do you allow emotions to write the story and when do you let the facts speak for themselves? Emotionally, we want women to act like modern women. We want strong, independent women thinking for themselves, getting involved in politics, and saving the day. How do historical fiction writers balance that emotion (probably in themselves as well as their readers) with the emotional truth that “everyone knows” women were sidelined from all aspects of history? Fortunately, historians are starting to reexamine many events and people to find out what was really going on—and finding out that women had more of a role than was previously thought. And most people are now open to accepting new facts, if you present them right. So, do your research, find those historians and those little known facts about whenever and whoever you are writing about.
Make sure your reader can feel confident in your research base. By the end of the first chapter they should feel like you have created characters and a world that seem to fit what they expect. Details of your Victorian London match what they’ve read or seen in movies—but don’t overdo it and bore them! Now that you’ve gained their trust, you can start slowly filtering in either your imagination (the “what if” all writers use) or those surprising new facts you want to get your reader to accept. When in doubt, use the ratio 2 truths to 1 surprise (surprise can be either a new fact or your imagination).
Just keep in mind the ever-annoying Tiffany Problem.
The Tiffany Problem
You may have heard of this. It’s a way of saying that readers know what they know—even when what they know is wrong. But good luck getting them to give up that belief. It comes from using the name Tiffany, which sounds like a name that was probably not popular until the 1980s or '90s—but in fact was common in medieval England and France as a form of Theophanis. In my house it is the “Did You Know” game, also guaranteed to entertain (or annoy) co-workers at lunch.
Other examples include:
Lord Fisher is the first person credited with writing OMG on a letter in 1917 (he added Oh My God in parentheses for his reader—Winston Churchill).
Almond milk has been a kitchen staple since at least the 13th century.
Medieval medical texts talk about the different types of toothbrushes and herbal mouth rinses
Murder wasn’t a legal construct in ancient Rome until the dictatorship of Sulla in 81 BCE
Depending on the historical time you happen to be writing about, you will inevitably come up with others. Will you use them in your book? The way to decide that is: does it matter to your characters and plot? Yes= use it and find a few sentences that ease some kind of explanation in for your readers. No=then enjoy your new knowledge, but it doesn’t go in your book. And don’t forget: Author’s Notes can be very useful for explaining how you did your research and merged truth and fiction. Historical romance author Mimi Matthews writes wonderful Author Notes explaining where (and why) she may have diverged from history or included some little known facts that you thought were her imagination but are true.
When writing historical fiction of any kind, ask yourself what goals you hope to accomplish by using the time period you've chosen. What drew you to it? Then think about the characters who inhabit this time and your world. Who are they? What has the worl made them? What will that bring to your story? What do you want it to bring to your story? Can you be true to those characters and their mindsets as you move forward? It isn't always easy, but if you're dedicated to your idea it can be well worth the work!
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