Fact and fiction: writing values...

[fajrdrako]

Over the last 24 hours I have had a sort of dual conversation on the Bujold mailing list with commodorified and others, and here as well, about the nature of art and creative writing, and honesty in vision, and I came across this quote from Dorothy Dunnett:

Facts are the soil from which the story grows. Imagination is a last resort.

It seems doubly meaningful coming from her, when her imagination was so fertile, and her historical research so very wide. She made mistakes, but it wasn't because she didn't try hard to get it right.

That's the sort of thing I mean by honesty of vision.

Comments

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

That's good! Yes, I agree!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

We need more historical writers with that kind of integrity. That's what I strive for. Not that I want to write like Dorothy Dunnett - I want to write in my own style - but better that than Dan Brown or the clueless cliche crowd.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I think what always angers me most is wanton disregard for documented fact, especially when it leads to gratuitous abuse of my 'pets'. So many people I love tend not to be 'fashionable' or favoured, so are treated as fair game by many novelists...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

A trend to oppose, for sure.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Yes. At various times I've had to battle nationalist mythologies, personality cults of various rulers, & c., for various of my 'waifs and strays'. Bad fictional representations can be very insidious: people assume that the writers have done the research, and sometimes don't notice a propagandistic agenda. And if the fictional misrepresentations have been repeated for centuries, they become embedded as somehow more 'real' than what's actually in the primary sources.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Nobody but us (i.e., historians, if I may include myself under that name) cares about primary sources. That's why it's up to us to write the secondary sources and get it right.

I say this in order to encourage myself.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Nobody but us (i.e., historians, if I may include myself under that name) cares about primary sources.

Or, indeed, about the agenda of the writers of the primary sources...

It's back to what I was saying in t'other thread about people wilfully blinkering themselves for ideological reasons: refusing to see anything that conflicts with their own views, or if they regard the author or whatever as anathematous for other reasons - as if they're afraid their own convictions are too weak to withstand a challenge.

I've been looking at various novels which I find deeply disagreeable (and historically, plain wrong!), but it would be immature and unscholarly to ignore them. I have to examine them, in order to challenge their viewpoint and what they have done.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Or, indeed, about the agenda of the writers of the primary sources...

Which seem so obvious to us.

people wilfully blinkering themselves for ideological reasons

Yeah. Don't you wish they wouldn't?

have to examine them, in order to challenge their viewpoint and what they have done.

Yes. it needs to be done. So which one are you reading now?

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Don't you wish they wouldn't?

Yes. I hate conversations where I feel I'm walking on eggshells, and I hate writers who seem to have avoided reading anything that might upset their own theories.

So which one are you reading now?

1. Still wading through the verbose Sir Walter: you can tell he's a lawyer - never uses one sentence when a page will do.

2. Evan S. Connell - I cannot see the point of his novel, Deus lo Volt! at all - a pastiche mediæval chronicle which reflects no insights from modern historiography, just bundles together disparate legends from all the different chroniclers. And at least modern editions of the real chronicles have editorial notes, indicating what's wrong. It purports to be a full chronicle of all the Outremer Crusades by Joinville - and I actually found it in the History section of Waterstone's in Glasgow. I find this blurring of fact and fiction dangerous. The staff had filed it clearly believing it was non-fiction.

3. Awaiting the postal arrival of Tarr's Devil's Bargain. Eleanor of Aquitaine as an evil sorceress cutting a deal with Sheikh Sinan to make Richard King of Jerusalem at the cost of his soul. Apparently, Conrad is vilified in it...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Still wading through the verbose Sir Walter

You deserve a medal. Reading Sir Walter is torture to me. I'd rather go to the dentist, any day.

Evan S. Connell - I cannot see the point of his novel, Deus lo Volt! at all

Yeah. I started that. Didn't get very far. Didn't see the point either.

The staff had filed it clearly believing it was non-fiction.

Ouch.

Eleanor of Aquitaine as an evil sorceress

No doubt she'll have murdered Fair Rosamund in that one!

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

The Connell thing just baffles me: simply, why do it?
The primary sources are available for people that want them, in English paperbacks. His fictionalisation adds nothing, and just muddies the waters for the unwary.
I'm still waiting for the Judith Tarr book to arrive: post is slow at this time of year. I'm nervous, but since I survived Graham Shelby, I can't see she could have done much worse to our poor boy - except added supernatural powers into the mix.

(However, I did receive your package! Wow!!!! Many many thanks!)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

The Connell thing just baffles me: simply, why do it?

Don't know. Finding consolation: if he could get published, I can get published.

I did receive your package!

It arrived! Wonderful! I was afraid it wouldn't arrive before Christmas. So glad it did.

[cupati.livejournal.com]

All a story needs is two ideas. Then you need to work out how to fit them together.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

All a story needs is two ideas.

You say that as if it were easy.

Actually, I suppose it is. What is difficult is to put together good ideas in the right way.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Hoo boy that's exactly it.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

The ongoing quest!

[cupati.livejournal.com]

*honda advert music swarms in*

I'd say you needed two ideas for an icon too, but I've seen many without that.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well, my icon has only one idea, though I'm sure I could patch a dozen ideas onto it, easy!

[cupati.livejournal.com]

Mostly involving the word Squee?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, actually.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Noticing this again as I answered another comment, I decided to revisit and ask you what I should have asked in the first place. I assume the 'two ideas' you refer to are along the lines of "thesis and antithesis", "conflict and resolution", or "situation and twist on the situation"? Or do you have something else in mind?

[cupati.livejournal.com]

Plot bunny 1 and plot bunny 2. Heh.

Or So-and-so and event.

[For example, for my fic An Easy Mistake to Make, the two ideas were: "Slitheen and Slytherin are very similar", and "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic [Arthur C. Clark, I believe]"]

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Cool. I like this approach.

[femme-slash-fan.livejournal.com]

That quote is... perfect.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Isn't it, though? I should frame it and put it on my wall.

[femme-slash-fan.livejournal.com]

Hah. I'm putting it on my "creative inspiration" wall. LOL

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a good wall to have! I have a card with calligraphy on one of my walls that says: "Life is an adventure". This would be a good companion for it.

[femme-slash-fan.livejournal.com]

cool