Perspectives on historical fiction

[Watcher55]

So I’m pacing around my perch and going over some of the things I learned this week and applying them to my WIDigress. I say WID because I have to reconsider every “tell” passage, and there are so many. Here’s the thing though, there’s a definite historical element and that means that places (and their descriptions) are important; as are the reasons why the characters think, feel, behave and dress as they do. Symbolism is a central motif of the entire work, and you couldn’t open your eyes in Ancient Rome without seeing, much less responding to at least one symbol.

Does historical fiction have a different set of parameters than other commercial genres when it comes to “showing and not telling”?

[sbs_mjc1]

IMHO, slipping in lots of little details is a much more reader-friendly way to build a setting than having the description all at once. Using specific nouns helps a lot, and also showing characters going about their everyday lives.
As for symbolism, I think it's fairly easy to have the characters focus in on particular things, and their reactions should reveal the symbolism pretty well.

[polymath]

History documents tell history, in other words recite an account of personages, settings, and events. History of that variety is diegesis.

Historical fiction imitates unfolding dramas as close as humanly possible to personages, settings, and events for close narrative distance purposes. History of that variety is mimesis.

Tell, diegesis, recitation.
Show, mimesis, imitation.

My sense is telling is widely deprecated in any form of fiction narratives. When telling recites information a writer wants readers to know, close narrative distance is compromised. When telling takes place within a narrative setting, when detail is essential to viewpoint characters' efforts to address a complication, telling mystically transforms into show within the narrative setting. The trick or method is for a covert narrator to report as if from inside a viewpoint character's perception as if from the inside looking out. On the other hand, if the narrator is intended as the reader surrogate, then a somewhat overt narrator reports from the outside looking into viewpoint characters' thoughts; however, overt narrators compromise close narrative distance.

A narrator invariably factually tells perceptions of setting descriptions, yet if close narrative distance with a viewpoint character is set up, then the perceptions seem to come from the viewpoint character's internal causal sensations and causal thoughts about the settings. If the character is intended to be the reader surrogate, then the character is the one who ought best express commentary about the circumstances, either aloud or by thought, albeit shared with a covert narrator who is estranged in favor of a viewpoint character's perceptions and cognitions.

One method of showing a setting is to just describe it outright without any seeing actions directly attributed to subjects. As long as a viewpoint character is set up as the perceiver of the view, the narrator is estranged and readers can bridge the gap.

[Watcher55]

IMHO, slipping in lots of little details is a much more reader-friendly way to build a setting than having the description all at once. Using specific nouns helps a lot, and also showing characters going about their everyday lives.
As for symbolism, I think it's fairly easy to have the characters focus in on particular things, and their reactions should reveal the symbolism pretty well.

I do those things a lot. ex. One guy has a fasces (ax inside a bundle of sticks – symbolizes certain type of authority) another (a Centurion) holds a stick (a different symbol of authority). I use opportunities across two sections to work in important details about the messages the “badges” carry. After that – bam – all I have to do is include “fasces” in a situation and the reader gets the implication.

The problem is something that Polymath brings up.

One method of showing a setting is to just describe it outright without any seeing actions directly attributed to subjects. As long as a viewpoint character is set up as the perceiver of the view, the narrator is estranged and readers can bridge the gap.

A lot of the sections, and most of the chapters, open with descriptions of specific locations or situations and I see them as characters (Roma was, after all, a goddess).
And this is where epigrams come in handy since I can jump right into showing but I don’t always have that option.

In one section I take three paragraphs (350+ words) to describe the layout of the Forum Boarium and what’s taking place there, and to provide bits of necessary historical background that need to be understood before the story gets back to showing. There’s no sense of viewpoint character until it’s time for the characters to interact with the larger setting/character.

In another section, and this one’s a bit of thorn in my side, two boys trade the emblems of childhood for the garb and emblems appropriate to their stations in life (Think Roman superheroes) and they aren’t viewpoint characters in this volume. I almost have to describe what they are wearing. One would be fine, but two in the same section…

ISM – the word count won’t reach 80k so you can see my need for economy.

[polymath]

In one section I take three paragraphs (350+ words) to describe the layout of the Forum Boarium and what’s taking place there, and to provide bits of necessary historical background that need to be understood before the story gets back to showing. There’s no sense of viewpoint character until it’s time for the characters to interact with the larger setting/character.

And there in my opinion is the diagnosis I'd make. Lengthy descriptions without a sense of a viewpoint character's presence open rather than close narrative distance. Openings of any dramatic unit ought best close narrative distance. Endings can open it up somewhat. Unless the reader surrogate is intended to be the narrator who readers enjoy closest rapport with.

Though that method is widely deprecated today, the tradition lives on in literary fiction niches where one convention and tradition is to maintain an open narrative distance so readers are not so engrossed in a participation mystique spectacle they can maintain objective, conscious, critical thought processes. Bertol Brecht's Verfremdungseffekt or defamiliarization effect.

It's a conscious choice I believe every writer comes up against sooner or later, whether to try for total engagement or maintain some measure of remove in narrative distance from a narrative's internal meaning space. A middle ground is where I find many projects in progress are, where the narrative point of view is unsettled to the point the narrative drags with unrealized unsettled transitions from beginning to end.

[sbs_mjc1]

Lengthy descriptions without a sense of a viewpoint character's presence open rather than close narrative distance. Openings of any dramatic unit ought best close narrative distance. Endings can open it up somewhat.

I agree with Polymath here: if you have a omniscient PoV, this may work. Though if that's the case, I'd make the narration dynamic, relaying as much history as possible as a mini-narrative, rather than straight factual description. If you are not using an omniscient PoV, you'll want to relate this through the filter of a character. Perhaps s/he remembers being told about the history of the Forum, or visiting as a child, or wherever s/he learned these facts.

[Watcher55]

It's a conscious choice I believe every writer comes up against sooner or later, whether to try for total engagement or maintain some measure of remove in narrative distance from a narrative's internal meaning space. A middle ground is where I find many projects in progress are, where the narrative point of view is unsettled to the point the narrative drags with unrealized unsettled transitions from beginning to end.

Internal meaning space – wow that’s a thing? – is somewhat subjective here especially when framed in terms of narrative remove because I have this character, a city, and the settings are her perspective. What is she doing? She’s throwing dead donkeys and rickety carts into the Tiber and stacking bodies. She has things worth preserving and here is why they matter to her.

Once her contexts are established the distance descends (narrows?) to the primary characters’ interactions with her.

I agree with Polymath here: if you have a omniscient PoV, this may work. Though if that's the case, I'd make the narration dynamic, relaying as much history as possible as a mini-narrative, rather than straight factual description. If you are not using an omniscient PoV, you'll want to relate this through the filter of a character. Perhaps s/he remembers being told about the history of the Forum, or visiting as a child, or wherever s/he learned these facts.

Selective omniscient PoV
Straight factual description is the bug-a-bear I'm fighting here. That's why I'm really straining after the symbolism in this story. The idea being that later on the symbols themselves will provide their own "factual description".

[polymath]

Internal meaning space – wow that’s a thing?

Yeah, it's the proxy reality a narrative embodies as an approximate imitation of reality readers engage with as aloof observers and judges or as close bystanders or as unwitting participants. It's a being with a will and a mind and maybe a spirit to seduce readers.

[Watcher55]

Internal meaning space – wow that’s a thing?

Yeah, it's the proxy reality a narrative embodies as an approximate imitation of reality readers engage with as aloof observers and judges or as close bystanders or as unwitting participants. It's a being with a will and a mind and maybe a spirit to seduce readers.

:}

It's been 20+ years since I've taken any sort of writing class or even read a book on the writing process. I'm conscious of a lot of the concepts - it's the terms that geek my head. Never thought of it as a being, but I guess even "space" has character.

[Matt Phillips]

Another point I'd make is not to underestimate the value of withholding historically important information from the reader (temporarily). There may be a great deal of background information necessary to understand the historical context, but dosing that information out in bite-sized pieces can help you entice the reader to read on. Why are this country and that at war, who is chasing this character, etc. - These are all historical data points that can help you build suspense. They can also help you reveal character as you unveil them: Maybe you relate the issues at play in a political conspiracy through a debate between two characters (although you'll want to avoid the thinly disguised dialogue-as-info-dump: "As you know, Horatio, the Carthaginians rely heavily on iron imports from Thrace....").

If you spend several paragraphs on setting description and historical exposition outside the perspective of a specific character, on the other hand, you risk making the reader wonder what all this has to do with the characters and the plot, as others have noted. With the exception of readers who found your book through interest in the time period and location, most readers will only be interested in setting and historical details to the extent they explicitly affect the story.