Changing Historical Details

By Melissa L.

When I read historical fiction, I’ve actually been known to put down a book and do a little research when a major detail doesn’t seem quite right to me. If I discover that the author doesn’t have her facts straight, that’s often enough to make me stop reading. With that having been said, though, I do feel there are times when it’s okay for authors to adjust some of the very minor details of history—as long as they follow two unbreakable rules.

First, any change an author makes from historical fact, however minor, should serve the story. If there is not a pressing reason for you to deviate from history, then don’t. You’ll just look like you haven’t done your research. In one YA novel I recently read, it was mentioned in passing that the main character was listening to the news on the radio…twenty years before the first radio news program was even broadcast. I feel that this is a major detail the author really should have gotten right, and I never finished the book.

And second, if you decide to make a slight change to historical fact, include an author’s note that indicates what you changed and why. This is especially important when writing for children—even though the details you’ve altered are presumably minor enough they won’t make a difference, you still don’t want them to get the wrong impression of history. (By the way, if I encounter a detail that’s wrong in a book, I do check for an author’s note and an explanation before giving up on the novel entirely.)

Is there a fine line between when it’s okay to change historical details and when it’s not? Does it frustrate you too when authors get their facts wrong in historical novels?

Melissa L. is the YA Editorial Assistant for Wonders and Marvels. You can read more about her here: Editorial Staff.

Of Knives and Narratives

Before they were themselves

Emotional truth

http://www.colonialpsychiatry.net Yolana Pringle

I agree that discovering that a historical fact has been altered can be enough to make one stop reading. In historical fiction, regardless of whether or not it serves the story, facts should not be changed – this simply confuses and misinforms.

I would add that in historical fiction it is actually more common for authors to fill in details that are missing from the historical record, rather than to change facts. This I can sympathise with – it creates a smoother narrative and can help to highlight certain points. But in these cases, the author should make it clear that this is happening.
http://twitter.com/ipopic Ivan Popić

I like how Sharon Key Pennman tackles this issue. She admits what was altered straightaway (at least in 2 novels I read) and reasons for it.
It isn’t necessary a dealbreaker for me because I feel guilty if I don’t finish a book that I started and it really has to mess it up royally so that I would put it down and not pick it up again.
http://thetruebookaddict.blogspot.com/ Michelle @ The True Book Addict

While I do prefer my historical fiction to be historically accurate, I realize that sometimes dramatic license is necessary. However, I do appreciate an author’s note of explanation. As Ivan stated before me, it would have to be pretty badly messed up for me not to finish the book.
http://www.sandragulland.com Sandra Gulland

Very good points!

I, too, have put many books aside if I felt the author had not done the leg-work, or made changes to the historical record without good reason.

However, I think all historical novelists must change — or, rather, filter — the historical record in order to craft a dramatic story. Historians must do so likewise. Any story is a re-creation of events.

I agree that the Author’s Note is all important in making clear what changes have been made, and why. I liked Joyce Carol Oate’s note at the beginning of BLONDE, for example: she made it clear that the work was not a biography but a fictional distillation of a life.

I am a historical novelist because I love research, love exploring past lives through fiction — discovering, uncovering, imagining. But the truth is, as writers, we may do anything we want — there are no constraints (or should not be) — so long as the reader understands.

Sandra Gulland

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Author of the Josephine B. Trilogy and Mistress of the Sun
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Mary Minshall

One problem I have with historical fiction is anachronisms such as figures of speech that are clearly out of place in the time period of the story (Roman legionaries getting so drunk that they were “bombed”) and errors, like the character listening to the news on the radio 20 years before the first broadcast, an Irish or English character peeling potatoes about 900 years before they were introduced to Europe and the North Atlantic Isles. These only demonstrate the ignorance of the author and have caused me on more than one occasion to put the book down in utter disgust and return it to the library, mostly unread.

I do appreciate when an author makes a notation where s/he has changed or added to historical record in a story. Harry Turtledove did this in his recent novel on Arminius when he had Thusnelda have a child before she gave birth of the son recorded by Tacitus.
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