Historical novels – authenticity v. offensiveness?

[duckyegg]

Looking for some guidance from the wise folks of Mumsnet, please.

I am trying to write my first novel – it is set in 16th/17th Century England featuring a female lead character, and is based on real life events. I’ve done quite a lot of research into the period, reading original documents etc, and have gained a lot of insight into how these people would think, behave and view the world. The opinions of a 16th/17th Century Englishwoman seem to be as far removed as it is possible to be from modern views and may well include some, if not all, of the following:

• Sexism (the man is the head of the household, and a wife should be in subjection to him)
• Racism (the English are better than other nations)
• Homophobia
• Religious sectarianism (strongly held Protestant/Catholic views, and viewing the other side as evil heretics)
• Colonialism (it is fine to go and settle in other lands, as non-Christian people are savages)

So my question is – do modern readers want to read this in a novel?

I’ve read a couple of novels set in this period where the author seems to get around this by giving the main character a modern mindset. It makes it easier for the reader to identify with the character, but can seem inauthentic – like a 21st Century woman scampering around a historical setting in a dressing-up outfit.

As a reader, what would your preference be?

Is authenticity most important, or is it better to have a main character whose views you share?

Would really appreciate some guidance with this before I get too far into writing.
All voting and comments very gratefully received – thank you!

YABU – I don’t want to read a novel where the main character holds these offensive views. I want a lead character whose values are similar to mine so that I can identify with her.

YANBU – I want all the characters to be as authentic as possible, even if I don’t share their views.

I think it’s great that you’re thinking about that- I’ve read too much historical fiction in which the hero is some kind of ‘judge’ of those around them. Like they are looking at the past (their present!) knowing exactly what is going to happen next. (I blame Walter Scott)

You can’t “clean up” history to suit the delicate sensibility of an early 21st century British reader. I also don’t think you can write to a formula or ticking boxes as you go…I’m not a writer but I find your questions strange. Are you doing an evening class in creative writing?

Authenticity all the way otherwise there is no point set your novel now. History is important otherwise how can anyone learn and improve and that goes for historic novels as well . You can still have a rebellious character who doesn't quite fit society norms of the time, Cathy from wuthering heights is a prime example of this in real time!

I'm currently reading a story set in Elizabethan England about a teenager who is accused of being a witch. It's a bit of a weird one because some details are good but I feel the author is really trying to make the dad likeable to the reader so he shuns some of the ideals of the time teaching his daughter which in turn makes them think she's a witch. It all seems a bit try hard to make us feel she and her father would slot right into modern society.

I prefer authenticity, unless you are going for total Heyer/Julia Quinn fluff.

I particularly hate the trope where the servants all totally love the rich hero/heroine like a member of their own family.

Authenticity please, or I'll end up putting it down in annoyance and not finishing it.

There is little point in arguing with the past - it was what it was. Rewriting it is futile. Imposing modern thinking on it is farcical..

I don't like importing modern ideas/values.

But I also think what would make me wince would be a character from the 16th/17th century displaying 'homophobia' or very broad-strokes misogyny or whatever. I know you're using those terms as shorthand, but IMO it's books that don't really trying to engage with the specific ways people thought that bother me the most.

A friend of a friend got me to read part of her unpublished novel a while back, and she had a male character whose internal monologue was all about how guilty he felt that he loved his male best friend, and how awful it made him feel, and so on. There was nothing sexual mentioned. It was such bullshit, because that's a modern perception of how a person with (internalised) homophobic attitudes might feel, not one from the era she was dealing with.

I prefer authenticity but depending on the story, half of these issues won't need to represented. I think the most everyday issue would be sexism, but history is also littered with women who has 'unusual' ideas.

Authenticity but you don't have to put the awkward parts front and centre.

Jane Austen skimmed over a lot of what was happening at that point on history and still provided believable characters grounded in honesty (with a spice of ludicrous nonsense from others )

Have you read Valerie Martin's Property? I loved it precisely because the 'heroine' has pretty awful attitudes linked to her time and class and is still a well-rounded character. She's horrifyingly racist and entitled while still being brave and admirable in some other aspects of her character. The idea that people are not just one thing seems like an important one.

Writing a person in and of their time does not mean an author endorses the views held by a character and depending on the story would you need to examine all those things in minute detail?

Presumably not all of those "issues" would come up?

I also think that your summing up of average views of a 16th/17th century woman is a bit simplistic. People were not a homogeneous hive mind then, not everyone held all those views.

I imagine most average women at the time outside of big cities and major ports probably didn't spend that much time thinking about a lot of those things. They were probably too busy working hard to feed themselves.

It's difficult to comprehend now how people physically worked so hard in the past.

Do modern readers find much to be offended by in Jane Austen?

I know that’s a bit later, but I think it shows you can be very parochial, avoid politics but still be very interesting.

I think there's a balance to be struck between authenticity and not being offensive. And also, why are you writing a book? If you want it to be traditionally published, then a book containing overt racism and homophobia which is never addressed is unlikely to picked up. I don't need a character to have modern views in a very jarring way, but I also don't really want to follow a protagonist who is so far apart from views that I find it distasteful. Unless the character is written as an antihero, but I assume she's planned to be a heroine type. Do all of these points need to be addressed. I read a a novel set in the 16th century recently and no notice was paid to the characters view on colonialism or homosexuality etc as it just wasn't relevant.

I don't read a lot of historical fiction, but what is on the market at the moment? That's your benchmark, and that's who you are hoping your book will sit alongside in the bookstore, so for something like this, I'd try to fit in. Unless you are trying to make specific point something, which sets your book apart. In general the best advice for most publishing questions is to read many new releases in your genre.

I think the question to ask yourself is the same question any aspiring novelist has to ask: WHY do I want to tell THIS story and WHY am I the best - and only - person to tell it?

Austen was a genius but you certainly don't come away from any of her novels thinking that sexism was OK, even though her characters were all operating in a system of complete sexism and patriarchy. She wrote about genteel women's fight for their very survival - her characters didn't need to have a modern sensibility to display that story arc, they just got on with doing the do.

I think it's incredibly important for a first-time novelist to have a likeable lead character - you need a lot of experience to pull off an unreliable narrator or a baddie - so just put your character in that situation and let her fight her fight.

I'm a historian by background (have a PhD in a particular obscure area of early 20thc history) and would perhaps inevitably opt for authenticity. Writers projecting a particular set of early 21st century Western values onto the past make my teeth itch. If people are going to be offended by fictional presentations of values other than their own they probably shouldn't read any fiction written or set before about...I don't know? 2019?

Anything set before Q1 2022 is risky.

I love books that find a modern, relatable angle from the attitudes of the time - for example, recent books that frame the experiences of Katharine Howard more as sexual abuse rather than the downfall of a slovenly woman. However, I get extremely irritated by books set in the past where the women have entirely modern attitudes. It seems a tiresome shortcut to write them as a strong character, where I'd be more interested in the strength women found within the confines of their time. I absolutely don't mind a character having outdated views and morals, so long as it isn't done gratuitously - I'd like the book to have something to say about these issues and be presenting the characters views as something to be considered. For example, in The Sweetness of Water, there are plenty of racist characters as it is set in immediately post civil war USA, and it isn't sanitised or presented as something it wasn't, but it also includes the perspective of the black characters to avoid it becoming gratuitous racism. I would think about WHY your character might need to express say, colonialist views - what does it add? What does it tell us about her?

@Nahnanananahna , exactly right.

My DM, born 1918 in the S of England, and had a very job in central London in her early 20s, had never even heard of gay men until she’d been married for a couple of years. Someone at work told her - she didn’t believe them! Had to wait until my DF was home on leave during WW2, to ask him.,

I’m another who loathes modern opinions/beliefs being grafted on to fictional characters from former eras. It just doesn’t ring true.

Having said that, I do wince a bit at e.g. anti-Semitic sentiments in Victorian novels, but they did reflect attitudes at the time. But while expressing these in some of his characters, Anthony Trollope (e.g.) does make it clear that such sentiments were already becoming old fashioned, and in one of his novels he does portray a Jewish man as an infinitely better person that the aristocratic girl of violently anti-Semitic parents who he’d hoped to marry - until she revealed that she was interested only in his money.

Very good job!

I love romantic fiction set in WW2, the best ones are the ones that are set in real places. I love looking on Google Earth at the places in the story, it makes me feel like I am inside the story.

There are plenty of historical novels where lead characters have all these views, they can still be sympathetic, you just have to write them well.

A previous poster mentioned relevance to the story, and I think that's really important. If these issues are central to the plot, they need to be dealt with realistically. But there's no need to chuck in gratuitous racism or homophobia just as scene setting. Better to just walk past them. As a previous poster also said, how much time would your average 17th century woman have spent thinking about e.g. homosexuality?

On the off-chance you are Stacey Halls, I loved The Familiars

OP - I agree with the posters saying authentic BUT actually to reflect on how many of those attitudes there will be an actual need to address organically during the novel, rather than throwing it in for a bit of flavour. The thing you haven't mentioned, which would be hardest to avoid, is class and how people thought of that in terms of pretty much all their daily interactions with others.

e.g. if your character is fairly wealthy, even if she likes one of her servants, it's not going to be the awkward MN-etter chatting politely to her cleaner and agonising over a christmas tip relationship.