Matthew Kneale: For me this is very important, and anything that smacks of a historical event --- political decisions, views of major figures of the time --- I try to represent as accurately as possible. Things are made easier because my fiction tends to focus on the sort of ordinary people who rarely get their names in history books. That's important to me. I'm not interested in the great and the good of the past. They get lots of airtime anyway. It's the forgotten ones --- who also made the past what it was --- who I find intriguing. But I still want to make them as true to the time as I can. Even if they never existed, it's important for me to believe that they could have, exactly as they live on the page.
Kevin Baker: Good question. I think the fiction writer has a great responsibility to the truth. Because these works are clearly labeled "fiction," one can alter the chronology of events here and there, invent characters and dialogue, speculate on motives, and dramatize important points. But I don't believe the fiction label gives one the right to seriously distort historical characters or events.
For instance, my portrayal of Freud in New York included a few invented scenes and dialogue. But I stuck as close as I could to the known record, and to Freud's actual theories and character. It would have been totally illegitimate, I believe, to have misrepresented his theories of psychology, or to have made up some lover/nemesis/whatever, to account for the events of his life.
Bernard Cornwell: If you don't feel that responsibility then you're not a historical novelist --- you're a fantasy writer. The story, of course, is paramount because we're novelists before we're historians, but we're also historical novelists which suggests a certain love and respect for what actually happened. Sometimes, because the story demands it, I change a piece of history, but I always confess in a Historical Note at the end of the book.
Megan Chance: I don't believe history should be window-dressing. I dislike anachronisms, especially in characterization, and I strive to be as accurate as possible in depicting the people and the events I'm writing about. I believe in allowing my stories to draw so completely from history that there is no way they could be set in any other time or place. That's the purpose of historical fiction for me, and I feel a great responsibility to do that. Having said that, I try to keep in mind that the story itself is the thing, and that it may be impossible for a modern-day person to completely inhabit the soul of a historical character. I can only do the best I can in trying to achieve that, and I look for the same dedication in the historical writers I read.
Karen Essex: In the research phase, my responsibility was to do the most thorough and accurate research I could in order to reconstruct the period. I wanted to give the reader a deep plunge into the ancient world, while still making the novels and Kleopatra seem utterly contemporary. Once I started writing, my responsibility was to deliver a good, readable book. I eventually had to sculpt many pages out of original drafts because they read like history lessons. It's no use being historically accurate if you're boring! Everything must serve the story.
Tayari Jones: This was a problem for me. The Atlanta child murders took place over a two year period and I condensed my novel into a three month period. I greatly shortened the timeline. This worked well for the flow of my narrative, but it does distort the fact. But I tried to use this rule: if I used any real historical names, then the event had to have happened.
Glen David Gold: The responsibility is to get away with whatever tells the story properly. Meticulous recreations of events --- those novels wherein the author includes bibliographies, source materials, footnotes, notations attesting to the minimum use of guesswork --- should then color within the lines. And those which are more impressionistic --- I'm thinking for some reason of Robert Coover's The Public Burning here --- can behave with all the rules of anarchy.
I didn't have rules as to how far I would stray or stay close to shore. Since my novel is about stage magic, I wanted to combine reality and imagination to present facts that, if the brain chose to dwell on them, couldn't possibly be true, but which, as presented, the heart truly and desperately wanted to be true. Kind of like magic tricks.
Which leads us to anachronisms. I put some into the book, because I thought they were funny. So far, no one has busted me for them, not yet at least.
Margaret George: I feel a complete responsibility to be as accurate as possible, as diligence in trying to ascertain what really happened is my job. On the other hand, I realize that we can never truly know what took place in another time period, and it's arrogant to claim we can. But human nature doesn't change, and one can safely write about emotions and motives in any time period. Just don't have them sit in the wrong kind of chair!
