Historical Fiction?

[Alice_Rosaleen]

I've long been fascinated with the death of Edgar Allan Poe. This article details the mysterious circumstances, which were basically that he went missing for a few days, was found on the street in ill-fitting clothes (ie, not his) and in poor health, then spent the remainder of his days in a feverish state, unable to relate what had happened. One interesting theory is cooping- a practice in which people would be drugged, disguised, and made to vote repeatedly- and a more ordinary one was that he had a brain tumor.
I've long considered writing a macabre, Poe-esque tale about what happened involving supernatural creatures and romance. But I also wonder whether making it semi-historical would be too gimmicky, relying on the cache of Poe rather than my own creativity.
Have you ever been inspired by something real but can't decide whether it should be incorporated into or discarded from the final product? Can you depend too much on facts to create fiction?

 

[NotWise]

Have you ever been inspired by something real but can't decide whether it should be incorporated into or discarded from the final product? Can you depend too much on facts to create fiction?

A Valentine's Day Mess part 2 and 3 contain historical stories. Part 2 contains a story based on La Matanza, the 1932 slaughter of the Pipil people in El Salvador. Part 3 contains a story loosely based around Renaissance-era plots to unite Spain and Portugal.

How much fact you stir into your fiction is up to you, but if you stray too far from well-known histories then someone is going to point it out.

 

[swingerjoe]

I enjoy taking real-life people and events and fleshing them out with a fictional back story. It’s great fun! I recently submitted a story about the real-life “family swap” between two major league pitchers in the 1970’s. I was sad when I finished writing that story because it was so fun to write!

 

[BiscuitHammer]

I've got one historical fiction story on here, The Great Khan, which deals with the Mongols in the 12th century. I guess my story Time Rider, even though it's a comedy, is historical fiction to a degree.

I love erotica mixed with historical fiction. I love detail and well thought-out plot and relevance. Taking fictional characters and weaving them into historical events is fun and cathartic for me.

 

[SamScribble]

But I also wonder whether making it semi-historical would be too gimmicky, relying on the cache of Poe rather than my own creativity.

Can you depend too much on facts to create fiction?

I have no way of knowing if these thoughts went through E L Doctorow's mind when he was writing Ragtime, but it all worked out just fine for him.

Stop worrying and start writing.

 

[oggbashan]

I have done several 'historical fiction' stories.

My version of Godiva takes the myth (and myth it is!) of her riding naked through Coventry to save the people from taxation by her husband, and making the story more plausible.

The myth about Godiva originated at least 100 years after her death and had inconsistencies from the start e.g. the only taxes on Coventry at the time were on expensive horses for hunting or war.

To whom were those taxes to be paid?

Lady Godiva.

Who was the only person in Coventry whose household would be likely to have those horses?

Lady Godiva.

Who was the overlord of Coventry?

Lady Godiva herself. Not her husband.

The very interesting thing about Lady Godiva was that she was Anglo-Saxon. Her husband was a supporter of the Anglo-Saxon monarchy. He died before the Norman Invasion of 1066. She (and she inherited his lands after his death) were major landowners before 1066. Very unusually she remained a major landowner even after William the Conqueror had re-allocated almost all Saxon land holdings to his Norman supporters. Why? We don't know.

 

[Alice_Rosaleen]

Dr. Seuss wrote about seven Lady Godivas!
I know Poe wasn't necessarily handsome in a traditional sense, but he was kind of an emo bad boy into writing and incest (his reputation for being a hard drug addict was made up by his archrival Rufus Griswold, but has persisted). I'd hit that, and you can quoth me on it.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

I have done several 'historical fiction' stories.

My version of Godiva takes the myth (and myth it is!) of her riding naked through Coventry to save the people from taxation by her husband, and making the story more plausible.

The myth about Godiva originated at least 100 years after her death and had inconsistencies from the start e.g. the only taxes on Coventry at the time were on expensive horses for hunting or war.

To whom were those taxes to be paid?

Lady Godiva.

Who was the only person in Coventry whose household would be likely to have those horses?

Lady Godiva.

Who was the overlord of Coventry?

Lady Godiva herself. Not her husband.

The very interesting thing about Lady Godiva was that she was Anglo-Saxon. Her husband was a supporter of the Anglo-Saxon monarchy. He died before the Norman Invasion of 1066. She (and she inherited his lands after his death) were major landowners before 1066. Very unusually she remained a major landowner even after William the Conqueror had re-allocated almost all Saxon land holdings to his Norman supporters. Why? We don't know.

Perhaps it was William, and not the horse, that she mounted in the buff.

 

[KeithD]

I write a lot of historical fiction, using at least the factual structure but then picking out something jazzy to build on. In the marketplace, I have a separate author (Dirk Hessian) who specializes in this, writing about everything from the marching of the captured Hessian troops at the Battle of Saratoga to Virginia and the British occupation of New York City (and hanging of Nathan Hale), to the Barbary pirates, to the Civil War battle of Port Republic, to the question of what happened to the gold in the Confederate treasury, to the mass exodus of White Russians through the Black Sea and Constantinople, to life in the Ritz Hotel in Paris during WWII.

There's always something in the historical setting. I'm living where the Hessian troops were sent from the Battle of Saratoga, for instance. In Constantinople,, a key scene is of a young man escaping the slaughter of Greeks in Turkey by giving himself to a Turkish officer for protection (which is how Aristotle Onassis survived), and the key scene of Puttin' on the Ritz is from an actual report that Hermann Goring was seen there in a dress dancing with a hotel waiter.

I've done the Poe turn a couple of times, with the coauthored story that won the Lit. Valentine's Day story this year combining the legend of the visitation to Poe's grave every anniversary of his death with an Australian legend of a sidewalk writer in Sydney, Australia--both based in historical fact.

My long hetero (actually bi) novel here in the sr71plt account, Wolf Creek, is taken from the diary of a woman who lived the expansion and industrialization of America and knew many celebrities of the time. I just jazzed up the chronology of her diary (a private diary that I inherited).

I just finished a story using where F. Scott Fitzgerald was living and how he was trying to make a living in 1927-29 to feed into a story set in a lighthouse that actually sits above where his house was at the time. And the next Dirk Hessian to be published pulls a historical vignette out of the British Mutiny in India.

I've included the filming of the movie Giant and Rock Hudson in a few stories as well, pulling on some personal experience.

History provides some fascinating vignettes and structure for the writing of erotica.

 

[Alice_Rosaleen]

I write a lot of historical fiction, using at least the factual structure but then picking out something jazzy to build on. In the marketplace, I have a separate author (Dirk Hessian) who specializes in this, writing about everything from the marching of the captured Hessian troops at the Battle of Saratoga to Virginia and the British occupation of Boston (and hanging of Nathan Hale), to the Barbary pirates, to the Civil War battle of Port Republic, to the question of what happened to the gold in the Confederate treasury, to the mass exodus of White Russians through the Black Sea and Constantinople, to life in the Ritz Hotel in Paris during WWII.

There's always something in the historical setting. I'm living where the Hessian troops were sent from the Battle of Saratoga, for instance. In Constantinople,, a key scene is of a young man escaping the slaughter of Greeks in Turkey by giving himself to a Turkish officer for protection (which is how Aristotle Onassis survived), and the key scene of Puttin' on the Ritz is from an actual report that Hermann Goring was seen there in a dress dancing with a hotel waiter.

I've done the Poe turn a couple of times, with the coauthored story that won the Lit. Valentine's Day story this year combining the legend of the visitation to Poe's grave every anniversary of his death with an Australian legend of a sidewalk writer in Sydney, Australia--both based in historical fact.

My long hetero (actually bi) novel here in the sr71plt account, Wolf Creek, is taken from the diary of a woman who lived the expansion and industrialization of America and knew many celebrities of the time. I just jazzed up the chronology of her diary (a private diary that I inherited).

I just finished a story using where F. Scott Fitzgerald was living and how he was trying to make a living in 1927-29 to feed into a story set in a lighthouse that actually sits above where his house was at the time. And the next Dirk Hessian to be published pulls a historical vignette out of the British Mutiny in India.

I've included the filming of the movie Giant and Rock Hudson in a few stories as well, pulling on some personal experience.

History provides some fascinating vignettes and structure for the writing of erotica.

The elusive Poe Toaster was actually another thing about his death that inspired the story I imagined, that I'd possibly title Evermore. I'll have to find your story.
I have two fantasy novels in various states of progressing and both are more or less historical fictions with a magical twist. Research gives me a good foundation, it's just a matter of knowing when to build up and when to make a new floor plan.
F. Scott Fitzgerald is another one of many writers I find fascinating. I've lived near where Zelda Fitzgerald died and I can often imagine what it would have been like in the twenties (all the art deco architecture helps too). And when I need extra inspiration, I even have a bubbler named F. Pot Hitsgerald (and another named Burnest Hemingway )

 

[LoquiSordidaAdMe]

But I also wonder whether making it semi-historical would be too gimmicky, relying on the cache of Poe rather than my own creativity.

I can see the concern about banking on Poe's reputation. Some might think it gimmicky, but once the story shifted off the historical record into the fantastic your own creativity would shine through. If you are really worried about people seeing Poe's name on the story and skipping it, the character could be unnamed throughout the story and only revealed to be Poe at the end.

 

[Alice_Rosaleen]

I can see the concern about banking on Poe's reputation. Some might think it gimmicky, but once the story shifted off the historical record into the fantastic your own creativity would shine through. If you are really worried about people seeing Poe's name on the story and skipping it, the character could be unnamed throughout the story and only revealed to be Poe at the end.

That's an interesting idea. He wrote under the alias Henri Le Rennet and he enlisted in the army as Edgar A Perry, so I could pull a Poe and make an unreliable narrator, not revealing his real name until the end.

 

[KeithD]

The elusive Poe Toaster was actually another thing about his death that inspired the story I imagined, that I'd possibly title Evermore. I'll have to find your story.
I have two fantasy novels in various states of progressing and both are more or less historical fictions with a magical twist. Research gives me a good foundation, it's just a matter of knowing when to build up and when to make a new floor plan.
F. Scott Fitzgerald is another one of many writers I find fascinating. I've lived near where Zelda Fitzgerald died and I can often imagine what it would have been like in the twenties (all the art deco architecture helps too). And when I need extra inspiration, I even have a bubbler named F. Pot Hitsgerald (and another named Burnest Hemingway )

The coauthored story including the Poe legend is "The Forever Man" by Shabbu (https://www.literotica.com/s/the-forever-man). I think the story of a bottle of Cognac showing up at Poe's grave every year, delivered by a mysterious stranger in black, has been solved as a stunt by his Baltimore house museum to gin up interest. It stopped happening some time ago.

I pulled on F. Scott Fitzgerald for a recent story because I'm putting together an anthology for the marketplace that uses lighthouses for settings. There's a still-functioning lighthouse in the northern suburbs of Wilmington, Delaware, high up off the Delaware River, that always comes as a surprise to those running across it, as there's little indication there's anything nearby needing a lighthouse. Straight down from that, on the bank of the river, there's now a big, ugly DuPont chemical plant. But in 1927-29, the Fitzgeralds lived in an old mansion, Ellerslie, set there. F. Scott had been a flop in Hollywood for his first time there and, as of then his latest novel, The Great Gatsby, was being panned too (which was a surprise find right there). So, he moved back to the East Coast and turned to writing short stories for a living. Needing some background for a mystery on the Wilmington lighthouse, I pulled in a fictional recently discovered unpublished short story by Fitzgerald setting the mystery up. So, various uses of history, pulling together elements that weren't really together.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Historical fiction based on Poe? I swung that way once, but the plot got lost in a bottomless pit. It was murder trying to write my way out of that. Boy, did I rue the day I tried it. Nothing to do but put the story in the morgue All I could say was "nevermore," that is until the pendulum swung the other way. To tell the tale, my heart was in the right place as I sat down with my glass of Amontillado and put pen to paper by the sea. But again I heard the bells. Loud alarm bells, and again I could only say 'nevermore.'

Take care, Alice, historical fiction is a slippery trope.

 

[KeithD]

I can see the concern about banking on Poe's reputation. Some might think it gimmicky, but once the story shifted off the historical record into the fantastic your own creativity would shine through. If you are really worried about people seeing Poe's name on the story and skipping it, the character could be unnamed throughout the story and only revealed to be Poe at the end.

You don't have to use real names at all. All or some or most of the characters could be fictional but identifiable enough in the story for some readers to pick them out--adding a dimension of enjoyment for the readers making the discovery. For instance in my Wolf Creek series, posted under sr71plt, taken from a diary, there are no real names given, but a knowledgeable reader would find glimpses of (at least) J.C. Penny, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Hemingway, Lillian Hellman, Dashiell Hammett, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, James Michener, and Edwin Johnston (a U.S. senator who was a Eugene McCarthy cohort).

 

[TANSTAAFL58]

I have done several 'historical fiction' stories.

My version of Godiva takes the myth (and myth it is!) of her riding naked through Coventry to save the people from taxation by her husband, and making the story more plausible.

The myth about Godiva originated at least 100 years after her death and had inconsistencies from the start e.g. the only taxes on Coventry at the time were on expensive horses for hunting or war.

To whom were those taxes to be paid?

Lady Godiva.

Who was the only person in Coventry whose household would be likely to have those horses?

Lady Godiva.

Who was the overlord of Coventry?

Lady Godiva herself. Not her husband.

The very interesting thing about Lady Godiva was that she was Anglo-Saxon. Her husband was a supporter of the Anglo-Saxon monarchy. He died before the Norman Invasion of 1066. She (and she inherited his lands after his death) were major landowners before 1066. Very unusually she remained a major landowner even after William the Conqueror had re-allocated almost all Saxon land holdings to his Norman supporters. Why? We don't know.

This saddens me. Lady Godiva is the Patron Saint of Engineering students, at least in Canada. She is immortalized in a solemn hymn, sung to"The Battle Hymn of the Republic", usually with much beer.

Godiva was a Lady who through Coventry did ride,
To show to all the villagers her lovely bare white hide.
The most observant villager, an Engineer of course
Was the only one to notice that Godiva rode a horse.

If memory serves there are nineteen more verses, involving Ceasar, Arts Majors, the Scientific Method and "the Boundary Condition and Electromotive Force". Stirring stuff.

 

[NotWise]

This saddens me.

Who needs reality? There are some places where reality has no place. Shame on you Ogg.

Odd though. The Canadian (mining) engineers I knew never ripped off so much as a verse of that. Not enough beer, methinks.

 

[Alice_Rosaleen]

Historical fiction based on Poe? I swung that way once, but the plot got lost in a bottomless pit. It was murder trying to write my way out of that. Boy, did I rue the day I tried it. Nothing to do but put the story in the morgue All I could say was "nevermore," that is until the pendulum swung the other way. To tell the tale, my heart was in the right place as I sat down with my glass of Amontillado and put pen to paper by the sea. But again I heard the bells. Loud alarm bells, and again I could only say 'nevermore.'

I adapted Masque Of The Red Death with a friend in high school and the theater department ended up selecting it to perform. It was a lot of fun to put on and I was able to narrate off stage

It is, as you say, a slippery trope when tackling such a prominent figure, which is why I was trepidatious. But Poe inspired me to write- both his fiction and his treatise (?) The Philosophy of Composition- and I'd love to do my own tribute.

 

[NotWise]

It is, as you say, a slippery trope when tackling such a prominent figure, which is why I was trepidatious. But Poe inspired me to write- both his fiction and his book The Philosophy of Composition- and I'd love to do my own tribute.

I've read, from some forgotten critic of Poe, that Poe's dark style was actually learned from E.T.A. Hoffman (who could also be considered the first SciFi writer). Hoffman wrote in German, so this couldn't be true unless Poe spoke German or had translations available to him.

Anyway, I'm SURE the critic knew that Poe read German well enough to sense his dark style and adopt it into his own writing.

 

[KeithD]

I've read, from some forgotten critic of Poe, that Poe's dark style was actually learned from E.T.A. Hoffman (who could also be considered the first SciFi writer). Hoffman wrote in German, so this couldn't be true unless Poe spoke German or had translations available to him.

Anyway, I'm SURE the critic knew that Poe read German well enough to sense his dark style and adopt it into his own writing.

I don't know about German, but Poe took top honors in Latin and French when he went to the University of Virginia (my school as well--I did well enough in German, miserably in Mandarin there).

 

[Bramblethorn]

That's an interesting idea. He wrote under the alias Henri Le Rennet and he enlisted in the army as Edgar A Perry, so I could pull a Poe and make an unreliable narrator, not revealing his real name until the end.

If I recall, the "Allan" came from John Allan, a foster-father whose relationship with Poe was rocky. I think Poe mostly used "Allan" when he was trying to win favour with John Allan, and the standardisation on "Edgar Allan Poe" came post-mortem, but I won't swear to that.

(Proooobably don't want to write about Poe's wedding night, though.)

 

[Alice_Rosaleen]

I've read, from some forgotten critic of Poe, that Poe's dark style was actually learned from E.T.A. Hoffman (who could also be considered the first SciFi writer). Hoffman wrote in German, so this couldn't be true unless Poe spoke German or had translations available to him.

Anyway, I'm SURE the critic knew that Poe read German well enough to sense his dark style and adopt it into his own writing.

Thanks for the info, it led me to an interesting article called The Influence of E.T.A. Hoffman on the Tales of Edgar Allan Poe by Palmer Cobb. Interesting that Poe would deny any influence from German romantics- maybe it was more indirect, or he was in denial for some reason. Either way, I want to check out Hoffman now.

 

[NotWise]

Thanks for the info, it led me to an interesting article called The Influence of E.T.A. Hoffman on the Tales of Edgar Allan Poe by Palmer Cobb. Interesting that Poe would deny any influence from German romantics- maybe it was more indirect, or he was in denial for some reason. Either way, I want to check out Hoffman now.

You probably know something about Hoffman without even realizing it. He became popular long after his death and his stories were retold and reframed for different uses.

The opera "Tales of Hoffman" was based on several stories by E.T.A. Hoffman. The "Coppelia" ballet was based very loosely on a Hoffman story. The "Nutcracker" ballet, which is danced everywhere at Christmas was based on a Hoffman story as retold by Alexander Dumas (of 'Three Musketeers' fame).

The normal "Coppelia" ballet is actually a very poor telling of Hoffman's story. The ballet is a comedy. In the original story Dr. Coppelius built a mechanical doll in form of his dead lover and intended to kill the young Swanhilda, capture her soul, and use it to reanimate his lover. Creepy.

Hoffman was one of those polymaths that we don't see anymore. He was a composer (in the classical style, similar to Hayden or Mozart or early Beethoven), he was a writer, a politician and a mathematician.

Where have those people gone?

 

[Alice_Rosaleen]

You probably know something about Hoffman without even realizing it. He became popular long after his death and his stories were retold and reframed for different uses.

The opera "Tales of Hoffman" was based on several stories by E.T.A. Hoffman. The "Coppelia" ballet was based very loosely on a Hoffman story. The "Nutcracker" ballet, which is danced everywhere at Christmas was based on a Hoffman story as retold by Alexander Dumas (of 'Three Musketeers' fame).

The normal "Coppelia" ballet is actually a very poor telling of Hoffman's story. The ballet is a comedy. In the original story Dr. Coppelius built a mechanical doll in form of his dead lover and intended to kill the young Swanhilda, capture her soul, and use it to reanimate his lover. Creepy.

Hoffman was one of those polymaths that we don't see anymore. He was a composer (in the classical style, similar to Hayden or Mozart or early Beethoven), he was a writer, a politician and a mathematician.

Where have those people gone?

I had no idea! The Nutcracker ballet used to give me nightmares, though.
Douglas Hofstadter is one of my favorite modern day polymaths to read when I want to blow my own mind. And one of my favorite 19th century Renaissance men was Abraham Lincoln. Politics aside (please!) but if you ever get a chance to read Lincoln's Melancholy or Abraham Lincoln and the Structure of Reason, it may give you new respect for one of America's first truly 'self-made men'.

 

[NotWise]

I had no idea! The Nutcracker ballet used to give me nightmares, though.

The ballet (based on Dumas' retelling) takes a lot of the nightmare aspects out of Hoffman's story. The original story is dark and loveless and intentionally nightmarish. It's mostly a horror story.