I agree that telling a good story sometimes means taking some dramatic licence, after all its not a documentary. But the wedding example seems to me like going too far -- pretending people 100 years ago were much less racist than they really were seems like whitewashing history a bit too much. (I haven't seen that episode though so take my opinion with a pinch of salt!)
I think you're right. Usually the Peaky Blinders are typically racist for their times, referring to Italians in derogatory terms. I think it was a woke decision, maybe added by a producer or script editor, like a black British officer appearing later in the series. There were a few, but it should have been commented on - similarly the Rasta High Anglican priest. Other characters should have said something. But otherwise Peaky Blinders is so impressive - Stephen Knight's knowledge of BSA, Small Heath and Romany culture. It's so good, a few errors along the way can be ignored, I feel.
Greetings, Pat - I love what you're doing here on SubStack - long may you continue.
As for verisimilitude in fiction - it's tricky. It can, as you say, throw you out of a film or book and put you back in your seat - especially if it's something obvious or lazy.
But there is a limit - if you're reading a text book, you expect it to nail its facts, but if you're reading fiction - you want to be entertained first.
I know someone who walked out of a film because they were using the wrong rifles - apparently the ones they were using were issued ten years after the story was set. How many people would notice that, and how many of those would really care? Some people are just looking for something to be upset about.
I'm stumbling myopically through my first novel - which started life as an unproduced film script. In the process of turning it into a novel, I have had to address literally hundreds of anomalies that didn't come up in the writing of the screenplay. My own fault for seting my first book in The Blitz - a period which has been written about in intimidating depth.
So much so, that I have decided my book is set in an alternate universe. That will be my get out of jail card when people start pointing out my no-doubt innumerable errors. "Yes, that's true in our world - but not in my characters' world!" :)
Good idea, John. And I sympathise for how you needed to adapt your screenplay. Novels are tougher. An alternate universe sets you free. Ditto science fiction. I went through about 5 versions of the World War One novel I'm working on. At one stage I thought of making it a steam punk comic strip which would have solved all my problems. 2000AD turned it down and now I'm glad they did. The Blitz is a great setting for a novel. But so many people have that 'spirit of the Blitz' view which is only partially true. There is also murder and rape in the blackout. But people from back then now believe the myth. So my aunt who was sixteen and very beautiful said it was absolutely safe for her to walk home in the blackout in the East End of London! I can't believe that. So an alternate universe is a good option. I did it with Savage - with just a top line 'Another Britain. Another 1999.' Something like that might be enough to get you off the critics hook!
Indeed. My starting place with my research was Angus Calder's 'Myth of the Blitz' - a book with which I'm sure you're familiar - and I've been reading about the shelter gangs in Donald Thomas' 'Underworld at War'. But, at the same time, I want to be sensitive to the strength and stoicism of the people who lived through it and remained positive. I doubt I would have been able to make the best of things!
As for feeling safe - ignorance can be bliss. In very different circumstances, in the 1950s, my mum would walk home from the nightclub on her own - dance shoes in hand, taking short cuts down alleys and across bombed-out fields - and she insisted that she was perfectly safe. Nope, it was a time when women kept quiet about the appaling things that were done to them, or the police ignored them, or the newspapers refused to print the stories ... Maybe times were safer than now ... But safer is not safe. Anyway - you have far more important things to do than read my ramblings ... :)
Its a very interesting question, I'm currently doing an adaptation of a book from the 1920's about Ubangi-Shari, now known as the Central African Republic. Do you think a creator has more responsibility to get historical authenticity right when the people and culture you are writing about are not your own and are very very under-represent in books and comics etc?
I fear so. It's a tough one. I'm assuming you've got some connection or affinity to the CAR, so that could steer you through. Originally I wanted to write about John S. Clarke - a resistance fighter in WW1 - who is one of my heroes and has a Romany background, like Peaky Blinders. So I read everything I could find on Romanies, but it just didn't ring true. Stephen Knight who wrote Peaky Blinders has a Romany connection I believe. So I later reverted to a character who I can identify closely with. When I was writing Third World War I went out and found a black writer Alan Mitchell to co-write the black issues stories. Sometimes I think I'm too purist, tho'. If you're burning to adapt this story about the CAR I'm sure you'll find a way.Good luck!
Historical accuracy is important. I can see that Pat believes that. However, much like described in the article, there is room for poetic licence. Ignoring deliberately inaccurate fiction set within a particular time period, I think each deviation from history needs to be justified in the mind of the author. Too much liberty taken, and belief will be suspended. No one wants the audience thinking about the accuracy of the storytelling; the concern of the audience should mainly be on the events being told and the characters.
That's my take, too. So - in this WW1 novel I'm almost ready to write, I even use historical character's real life dialogue where it exists and is punchy. In Peaky Blinders they have Billy Kimber killed by Thomas Shelby whereas in fact Kimber died in later life. That doesn't worry me too much, but I couldn't do the same thing. Not because I'm more purist (I took some serious liberties in Defoe with historical characters!). But because I want my
lethal anti-war message to hit home. Apologists for all those murderous establishment scum would pounce on any 'errors' I make and say 'Don;t take this novel seriously. It's just a lot of made up nonsense.' I won't give them that satisfaction. At the same time I have to keep it relatively light and entertaining so it's not preachy. Hence why I use Peaky Blinders as a role model. Currently, I think I've cracked it!
Yes. Particularly important for World War One. Establishment military historians hate anything anti-war and spewed real hate at Black Adder Goes Fourth. So a more 'serious' novel can't have anything that could be labelled 'disinformation'. A Sandhurst officer once criticised Charley's War and said machine gunners making tea from the hot water was not true. I paid a researcher to prove it was true because he pissed me off so much! These days I'm not so thin-skinned and I think I'm ready for the critics.
Hi Pat, nothing too outrageous please! I'm a big fan of George MacDonald Fraser, and whilst Flashman met an awful lot of famous Victorians, GMF often justified his coincidences with there are no contemporary records to contradict the meetings!
I love Flashman. I've got an uneasy feeling there's been nothing like it since. Before Flashman, as a kid, I discovered Conan Doyle's Brigadier Gerard which I really enjoyed. Gerard is a complete pompous prat. Very funny for Conan Doyle who I usually find is quite humorless. I think my major 'coincidence' is all the famous characters being in one place at one time. That could have happened, so I'll use GMF as my writing role model there!
It's a tricky balance to get right. I think people who read novels, particularly historical ones, tend to be a bit more clued up on the facts, sometimes even more than the writer is! And they point out mistakes on Amazon revues etc. On the other hand you can be too accurate. Sometimes what actually happened in a historical context is very different to the perceived/largely accepted narrative, and presenting it can shake a reader out of that suspension of disbelief you are talking about. I once heard another writer say they deliberately left out including pelicans in a novel set in Roman Britain (even though that at the time they did live there) because a modern reader would go "hang on: There aren't any pelicans in Britain!" On the other hand I strongly disagree with changing any known historical facts to fit a personal modern viewpoint or political opinion. That's the equivalent of using dead peoples' votes in an election.
Yes, my wife Lisa was warning me about the dreaded Amazon reviews! And you're right -readers of historical novels will know more than me in some areas. WW1 Trains feature heavily in my novel so I watched Portillo and Chris Tarrants documentaries about WW1 trains. To my horror they never covered how British Tommies went to the front in cattle trucks marked Hommes 40, Cheveaux 8. That made me so angry - a good example of censorship that is always denied. For one TV programme to overlook the cattle trucks is maybe excusable, but two? . Stephen Knight (Peaky Blinders) said he left out a lot of the wild stuff the SAS did in his latest series because people just wouldn't believe it. In Charley's War, young readers said comics were stupid because I had a scene where a dog was wearing a gas mask, which did happen. And horses, too. So I can understand that point about the pelicans. Because my novel is fairly covertly anti-war I have to be more on my guard than if it reinforced or was neutral on the status quo. During the centenary years of WW1, the establishment revisionists ruthlessly suppressed films and books that were anti-war. Including a TV series on Charley's War. Maybe in 2023 they won't care and leave me alone. They 'won', after all.
I agree that telling a good story sometimes means taking some dramatic licence, after all its not a documentary. But the wedding example seems to me like going too far -- pretending people 100 years ago were much less racist than they really were seems like whitewashing history a bit too much. (I haven't seen that episode though so take my opinion with a pinch of salt!)
I think you're right. Usually the Peaky Blinders are typically racist for their times, referring to Italians in derogatory terms. I think it was a woke decision, maybe added by a producer or script editor, like a black British officer appearing later in the series. There were a few, but it should have been commented on - similarly the Rasta High Anglican priest. Other characters should have said something. But otherwise Peaky Blinders is so impressive - Stephen Knight's knowledge of BSA, Small Heath and Romany culture. It's so good, a few errors along the way can be ignored, I feel.
Greetings, Pat - I love what you're doing here on SubStack - long may you continue.
As for verisimilitude in fiction - it's tricky. It can, as you say, throw you out of a film or book and put you back in your seat - especially if it's something obvious or lazy.
But there is a limit - if you're reading a text book, you expect it to nail its facts, but if you're reading fiction - you want to be entertained first.
I know someone who walked out of a film because they were using the wrong rifles - apparently the ones they were using were issued ten years after the story was set. How many people would notice that, and how many of those would really care? Some people are just looking for something to be upset about.
I'm stumbling myopically through my first novel - which started life as an unproduced film script. In the process of turning it into a novel, I have had to address literally hundreds of anomalies that didn't come up in the writing of the screenplay. My own fault for seting my first book in The Blitz - a period which has been written about in intimidating depth.
So much so, that I have decided my book is set in an alternate universe. That will be my get out of jail card when people start pointing out my no-doubt innumerable errors. "Yes, that's true in our world - but not in my characters' world!" :)
Cheers: John.
Good idea, John. And I sympathise for how you needed to adapt your screenplay. Novels are tougher. An alternate universe sets you free. Ditto science fiction. I went through about 5 versions of the World War One novel I'm working on. At one stage I thought of making it a steam punk comic strip which would have solved all my problems. 2000AD turned it down and now I'm glad they did. The Blitz is a great setting for a novel. But so many people have that 'spirit of the Blitz' view which is only partially true. There is also murder and rape in the blackout. But people from back then now believe the myth. So my aunt who was sixteen and very beautiful said it was absolutely safe for her to walk home in the blackout in the East End of London! I can't believe that. So an alternate universe is a good option. I did it with Savage - with just a top line 'Another Britain. Another 1999.' Something like that might be enough to get you off the critics hook!
Indeed. My starting place with my research was Angus Calder's 'Myth of the Blitz' - a book with which I'm sure you're familiar - and I've been reading about the shelter gangs in Donald Thomas' 'Underworld at War'. But, at the same time, I want to be sensitive to the strength and stoicism of the people who lived through it and remained positive. I doubt I would have been able to make the best of things!
As for feeling safe - ignorance can be bliss. In very different circumstances, in the 1950s, my mum would walk home from the nightclub on her own - dance shoes in hand, taking short cuts down alleys and across bombed-out fields - and she insisted that she was perfectly safe. Nope, it was a time when women kept quiet about the appaling things that were done to them, or the police ignored them, or the newspapers refused to print the stories ... Maybe times were safer than now ... But safer is not safe. Anyway - you have far more important things to do than read my ramblings ... :)
Hi Pat,
Its a very interesting question, I'm currently doing an adaptation of a book from the 1920's about Ubangi-Shari, now known as the Central African Republic. Do you think a creator has more responsibility to get historical authenticity right when the people and culture you are writing about are not your own and are very very under-represent in books and comics etc?
I fear so. It's a tough one. I'm assuming you've got some connection or affinity to the CAR, so that could steer you through. Originally I wanted to write about John S. Clarke - a resistance fighter in WW1 - who is one of my heroes and has a Romany background, like Peaky Blinders. So I read everything I could find on Romanies, but it just didn't ring true. Stephen Knight who wrote Peaky Blinders has a Romany connection I believe. So I later reverted to a character who I can identify closely with. When I was writing Third World War I went out and found a black writer Alan Mitchell to co-write the black issues stories. Sometimes I think I'm too purist, tho'. If you're burning to adapt this story about the CAR I'm sure you'll find a way.Good luck!
Historical accuracy is important. I can see that Pat believes that. However, much like described in the article, there is room for poetic licence. Ignoring deliberately inaccurate fiction set within a particular time period, I think each deviation from history needs to be justified in the mind of the author. Too much liberty taken, and belief will be suspended. No one wants the audience thinking about the accuracy of the storytelling; the concern of the audience should mainly be on the events being told and the characters.
That's my take, too. So - in this WW1 novel I'm almost ready to write, I even use historical character's real life dialogue where it exists and is punchy. In Peaky Blinders they have Billy Kimber killed by Thomas Shelby whereas in fact Kimber died in later life. That doesn't worry me too much, but I couldn't do the same thing. Not because I'm more purist (I took some serious liberties in Defoe with historical characters!). But because I want my
lethal anti-war message to hit home. Apologists for all those murderous establishment scum would pounce on any 'errors' I make and say 'Don;t take this novel seriously. It's just a lot of made up nonsense.' I won't give them that satisfaction. At the same time I have to keep it relatively light and entertaining so it's not preachy. Hence why I use Peaky Blinders as a role model. Currently, I think I've cracked it!
I would also say that authors have a responsibility to not create nor spread misinformation as well as one to entertain.
Yes. Particularly important for World War One. Establishment military historians hate anything anti-war and spewed real hate at Black Adder Goes Fourth. So a more 'serious' novel can't have anything that could be labelled 'disinformation'. A Sandhurst officer once criticised Charley's War and said machine gunners making tea from the hot water was not true. I paid a researcher to prove it was true because he pissed me off so much! These days I'm not so thin-skinned and I think I'm ready for the critics.
Hi Pat, nothing too outrageous please! I'm a big fan of George MacDonald Fraser, and whilst Flashman met an awful lot of famous Victorians, GMF often justified his coincidences with there are no contemporary records to contradict the meetings!
I love Flashman. I've got an uneasy feeling there's been nothing like it since. Before Flashman, as a kid, I discovered Conan Doyle's Brigadier Gerard which I really enjoyed. Gerard is a complete pompous prat. Very funny for Conan Doyle who I usually find is quite humorless. I think my major 'coincidence' is all the famous characters being in one place at one time. That could have happened, so I'll use GMF as my writing role model there!
It's a tricky balance to get right. I think people who read novels, particularly historical ones, tend to be a bit more clued up on the facts, sometimes even more than the writer is! And they point out mistakes on Amazon revues etc. On the other hand you can be too accurate. Sometimes what actually happened in a historical context is very different to the perceived/largely accepted narrative, and presenting it can shake a reader out of that suspension of disbelief you are talking about. I once heard another writer say they deliberately left out including pelicans in a novel set in Roman Britain (even though that at the time they did live there) because a modern reader would go "hang on: There aren't any pelicans in Britain!" On the other hand I strongly disagree with changing any known historical facts to fit a personal modern viewpoint or political opinion. That's the equivalent of using dead peoples' votes in an election.
Yes, my wife Lisa was warning me about the dreaded Amazon reviews! And you're right -readers of historical novels will know more than me in some areas. WW1 Trains feature heavily in my novel so I watched Portillo and Chris Tarrants documentaries about WW1 trains. To my horror they never covered how British Tommies went to the front in cattle trucks marked Hommes 40, Cheveaux 8. That made me so angry - a good example of censorship that is always denied. For one TV programme to overlook the cattle trucks is maybe excusable, but two? . Stephen Knight (Peaky Blinders) said he left out a lot of the wild stuff the SAS did in his latest series because people just wouldn't believe it. In Charley's War, young readers said comics were stupid because I had a scene where a dog was wearing a gas mask, which did happen. And horses, too. So I can understand that point about the pelicans. Because my novel is fairly covertly anti-war I have to be more on my guard than if it reinforced or was neutral on the status quo. During the centenary years of WW1, the establishment revisionists ruthlessly suppressed films and books that were anti-war. Including a TV series on Charley's War. Maybe in 2023 they won't care and leave me alone. They 'won', after all.