The Importance Of Getting Your Facts Straight: When Does Fiction Become Too Fiction?
We need to be careful when we write that we get our facts straight. ESPECIALLY if historical fiction is involved. At least this seems to be what readers have been complaining about from my own writing, and the character in the novel I’m currently reading (A Widow For One Year from John Irving). Ironic, yes, that the novel that fell into my hands happened to be very pertinent to the conflicts I would encounter while reading it. But how far do we really need to go into researching when we’re writing fiction?
Fiction is something made up; a story that was created through our imagination. How far can we go with what we make up in our story before readers start objecting? In my own experience, it seems you need to get your historical and geographical facts straight. The two things I’m awful with. While editing my second novel, I realized that maybe some of it won’t fly with readers. I keep choosing to write about particular things I don’t necessarily know a great deal about. In this case, farming. In Tearing Honor’s case, religion. Why do I do this? Because I want to see how far I can stretch my imagination. Does that make me a bad writer? I wouldn’t think so.
How much research do you do when you’re writing fiction? I may have Googled a few things to see if I was on the right track. Perhaps my next goal should be to spend more time researching before I dive into writing. Writing as a part of NaNoWriMo eliminates that extra time you can spend researching. So far, I’ve only written novels as a part of NaNoWriMo, returning to it a few months later to give major edits.
So my next novel, I plan to try a more traditional approach to writing. Set my own deadlines so that I can do that extra research. We’ll see how readers react when my facts are straight. Our society has been raised to rely on facts for everything, I’m not surprised readers want to hear the truth.
Ruth, from the John Irving book I’m reading, only writes about what she doesn’t know. She gets dozens of pieces of mail from people who have actually experienced what she’s written about, tearing down her work for being inaccurate. Is it wrong to make up facts? I can see it being a problem when you’re claiming it to be true, but if you label it as fiction, then what’s the problem?
*I currently don’t have a stance on this. I need to write a little bit more to get a better feel for whether researching my facts or just having fun and making them up makes for better writing. I can see myself leaning toward research being better for writing, but at this moment, I don’t feel I can claim that.*
Go ahead, discuss. How much fiction is too much?
-Renee
This is a reposting from my main blog at Wordpress.
About Renee
I grew up in a small town in New Hampshire, always surrounding myself with nature. My inspiration typically comes from peaceful moments I find in nature, as simple as snow falling directly onto my face. The first novel I wrote is entitled "Tearing...
Connections
Causes Renee Masson Supports
NaNoWriMo
Renee’s Favorite Books
A Bend In The Road, The Cider House Rules, The Hotel New Hampshire, On The Road, Beowulf, The Queen's Fool, The Other Boleyn Girl, Inkheart, Harry Potter (...
I love John Irving
I read somewhere that John Irving took an entire year just to plan the book "A Widow For A Year". Can you imagine an entire year just figuring out how the story fits together. And I don't remember how long it took him to connect the dots after that. I like you did the NaNoWriMo one time and that is how I got my first book written. Although I did take a few months in advance to figure out what would possibly happen in each chapter, a sub-story and I had a list of the 15 main characters and 15 main settings in mind before I started NaNo.
I also at one point at the suggestion of a professional screen writer I had met. To see the John Irving movie "The Cider House Rules", to read the screen play he wrote for the movie and to read his novel. I did just that and it really is amazing to see how these things translate from one to the other. I also loved the book which I can't remember the name offhand, that was also highly contrived but held my attention. An epitath for Owen Meany. What happens to me when I do the speed writing without much thought or rewrite is I glide over dialogue. c
Research
Sometimes one will find through research that an accepted fact is realy fiction.
It is accepted in Canada that our early pioneers did not carry firearms. I found this a foolish idea; I didn't think those who opened this country were that foolish. I did a great deal of research and found it not to be true.
It is true that due to the early arrival of police forces during pioneer days that they did not carry firearms in urban areas. Almost all carried a weapon when out on the plains or in the bush.
This information is not in keeping with the accepted but it is still a fact.
Dave
www.dmmcgowan.blogspot.com
Internet Creating Fact Or Fiction
Interesting. And with the internet bursting with information, facts can easily be confused with fiction and fiction with fact if you think about it.
books
substantiated evidence althought the internet makes it appear facts are not able to be proven, they are, writing had a good head start before the internet. when we were kids we liked reading the ads in the backs of comics with all their farfetched claims, sea monkies and xray vision glasses, just the same thing.
oooohhhh
oooohhh i can easily see the usefullness of just writing and getting thes story on paper and than going back and working on it for details. I get all excited about this topic.