The advantage of writing historical fantasy is, of course, that you don’t have to make any of the details of your world up. It’s all there for you in history.
The problem is that history is slippery, amorphous and sometimes unrecorded. The dark ages (sound of historians screaming as I use that name, sorry, early medieval period) where I’m setting the first three books of my Wolfsangel series, are a case in point.
There can be a great deal of dispute about what a particular historical figure said or did and the details of day to day life can be very hard to come by. You can’t extrapolate back from the high medieval period because the difference in world view and even technology between the 8th century and the 13th is immense.
OK, with effort you can find those things but it’s the little details that kill you. I’m currently having a bash at discovering what the walls of Paris would have looked like in the 9th century. My guess is that they’d be the old Roman ones – perhaps with a bit of patching here and there.
However, it’s equally likely that they could have been a wooden pallisade or a rampart.
Then there’s clothing, attitudes, geography. If you’re making up your own world you just say ‘I know, let’s have some deep ravines along this river to the sea.’ Historical fantasy writers, however, are left with trying to find out exactly how, say, the Somme looked in the early medieval period. Fens, apparently. Well, I’ve never been in a proper fen so now I have to find out about them.
And this is the dark ages. There are relatively few things to get right – horses, houses, dress, customs but it’s not such a complex time as, say, the Victorian period. Also, luckily, sources are few. Why luckily? Well it means you can take educated guesses at things that you don’t know without getting a call from Eric Pode of Croydon saying ‘do you know your description of the mechanism of a gentleman’s fob watch in 1876 is anachronistic. The mechanism you’re talking about didn’t exist until 1877 at the earliest’.
Still, I do like to get things right because the richer you make the reality the more convincing will be your world. Exactly what was the disposition of houses outside the walls of Paris? Was the river faster or slower flowing back then? How did the armies that invaded the Frankish realm – Vikings, Saracens, Frisian and others camp – under tents? Probably but I can’t find any definite evidence that says they did..
All of this is fine and, actually, quite fun. Does it matter if I get the length of a Frankish cloak wrong (half length, known as a Saie, I think) or the language of ancient Paris? Not terribly materially to the story – I’ve got werewolves and sorcerers in it after all. It would matter to me, though.
The reason is that the past is a very strange place. One of the reasons people come to fantasy is to get a sense of wonder. To me – and I’m really not knocking imaginary world fantasy at all because I love that stuff – there’s as much wonder in a recreation of the world view of a 9th century prince, monk or peasant as there is in hearing of the invented moon-worshipping customs of the Ngler of Nglee.
In fact, I think it’s easier to create wonder using real history than it is fantasy. We’ve come a long way since Tolkien and there have been many, many books with invented worlds – some brilliant, some not quite so.
It’s actually quite hard to do something new in fantasy world building. Yes, you can have original ideas but the bar is set very high before you get the ‘wow!’ factor, for the simple reason that there have been so many ‘wows’ before. I have to confess I find it quite hard to get excited about a new race of creatures, a new floating forest (random example, if someone has a floating forest, I’m not talking about that book!), a new magic item.
Of course, all those things can be exciting if done well. It’s just that it’s getting harder and harder to do them well, or at least originally.
I was going to continue this blog entry for a while yet but, since I’ve been composing it since before Christmas, I’ll stick it out now or it will never get done!
Wolfsangel still attracting good reviews and early indications are that bloggers really like it too, which is gratifying. There’s always a nervousness that a good reception by critics won’t be matched by the reception by fans. It can work the other way around, of course. Something that gets a critical mauling – Da Vinci Code, for instance, is loved by millions around the world. Hopefully a novel can score with both sets of readers. My fingers, toes and other extremity is crossed.
Just had a very pleasing review of the advanced review copy of Wolfsangel from the wonderful multiple British and World fantasy award-winning novelist Graham Joyce.
He said the following:
“Superior thunderous and full-blooded historical fantasy, broiling and smoking with mystery, beautifully written”
That makes this werewolf howl with gratitude, if you can howl with gratitude.