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Every once in a while on Twitter I go into an explosion of verbiage on some topic that I want to capture before the thought goes away. Twitter is not exactly the best of places for exploding verbiage! So it was suggested that I collect this particular one here and expand on it. So the following is enlarged and edited from what appeared previously.
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One of the most exhilarating things I learned when doing historic research for the SCA is that the actual everyday details of history are not only different from what we imagine, but often impossible for us to imagine. There are details I've learned about things like clothing and cooking and language that would not be knowable--would not be imaginable--if we didn't have the direct evidence in front of us. These are details like the way the edge of a garment might be finished with a technique that combines sewing and tablet weaving. Or the use of spinning direction to create optical color effects in weaving. Or the delicate flavoring of a sauce by stirring it with a bundle of herbs. Or the ways in which women in history strove to understand their own sexual desires, when allowed to express them in their own language.
And as a writer of historic fiction, I keep this always in mind, even when writing fantasy. The best source for imaginative, diverse, REAL details in non-contemporary fantasy is the detailed primary data of the past. Not the pre-digested, homogenized version you get in general history books. (And I'm not saying that version is "wrong" in any way, only that it's inadequate.) But the detailed, nuanced, contradictory, elusive data that you only find when you dig into specialized journals. Into archaeological site reports. Into odd little papers presented at specialty conferences, shared by excited and supremely knowledgeable scholars who have spent years searching for the context that would explain that one odd artifact, that mysterious reference in an inventory, that clearly meaningful yet obscure gesture in the background of a painting.
When I create the characters and situations in my fantasy novels, I never want to portray what I *believed* was true before I started. Goodness knows, I didn't escape that oversimplified dominant paradigm any more than anyone else can. But I want to tell stories that emerge from those unexpected discoveries. From the surprising and unimaginable truths of the past. Not the ones that confirm our beliefs, but the ones that challenge them. The ones you must work to integrate with What You Have Been Told. The ones that shine light in the spaces that were thought non-existent because no one had looked at them closely before.
Yes I write fantasy, but I try to write fantasy that is truer than history because it is inspired by all those unnoticed truths.
* * *
One of the most exhilarating things I learned when doing historic research for the SCA is that the actual everyday details of history are not only different from what we imagine, but often impossible for us to imagine. There are details I've learned about things like clothing and cooking and language that would not be knowable--would not be imaginable--if we didn't have the direct evidence in front of us. These are details like the way the edge of a garment might be finished with a technique that combines sewing and tablet weaving. Or the use of spinning direction to create optical color effects in weaving. Or the delicate flavoring of a sauce by stirring it with a bundle of herbs. Or the ways in which women in history strove to understand their own sexual desires, when allowed to express them in their own language.
And as a writer of historic fiction, I keep this always in mind, even when writing fantasy. The best source for imaginative, diverse, REAL details in non-contemporary fantasy is the detailed primary data of the past. Not the pre-digested, homogenized version you get in general history books. (And I'm not saying that version is "wrong" in any way, only that it's inadequate.) But the detailed, nuanced, contradictory, elusive data that you only find when you dig into specialized journals. Into archaeological site reports. Into odd little papers presented at specialty conferences, shared by excited and supremely knowledgeable scholars who have spent years searching for the context that would explain that one odd artifact, that mysterious reference in an inventory, that clearly meaningful yet obscure gesture in the background of a painting.
When I create the characters and situations in my fantasy novels, I never want to portray what I *believed* was true before I started. Goodness knows, I didn't escape that oversimplified dominant paradigm any more than anyone else can. But I want to tell stories that emerge from those unexpected discoveries. From the surprising and unimaginable truths of the past. Not the ones that confirm our beliefs, but the ones that challenge them. The ones you must work to integrate with What You Have Been Told. The ones that shine light in the spaces that were thought non-existent because no one had looked at them closely before.
Yes I write fantasy, but I try to write fantasy that is truer than history because it is inspired by all those unnoticed truths.
