Historical Fiction vs. Other Genres

This is an article that I posted for "The League of Extraordinary Scribes," a wonderful writers circle which inspires me to write. It's about the difference between historical fiction, alternative historical fiction, and contemporary fiction. I hope you like it. :)

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Hello League! This is Vincent LaVel Moorehead and I want to thank Elizabeth Dresdow for giving me the opportunity to write this article. Originally, she writes and posts articles for Historical Fiction this month, but because she's tied up in many matters, I have decided to help my sister out. Love Elizabeth, she's a dear. :D



I thought I would ask the obvious question: what is historical fiction? What is it y'all? We'll, here are a few bullets I'll share about the matter.



-Historical Fiction deals with a REAL historical events like WWI, WWII, Vietnam War, you get the picture.

-Characters have a portrayed realistically in their time period. Whether it's their clothes, their colloquialisms and manner of speaking, whatever, has to accurately reflect the time.

-One historical author Walter Scott suggested that "historical fiction" versus contemporary would be 2 generations apart from the present. A generation averages about 25 years. :0)

-Basically, the main characters in a historical fiction story are fictional. Yes, there can be characters than are historical, but mainly the protagonists are fictional players in history.



Examples of popular historical fiction books are: "The Grapes of Wrath" by, "Gone With The Wind" by Margaret Mitchell, "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini, "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathanael Hawthorne, "The Color Purple" Alice Walker and "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak. I've been meaning to read "The Book Thief" because I've seen it in stories and online all of the time and I've heard its praises sung over and over. :) These books topics events such as The Dust Bowl, the Civil War & Reconstruction, Soviets invading Afghanistan in 1980's, etc. There's a wealth of good historical fiction books that I encourage you to read and here's a link for you to look at some if you wish.

http://www.onlineclasses.org/2010/06/01/100-all-time-best-historical-fiction-books/



Now, I want to clear some things from your mind by asking what is "alternative historical fiction," "fantasy," or "contemporary fiction?" :) Let's see:



Alternative Historical Fiction- This is like historical fiction reversed. Yes, the protagonists are fictional, BUT events in the story are not the same as history. An example would be that the South wins the Civil War or Martin Luther King Jr. is still alive. It can even reach into the bowels of science fiction or Steampunk. Issac Asimov wrote the story what if" where a couple explores alternate realities. Cool, huh? Phillip Roth wrote "The Plot Against America" in 2004 where President Franklin D. Roosevelt was defeated in his 3rd bid for President of the United States. Steampunk novels employ settings where people use steam like the Victorian era instead of proper electricity. It's an interesting genre that I haven't looked in too much, but some Steampunk novels are "The Proper Machine" by Neal Barrett Jr. and "Infernal Devices" by K.W. Jeter.

Look here for more Steampunk titles. :)

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6720180.html



Contemporary Fiction - Probably the easiest out of these definitions. This kind of fiction takes place today or in the recent past. It has historical overtones, but violates the "2 generations or more rule." :0)



I want to leave you with a link to the article "What are the rules for historical fiction?" by Sarah Johnson, a professor at Eastern Illinois university. I know that several scribes want more information on how to get their HF writing up to scratch and who knows...there could even be a contest with historical fiction!

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6720180.html



Tell me what you think about the article and I hope everyone is having a wonderful day. God Bless. :D

Guest Post from Author Greg J, Downs

Hello everyone! Today, I have a special guest who would like to share his own journey with the art of outlining: Greg J. Downs. :D He's my age by the way and impressed me to no end; has written two books, the first of which is "Mordred" (I will release a book review soon & I know Greg has waited patiently for it) and "Brother Thief." So, without further ado, here is Mr. Down's article. :D


"How NOT to Outline"
By Greg J. Downs

Hi all, this is LaVel's pal Greg. I saw his post on outlining recently, and it really started me thinking about my own horrible, horrible battles with outlining my work. These thoughts swam around in my head for a while before finally deciding to spill out on paper... er, I mean my Word Processor... and now they've grown into a blog post. LaVel has graciously permitted me to take up his blog space with this, so I'll try to make it worth your while without devolving into one big marketing push for me ;)


I am a full–on, 100%, purebred NERD. I love all things fantasy and most things sci–fi, and this love in turn has produced two novels over the course of time– both of which have been incessantly plagued with outlining difficulties. I'll use examples from each to make points about the subject of outlining... mostly by saying DO NOT DO THIS. (See, this should be making you feel good about yourself already.)


Point #1– Everyone outlines, even those who think of themselves as seat–of–the–pants writers. Everyone starts with an idea, right? I started out by wanting to write a story about King Arthur. Then I decided I wanted King Arthur to be the bad guy, and Mordred, the traditional villain of the legend, to be the good guy. When I sat down to write the story, I decided (in my head) that the best way to make King Arthur the bad guy was to have him order the death Mordred for no reason at all (that Mordred could tell, anyway).


See? I already had a sort of mental picture in my head... and that is the simplest form of outlining.


Point #2– Do not not outline. Yes, I used a double–negative. Take that, grammar class! Anyway, what I mean by saying that is: if you want to write a novel of any length, outlining is essential. While writing my little anti–King–Arthur story, my outline read something like this: “Mordred's village is attacked by the knights of the round table and his parents die, so he runs away into the forest and meets the lady of the lake.” Okay... that little one sentence outline took two 10–page chapters to write (that's 40 paperback pages).


My point? Stories grow. They're living, breathing things. You need to outline your WHOLE book, if it's a book you're writing– and short stories/novellas/novelettes are the same. You also should outline as detailed as you can without losing the fun of the story, so you have an idea of just how long the darned thing is going to be. Now for most people, 1 line of outline will NOT equal 1 chapter of book– that's probably a problem only I have. But you need to know where your story is going, no matter how much space your outline takes up.


When I realized that (more or less) any single sentence I wrote in outlining would become a chapter, I quickly scribbled down a few more sentences to bring my story to a close (I thought it would be a short–story series at the time). Long story short? Mordred fought the forces of King Arthur and Avalon for 30 more computer pages before escaping from a sinking island, saving the King's deadliest knight from death–by–evil–witch, and generally kicking butt everywhere he went.


And guess what? I realized I wasn't done.


Point #3– Outlines are written in easy–cheez, not stone. I'd written about 40 pages of story from a paragraph of outlining. There were still a bajillion strings left untied in the tale, and suddenly I knew... deep within the nerdiest corner of my heart... that I really could write a book. 40 pages... that's like a quarter of the way done, right? So one night I stayed up REALLY late and wrote a four–page outline of my book. I would have to change some things in the original 40–page story, to make it flow better, but so what? (You can tell I'd already forgotten the 1 sentence outline = 1 chapter rule.)


My re–write of those 40 pages ended up being 70 pages. At the end, it looked NOTHING like the original story. My first outline? Useless. My four–page outline? Useless, too. The story had morphed as I re–wrote it, so that I had to write a 3rd outline! This annoyed me hugely, but I've since learned it happens with everything– and I mean EVERYTHING– I write.


My new book? Something like 10 outlines, all very different from each other as the story changed mid–writing.


What I'm trying to say is that while I know I just told you outlining is essential, I didn't tell you the whole thing. Outlining is important, but just like stories, outlines grow... and change... and sometimes DIE A BLOODY DEATH!!!! So if you need to change your outline, do it! If it requires changing huge chunks of story, change them! Or maybe, if that would be too painful, find a way for your new outline to incorporate what you've already written– find a new reason all those prior events are important.


So, what have we learned today, class? Numero Uno: Outlining is natural and unavoidable. Numbah Two: If you want detail in a story, you need a detailed outline. Number Three: Outlines are like transformers. They were made to look cool, no matter what shape they're in. So transform them at will.


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About Greg: Here's where I market myself to you poor people who actually suffered through that whole lecture :P I'm a young author with one book available for the Amazon Kindle and another on the way. To keep track of my writing, 'like' the pages for my books, at http://on.fb.me/mSopPP and http://on.fb.me/p97MbP, or follow my blog at http://bit.ly/ovSDvP. Want to know how that King Arthur story ended? You can buy it as an e–book at http://amzn.to/qoEG1u. Good luck to all you writers out there, and God Bless!


So, what did you think about Greg J. Down's article? Post below on my blog and tell me what you think!! I tell ya', I loved every bit of what Greg had to say. :D

My View on Outlining

Hello everyone. It's great to be back on my blog and I'm sorry that I've taken a longer break than I expected. But here I am! :)
So, what have I been up to? Outlining, of course! Well, how could you have known that? I've been on a wishy-washy journey trying to find the right course for my novel. Originally, I started writing my novel originally titled "Pharador" but for some reason, I felt stuck. Now why would that happen? Why would little LaVel with all of his passion and desire for writing feel dead in the water? Because I wasn't prepared for the novel. Sure, I wrote a few pages of notes for the novel, but I wasn't prepared for everything that comes with adequate OUTLINING, some research, and good advice.
What I've learned is that I can place writers into two categories: a "seat of the pants" writer or an outliner. "Seat of the Pants" writers prefer to just write whatever comes to mind for their novel without any concrete outline. Sure, they may jot a couple of things down, but they take an idea and run with it by writing as much of their story as they can. Outliners on the other hand feel the need to sit down and give some sort of structure to the plot of their novel. Usually, these writers list what will happen in certain chapters and as much character background as they can.
For myself, I learned that I have to outline. Yes, some plot points and details to the story may come later down the road and it's exciting to have spontaneity. Some scene that you weren't thinking about before may come a day or so before you write another chapter for example. However, if you know what destination you're trying to head to, you can finagle the routes to get there through outlining. I sometimes think of writing as problem solving because there are times when I outline and think "Hmm..how do I get to this point? How does so-and-so obtain these magical objects or what relationship does so-and-so have with this person?" These are questions writers have to ask themselves, and if you write the answers down in an outline, it won't be as hard as trying to make it up as you go.
So I will leave you with a quick tip. For my book, I started with a "rough outline." I took about three blank sheets of computer paper and wrote down approximately 26 chapter titles for my book. Then in bullets, I wrote what will happen in each chapter. Afterward, I gathered 26 sheets of paper for my "chapter sketches" and wrote in more detail what will happen in each chapter. I think it's better to elaborate on what will happen in each chapter so it's not as difficult as looking at a few bullets and wondering where to go from there. So, don't feel discouraged. Outlining takes some time, but it's rewarding in the end. I will definitely write more on outlining so stay posted.
If you have to know the new title for my book, I will share it with you. Here it is...the title for my book is called "Dragon Earth" and I'm every excited about it! So, get out your pen or computer and start outlining! :-)