Post by account_disabled on Dec 23, 2023 22:51:55 GMT -7
You always write a historical note at the end of the novel: do you think it should be an obligatory part of a historical novel, to tell the reader what was invented and what happened historically? I don't think it's mandatory, but it's a good thing to do. I think the reader has the right to know which story is real and which is made up, and to be told where he can find more information. It certainly blocks a lot of letters asking me those questions, and that's good! In historical novels such as the Saxon stories, Excalibur, the Grail trilogy, Azincourt, Stonehenge, you use to narrate in the first person: assuming that these are stories that work very well, don't you think that a historical novel, set in the Middle.
Ages or earlier, narrated in the first person may not be credible? And why this choice of the first person, while in Sharpe not? I'm not sure if I've made a choice, but I'll just tell the story in whatever way seems to best fit the tale! It's not really a conscious choice. The big disadvantage of first person is that you can't give the reader information that the hero (or heroine) doesn't Special Data know themselves, and this makes the plot more difficult. The disadvantage of the third person is that sometimes changing the point of view makes the reading boring, but the plot easier – in the third person you can show, for example, the French preparing an ambush for Sharpe and this will increase the suspense, but you cannot do this yourself.
But honestly I never really think about this, and until I read your question I didn't realize that I tend to use the first person for stories set so far in the past! Can a historical novel be in a certain sense a sort of rewriting of history, in your opinion? In a certain sense yes, but we do not have the right to change history, we can embellish it with adventure and we can suggest interpretations that a true historian cannot do (because there is no evidence) but we are still servants of history and we must be it faithful, otherwise we are writing fantasy novels – which may be fun, but they are not true history.
Ages or earlier, narrated in the first person may not be credible? And why this choice of the first person, while in Sharpe not? I'm not sure if I've made a choice, but I'll just tell the story in whatever way seems to best fit the tale! It's not really a conscious choice. The big disadvantage of first person is that you can't give the reader information that the hero (or heroine) doesn't Special Data know themselves, and this makes the plot more difficult. The disadvantage of the third person is that sometimes changing the point of view makes the reading boring, but the plot easier – in the third person you can show, for example, the French preparing an ambush for Sharpe and this will increase the suspense, but you cannot do this yourself.
But honestly I never really think about this, and until I read your question I didn't realize that I tend to use the first person for stories set so far in the past! Can a historical novel be in a certain sense a sort of rewriting of history, in your opinion? In a certain sense yes, but we do not have the right to change history, we can embellish it with adventure and we can suggest interpretations that a true historian cannot do (because there is no evidence) but we are still servants of history and we must be it faithful, otherwise we are writing fantasy novels – which may be fun, but they are not true history.