It’s Problematic: On writing historical fiction without “fixing” history

Guest Post by Erin Bartels –

My debut novel, We Hope for Better Things, was a triple timeline story with narratives that took place in the 1860s, the 1960s, and today, and thematic elements that touched on race, slavery, civil rights, and racism on both a systemic and a personal scale. I was researching, writing, and pitching it in the 2010s, a time of renewed national reckoning with America’s dark and unavoidable past. The subject was constantly in the news cycle, and when the novel was published in 2019, it found a ready and appreciative audience.

Well, mostly.

Some people didn’t care for it. Their critique? They had different ways of putting it, but it basically amounted to this: The characters did not perfectly represent the “correct” views the reader claimed to hold dear—and this was problematic, irresponsible, even dangerous.

Never mind the historical context. Never mind the reality that human beings are complex, contradictory, and imperfect in any time period, including the present. These particular readers wanted perfection. Now. They didn’t want characters to learn and grow. They wanted characters who would represent the current thinking, even if those characters lived 160 years ago.

This is bad news for historical fiction writers.

I see this same urge—to “fix” history with fiction—in movies and streaming series, where a character holds the currently acceptable modern view of any given issue, no matter how anachronistic, so modern audiences can identify with that character and . . . and what, exactly? Feel superior to the people of the past? Is that why we read historical fiction or watch period dramas? So that we can be smug?

Note that I’m not talking about representation. It has been thrilling in recent years to see previously untold stories of the marginalized and forgotten come to light. These stories add texture and truth to our oft-skewed view of the past. They are necessary and fascinating and long overdue. Keep ‘em coming!

No, what I’m talking about is what C. S. Lewis termed “chronological snobbery.” Lewis’s own definition of the term is this: “the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate of our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that count discredited.”

Discredited. In Lewis’s context, this word meant that something was doubted or disproved. In our context, it often goes by another name: canceled.

Don’t you feel it? The mood in the air, so strong and pervasive that you can almost see and touch it. The desire to believe that we, in the 2020s, have finally got it right. Not only that, we must ensure that no one gets it wrong (according to our current yet ever-changing standards) ever again.

We have our marching orders: remove the problematic stuff. Pretend it never existed. Problematic ideas. Problematic art. Problematic people. Everything must go.

And history is nothing if not problematic, right? It’s where all those ideas, all that art, and all those people came from after all.

So how does the historical fiction writer tell stories about realistic people in their historical contexts while being both truthful about the past and conscientious about how many attitudes of the past have been harmful? How do we write historical fiction without giving into the urge to “fix” history?

I’m not going to prescribe The Way to do this. I’m not going to tell you to avoid depicting certain actions or using certain words, or admonish you to be sensitive to people’s manifold triggers. Because even if you do everything “right”—which, let’s face it, is neither possible nor interesting—there will be readers who vehemently object. Some people just enjoy being incensed.

Instead, seek the truth in any given scene. Dig down to the heart of the matter in an honest and ugly-if-needed way. And ignore those who insist on censoring reality to make things more comfortable.

Fiction should be uncomfortable, because it’s about truth. And the truth is that people do bad things, contradictory things, things they are ashamed of. And people do things they are not ashamed of, even if we think they should be. They did it in the past and they do it today. Sometimes they know they’re doing it. Often, they don’t.

My newest novel, The Lady with the Dark Hair, is a dual timeline story that tackles issues of women’s creativity, their involvement in the arts, and the credit they do or do not get for their accomplishments. The protagonist of the 1880s timeline has few choices in life, but makes the most of what is available to her, sometimes in truly bold and surprising ways. The protagonist of the present-day story also feels that she has few choices in life until she is pushed to go after more.

It would have been easy—and probably more lucrative—if in writing the story I simply blamed men for these women’s problems. I mean, look at how successful the Barbie movie was. That movie had one of the least nuanced presentations of feminism I have ever encountered (and, I would argue, was more harmful than helpful to its blindingly obvious aim to dismantle the patriarchy) and as of the writing of this essay it has made nearly $1.5 billion.

Instead, in my story there are lots of male characters who are kind, supportive, and well-meaning, despite the fact that entrenched institutions and attitudes make women’s lives smaller, harder, and less important than men’s. Why? Because that’s what’s truthful. Yes, men as a sex have ruled the world and devalued women for centuries. And yes, I’m glad to see incredible progress toward greater equity in my own lifetime. But, with a few exceptions, the individual men in my life have been some of my most supportive friends and mentors. They are not the source of all of my problems and they are very often part of the solution.

Bottom line? People aren’t perfect. The past is problematic. And both are worth exploring on their own terms.