This week, we finally managed to install our new (not new ) item of furniture - a mid-18th Century grandfather clock. It's not bright and shiny like more modern ones, but a dark oak with a warm patina which the beeswax polish is drawing out. In order to set it up, we had to do a certain amount of research - how to hang the pendulum, where the weight went on the endless chain - and it got me thinking... where and when did certain divisions of time come from? The time periods which I have written either had household clocks or didn't, I have not written novels from the time of their invention. Clocks have been around for a long time, and the obsession with measuring time in an ordered fashion dates back to at least the ancient Sumerians. It was they who established a circular reading of time and, I imagine, the sixty seconds/minutes came about as much because it was an easy way to divide a circle as anything else. But it wasn't until much later that the precision of seconds ...
The other day at Crowvus HQ, we were discussing our favourite Jane Austen novels. Amazingly, for saying there were four of us with a positive opinion, each person had a different favourite. Jane Austen's books, of course, are not historical fiction, but books written contemporaneously to what is now an historical era.
But!
All the multitude of spinoffs which her books have invoked are historical fiction. Pride and Prejudice is not my favourite Austen story, nor my second or third, but I absolutely love the series Lost in Austen.
People hear the phrase "fan fiction" and immediately think lesser of it, but this is a little unfair. Fan fiction is not a new thing, it is how folk stories grew into legends, adventures becoming more daring with every telling. But what has changed is the way in which these stories are retold and the care which is now (quite rightly!) taken to preserve and protect the rights of the original author. In the case of Lost in Austen, this is not too difficult, as the author's works are both well out off copyright and also known to most people. The arrival of "Wuthering Heights" this year has also prompted some consideration over what a fine line can be drawn between "inspired-by" (therefore: fan fiction) and "true to text" adaptations.
To a certain extent, I suppose a lot of historical writers partake in fan fiction. We are, after all, fans of the stories of the past and we attempt to build them into something more. We (sometimes!) take characters from history and - without altering them from fact - weave our chosen exploits into their story. If we do not do this and stick solely to the facts, we are not writing historical fiction at all, but narrative nonfiction. When individuals such as Elizabeth Bennet, or Heathcliff, are as well known to us as real figures in history, is there really such a difference?
The truth is, we're all fans of someone. As writers, it makes perfect sense that we would want to share our hopes and dreams for that individual in the form of writing.
Comments
Post a Comment