#Authenticity in Fiction

[ancientroyalblood]

Creating Authentic Dialogue: Tips for Realistic Conversations

Imagine your favorite book or movie. What do you remember most about it? Often, it’s not just the plot or the characters but the dialogue that lingers in your mind. Well-crafted dialogue breathes life into a story, making characters and their interactions feel genuine and relatable. Writing authentic dialogue is an art that every writer can master. In this exploration of creating authentic…

[moregraceful]

my hot take as a person with an english degree and a library degree is that some of the dorkiest fiction and poetry ever committed to paper in the english language came out of the iowa writer's workshop so it is at best goofy and at worst completely futile to argue that your average amazon unlimited writer is having a more deleterious effect on literacy and literature.

[hussyknee]

Fiction (and sometimes real life) has this tendency to frame a character's stubborn belief in people's goodness in the teeth of all evidence as a virtue. As in, not when the person being judged acts seemingly out of character. It's wise to give aberrant behaviour the benefit of doubt. But consistently apologizing for and ascribing good intent to actions that clearly show a bad character, and then refusing to accept that this person is exactly as bad as the trail of victims they've left behind prove them to be— this is not a mark of goodness and kindness.

Wilful blindness and stupidity don't showcase a generosity of spirit. That's simply the need to cling to your own preconceptions for the sake of your own comfort. It's not kind or fair to defend perpetrators at the expense of the people suffering because of them; and infantilizing and finding excuses for people isn't mercy, it's apologia. ("He was a good boy who fell under bad influence" "Ma'am, he's 28 and sold out his own family to pay his gambling debts.") In both fiction and real life, you should be able to look at the situation and choose to safeguard and defend the victimized and vulnerable first and foremost. To accept that you might be wrong, your faith might be misplaced, and prioritise safety, justice and accountability for all the people who are or might be suffering at your friend or family's hands. Because not doing that— not believing victims, apologizing for and defending abusers, centering the perpetrator's interiority instead of the impacted victim's reality— that's just the default evil of real life.

If you being a pure, loyal little cinnamon roll throws other people under the bus, then you aren't actually a cinnamon roll. You're just complicit, enabling and endangering.

[anitatapio]

Self Portrait

Currently writing a dystopian fairytale about aliens stranded on Earth from a perfect planet. Feel free to follow my page for updates. Also active on instagram at @theanitatapio .

[scarletfasinera]

Had an opportunity to talk about my goal to read The Anatomy of Melancholy in 2025 with my best friend's brother & his girlfriend. She's a literature teacher, so she recognized it and seemed really impressed by the goal. She's was like "Wow! Isn't it like 1500 pages? That's a really good goal for the year, please keep me updated on your progress!" and when I got really serious and said "I'm GOING to read it entirely. It's my White Whale." she laughed & started clapping & nodding at me.

[babsvibes]

“You have to go to work to make money.” But what if instead I stayed home and imagined Bob’s Burgers characters kissing? Hm? What about that?

[jeannereames]

There is this question/idea that has always kinda fascinated me and I wanted an opinion of a historian on this.

Imagine someone wanted to makes a tv series/movie about a historical person/event/time period/..., and they wanted to make it as historically accurate as possible while still keeping it interesting and captivating enough for modern, non-historian audiances. I feel like getting the costumes, events and characters 99% historically correct can be possible. However one thing might be a lot more difficult: choosing what language(s) to use.

Do you go for

A) The actual historical languages that were used (but nobody speaks anymore today). Which would be both the hardest to implement and to reach modern audiences.

B) The modern versions of the historical languages. Which would be easier and more accessible but still a bit limiting.

C) Just do it in English. Which is the least accurate but might reach the widest audience.

Which one would you recommend and which one would you personally prefer (if these are not the same)?

Several issues face anybody writing historical novels, or making films. I’ve talked about some of these in the following posts:

Writing Historical Fiction (Well): a 5-part series that discusses the challenges and pitfalls of historical fiction. This link takes you to part 1 with subsequent parts linked within.

A shorter post on common ways to approach historicals in film (or narration).

What (I think) needs to be shown about Alexander in an documentary and/or historical film to approach realism. I talk here about some of the attendant issues especially for making a film.

 Now, to your comment about costumes and events 99% accurate…you’d face two very real hurdles:

Funding…that was possibly the #1 problem for the Netflix docudrama. They didn’t have anywhere near the funding they really needed. Just because Netflix funded it, that didn’t make it “big budget.”

Not confusing your audience with a lot of unfamiliar names and seemingly repeating events. It would require judicious “weeding.”

Oliver Stone’s Alexander did quite well, for the most part, on costuming and sets. Yet it failed for two big reasons. First, he couldn’t resist throwing in too much, and a repetitive script, even while skipping material necessary to help an audience understand why the army followed Alexander to the ends of the earth. Second, he didn’t understand the basic mindset of the ancient world, and so imposed a bunch of modern ideas and attitudes. I wrote a fairly in-depth review not long after it came out. It’s still up on my website.

As for languages…

It would be an enormous mistake to try to use ancient Greek, or rather Attic and Doric Greek, Old Persian, Aramaic, Demotic Coptic, Prakrit, eastern Akkadian … etc., etc. That’s what you’re looking at. First, finding somebody able to write a script in all those languages is impossible. No single person reads them all, even among historians. We specialize for a reason. You’d be paying multiple experts to write a script that nobody living could understand—and would take a lot of coaching for the actors even to pronounce properly. Additionally, you’d narrow your audience to those willing to put up with subtitles.

The founding-of-Rome Italian TV series Romulus used Latin. This worked only because it was one language and was marketed originally to an Italian audience. Latin isn’t Italian by a long shot, but it wasn’t wholly unfamiliar in sound. That said, it was more of an “art film” type. I (an ancient historian) quit watching it after the second episode because it was too much work, tbh. (It was also a lot bloodier than I was in the mood for, in the midst of Covid.)

But if you want to see a (good) example of what you’re suggesting, that’s one. Another, similar, is The Fast Runner, which is entirely written and performed in Inuktitut, an Alaskan language (albeit not ancient), and set in the mythical past. Despite its awards, it’s virtually unknown outside indigenous and art-film circles. I did watch all of that one (and liked it), but it was a single movie, not a series.

(Yes, I’m aware of Apocalypto, but I consider that more an example of why you don’t make a film in a language people can’t understand. It’s in Yacatec Mayan, which is actually modern. In that, it’s not unlike the Inuktitut in The Fast Runner, but the latter works better, imo.)

If you want to make a movie that will be watched and understood by non-specialist, non-art-house audiences, you will have to use English (or whatever language of the country it’s being marketed to). And you’ll need to think some about dialogue. How “archaic” do you want to get? Too much authenticity can send viewers into fits of giggles…probably not the approach one is going for. 😊

That’s why, in Dancing with the Lion, I opted to utilize fairly modern dialogue, then pepper it with a bit of Greek here and there. 1) Words easy to figure out. (“Idou!” = “Look!” as in, “Look, I know you think I’m…”.) OR 2) words difficult to render into English without it sounding silly or overly Christianized. (“Oimoi!” = “Woe!” but equivalent to “Damn!” which evokes Christian ideas.) Not every reader liked my choice, mind, but that’s why I made it.

Other writers, such as several in the newly popular “modern takes on Greek myths” employ something more akin to Mary Renault’s slightly archaizing approach. It’s also been used by Judy Tarr and Jo Graham in their historical fantasies. I like that option too, it’s just not mine.

But I wouldn’t get too complicated, or you’ll confuse (and thus lose) your audience.

But coming back to the number one hurdle to film authenticity in costumes, sets, quality actors, and crew … MONEY. To do it especially well, it doesn’t just take a commitment to authenticity, but an enormous budget. Oliver Stone’s Alexander cost 155 million dollars. I expect you could to it for less than that, but everything from good costumes to rentals of multiple sets used once (like a theatre for Philip’s murder), to horses and stunt actors, to quality CGI…to decent (if not A-list) actors, writers, historical consultants (more than just one as none of us can do it ALL)—that costs. You’ve got to be the likes of Stone to get investors to pony up for that. He started talking about making it way back in the early ‘90s, and it took him to the early 2000s to get the money.

Unfortunately, absolute authenticity is expensive in a story as far-flung as Alexander’s. It’s what a lot of the critique of the Netflix show really doesn’t get. There are still issues with it that doesn’t owe to money, but multiple compromises were made due to a lack of funds.

If you wanted to do Alexander, it might make more sense NOT to try to do it all. Do a portion of his life. See how that sells, then investors might be willing to kick in more money. Inevitably, I think showrunners want to do too much at once.

[crimeronan]

(Biphobia anon) but then I realize that by saying "people who are vocal about disliking these ships are biphobic" i'm definitely following the same flawed logic (twisting likes and dislikes into an ethical debate). So yeah I'll try my best to embrace complexity and ambiguity in characters and media and accept people will have wildly differing readings of the same text 😌😌 sorry for sending you deranged anons with my stream of consciousness like im phoning into a local radio station

i actually don't think your other anon went through! but assuming it was about how people don't think luz is queer enough if she dates a boy..... yeah, it's not my favorite thing either. and in my experience it really just comes back to ship wars and feeling Threatened.

like, the reason i like amity/luz/hunter so much is because the three of them have SO MANY relationship parallels, it compels me eternally. and the way i think about them as a triad is way more in line with romantic shipping than nuclear family sibling constructs, even when i'm writing hunter as strictly platonic with both of them.

so i end up having more in common with monogamous luz/hunter shippers than monogamous luz/amity shippers, just bc we're both shipping non-canon stuff -- as long as those shippers don't attack amity for no reason. and i get wary of people who have Any kind of "luz/hunter is incest" stance because i'm like .....i recognize that you probably have some kind of personal experience factoring into your reading of the text, here. like i don't want to take you in bad faith immediately.

however.

i Do suspect that our personal experiences are..... sorta..... fundamentally incompatible.....

[wrishwrosh]

here’s the thing. the thing is im very picky and i think there are a lot of ways to do historical fiction badly but the worst way is to approach the past cynically

[have-you-read-this-short-fiction]

"Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™" is available to read here (NOTE: Submitter has added TWs for racism against indigenous Americans and alcoholism. Read at your own risk.)

[thehauntedrocket]

Vintage Magazine - Authentic Science Fiction (Dec1951) (UK)

[ancientroyalblood]

Writing Historical Fiction: Capturing the Past with Precision

Historical fiction, with its ability to transport readers to bygone eras, offers a captivating blend of storytelling and factual accuracy. As writers venture into recreating history, the challenge lies in capturing the essence of the past while weaving a compelling narrative. This guide aims to illuminate the intricate art of researching and crafting historically accurate fiction. Immersive…

[hawnks]

You know, I like to think that I can manage my language quirks pretty decently, but historical fiction specifically has had a profound effect on my primary cortex.

My cat just knocked something off the table and I shouted at him with no hesitation, “Your conduct is unbefitting of a gentleman!!!”

[acasestudyinstorytelling]

Writing prompts

• the garden gate

• a sail boat in northern waters

• an orange blossom where no orchard is near

• when the stars appear

• a field of heather

• a crushed rose

• hands stained with dye

• an old cobble path

• a cottage in the valley

• a flock of seagulls

• a pot of planted tulips

• hazy woods

• lily pad pond

• mossed stone steps

• a gravel road

• a Laurel crown

[malkaleh]

Sometimes I think about making a post about the Mizrahi Jewish Experience Of Getting Into The Tudors and then I don’t because well :/.

(inspired by post I just reblogged etc)

[jonmcbrine-author]

We all have stories we want to tell, and this was the book that floated in my brain since I was very young, and I’m happy to be able to share it with everyone.