A Lesson from History

[k_a_webb]

One thing I do my best to keep in mind when I’m writing is that history is written by the victors. My worlds have all have long histories that I’m exploring and I want to make certain that I write from the point of view of both sides, especially with the worlds I created. Then I also love thinking about how different things would be if certain things had been different, my favourite periods of UK history being the time of the Plantagenets and the Tudors – a time of great change when so many things may have gone another way, and that’s why I write AUs.

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>> One thing I do my best to keep in mind when I’m writing is that history is written by the victors. <<

That's true for history textbooks and most readily available books. However, it is possible to find some history books written by the losers, if you dig deep enough. I've got a good collection of titles by Native American authors, for instance. There's some good black history about slavery, including some preserved from that actual time period by slaves themselves. Japanese authors have written extensively about WWII.

It gives a very different perspective. Like, it will get you kicked out of a history class. *chuckle* But I learned a lot more history from the books on my father's shelves than I did in most history classes. Except Mr. Butler's Western Civ class, but then, he wrote his own handouts and taught me most of what I know about how to plot fiction by plotting history in flowcharts.

>>Then I also love thinking about how different things would be if certain things had been different<<

I've done a good deal of alternate history in nether-Earth, with The Steamsmith and The Arc of Joan. It's fun to see how the changes impact each other.