"IOHANNESRex has invited BAR0|\|z1215 to the "Runnymede" chatroom"

[dolorosa_12]

While pottering around on plantagenesta I came across this excellent article about the perils of writing historical fiction. But the funniest link has got to be to (IM)agna Carta. Check it out!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

That is an awesome article! I'm glad someone said that. The proliferation of strong, independent, feminist female characters standing up against the norms in historical fiction is something that irritates me. Well not just that but the intrusion of 21st century sensibilities, and the way that protagonists born and bred in those societies somehow are uninfluenced by the predominate ways of thinking. The author of that article put it a lot better though...

[(Anonymous)]

That was Catie by the way... I'm really bad at this :)
Also how annoying if history was conducted in a chat room- although funny.

[dolorosa-12.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's something I often remark on in my historical fiction reviews - that authors, in a mistaken desire to have main characters with whom their readers will 'identify' - make the women too liberated and the men less misogynistic. That being said, I hate reading books where the characters are completely unsympathetic. The way to go is to have your protagonist be slightly marginal for the times: Jewish, or illegitimate or something similar, so that he or she has more freedom to behave in an unconventional way.