I'm gearing up to write a Roman-era historical fiction -- it is still in the preliminary stages, but I've got the majority of the arc outlined and have been shaping up the structure. Thus I have zero expertise, but I will write a bit on the topic anyway.

What are the pitfalls of including historical personalities in your work, versus inventing a fictional character, or creating a character who is a pastiche of multiple historical persons?

I struggled mightily with this at first. For instance, I had originally planned to include Lucius Cornelius Sulla as a frequent recurring character, but found it very very difficult to "get into his head," despite the relative wealth of information we have on him and his actions. Like most human beings, it turns out that his motivations seem to be much more complicated than Plutarch might have you believe. He is alternately arrogant and humble, violent and gentle, reckless and calculating. In the end, I found it more suitable and more enjoyable to find an historical figure about which we know very little, and then to fill out that personality. I then use that character to observe Sulla from the outside. I then found that my new, semi-historical figure was the real heart of the narrative, and the whole direction changed. I think that often, the most interesting stories are those told from the perspective of those on the sidelines of major events, not in their midst, and I had that a little wrong at the outset.

As writers, how do you balance creating characters that will resonate with readers against conveying the foreignness of the past?

From my very limited experience, this is a non-issue, at least for this time period. People are people in all periods, and the basic human aspects of characters are not hard to root out. For example, what does Alexander think and feel as Persepolis burns? Is it melancholy? Is it drunken glee? Is it satisfaction (because he has avenged the burning of the Athenian Acropolis in 480)? Any one of these are perfectly accessible to an audience, I think. The "foreignness of the past" layers on top of these basic human motivations and can only make the character more interesting, hopefully.

Is writing Historical Fiction the same process as "doing history"? Does it draw on the same research and analytical skills?

I guess this varies from person to person, but for myself, I feel that I must at least make an attempt to respect the historical record when it is available and well-sourced. I don't feel like I have the luxury of ignoring an event or detail if it is well-established, though that is a little silly if you think about it. It's my book and I can make Sulla ride a unicorn over the walls of Athens in 86 if I want to. But for me, at least, I can't do that. Athens will burn in 86 BCE, but I have the leeway to insert fictional characters into and around that event to experience and react to it as I see fit. I think you must have a decent historical grasp on your time period if you want to write historical fiction, as obvious as that sounds. You have to know how your characters, real or fictional, would react to and interact with the world surrounding them. When I tried to insert a Lusitanian character into my story, I quickly realized that I knew nothing about Lusitania or its people in the 1st century BCE. I thus had no way to make that character behave in a compelling way as a "Lusitanian" and not just a human. The character started to feel very flat, whereas my Romans seemed so much more vivid. I guess the hard truth is that writing historical fiction requires as much if not even more research and due diligence as "doing history," but with the license of being able to bend or flat out invent the truth.

I am still in the outline - planning stage for a novel on the last days of the Ming Dynasty. I plan to make it a multi-character-POV thing, and I expect the book may end up to be 500+ pages long.

1. As for the pitfalls of including historical personalities...I can't really answer that question because I am having trouble to even do that. All the sources on this subject, regarding the characters, are hugely biased. Wu Sangui, a POV character in my book, was always portrayed as a greedy, cowardly little piece of crap, with no sense of belonging or loyalty. Kind of hard to structure a character around this kind of history. I have to, to a large extent, develop the characters according to my own interpretation, which isn't very historical I know :(

2. Creating characters that will resonate with readers? I think all major players at the end of the Ming Dynasty were quite "human" and understandable. Their struggles were very overt, and this will especially be highlighted given I am doing the multiple POV method.

3. I do not keep up with the latest academic literature about that era. Modern Chinese studies on the matter tend to be quite unprofessional and offer little insight or information on what had previously not been revealed. I have yet to discover a continuous stream of Western studies on the fall of Ming. My historical method is quite bad, actually, as I rely too much on two sources alone: Ming Shi and Qing Shi. Some other sources that have helped me are more opinion-based tertiary sources.

4. I do not think history and fiction are exactly comparable. The history fiction that I have been exposed to are largely very, very no-no when it came to research & analysis, so I also tend to include a huge amount of personal bias when it comes to writing historical fiction. I think that historical fiction should be all about the author's own attempt to recreate and present a moment in history according to the author's own interpretation. Forgot what it was called, but a very well-written and popular series on Caesar's life portrayed Brutus...as his die-hard childhood friend. But whatever man. Whatever keeps the reader reading, and keeps the story from spinning.

5. The events pertaining to my book do not really loom large in the public consciousness haha. It is more about me trying to bring it to the public consciousness.

I am trying to write a novel series about the rise and fall of the Theban Hegemony, from the Spartan take over of Thebes in 382 BC to the death of Epaminondas 20 years later at the Battle of Mantinea. The main characters are Pelopidas, Charon, and Epaminondas himself.

What are the pitfalls of including historical personalities in your work, versus inventing a fictional character, or creating a character who is a pastiche of multiple historical persons?

For the historical characters, thanks to sources it is often easy for me to imagine the (possible/plausible) reasons and context for their actions. That of course means they at least have to match the historical characters did. Fictional characters, or characters we know too little about, offer a lot of freedom but it's often harder to try to try to imagine where they would fit in everything.

I have seen a lot of stories that combine historical personalities into one. My observation is that it makes for a more heroic hero (or a more villainous villain). I do not want to do that because I want all my characters to be flawed and the story complicated, but I can see how it could be useful. Also a big reason for combining historical persons is simply the large number of names in a given story that gets too confusing for readers to keep track of. Fortunately for me we actually have too few names in the records for my story.

As writers, how do you balance creating characters that will resonate with readers against conveying the foreignness of the past?

The way I have done it (I just started though, still on Chapter 1) is to have the characters convey scientific knowledge and worldview that is obviously erroneous, while facing more relatable personal and relationship problems (or at least putting the problems into a lens that modern audiences could better understand).

However one thing I believe I will struggle with is how to portray an actual difference in the way people think, an actual cultural difference. A person who take omens in the sky seriously would be ridiculed by modern audiences but would be the norm back them. Likewise warring, expanding power, killing and looting your enemy and such would be regarded as warmongering by today's audiences but back then was the norm, and even heroic if you were successful. How could I get (for example) a warmongering, omen believing character to be the hero is a big question for me. Lots of fictions copt out and instead have the hero be a peace-loving and dismissing omens. But for my story at least I don't want to make all my heroes like that, and for those who are like that I want to make it clear it would still be confined to the cultural context and would be a bit unusual and, very importantly, not necessarily right.

When writing about a specific era, do you make an effort to keep up with the latest academic literature about that era or topic?

Oh hell yes. That's why I am here a lot and have a few books on the era. Special mention to /u/Iphikrates who had been a great help.

Is writing Historical Fiction the same process as "doing history"? Does it draw on the same research and analytical skills?

While similar, I think it's different. After going through university, I found myself when explaining history having to preface a lot, and say it's maybe, conjecture, actually, but... In fiction though, I don't have to. From reading the research I find a lot of historians are trying to work out with the evidence what is most plausible. But for me personally, if it fits in the story I tell I can stop at possible and doesn't contradict the records. I feel like historians are detectives, trying to find as much evidence as possible and build a case from it. I on the other hand is more like a psychologist, trying to humanize the cases historians already built.

How do authors approach major historical events, or ones that loom large in the public consciousness (e.g. World War 2, Kennedy assassination, etc)?

Being brought up on historical dramas of East Asia, what usually happens is the topic is chosen or approached in a way that resonates with audiences. The subject matter is on location to an important contemporary event, or the hero is portrayed in a way that audiences wish to have right now. I on the other hand, want to write with an overarching theme of human nature/foreign policy problem that is still unsolved to this day, bring it to the audience's attention and challenge them to think for themselves and question "was what the heroes did actually in the right?"

Alternately, anyone got any good historical fiction to recommend?

At one point I was working on a series of short stories set in the Russian Civil War. One of the nice things about working exclusively with everyday people in a conflict most English speakers know absolutely nothing about is not having to worry a lot about strict historical accuracy. I mean, I just can't imagine your average American reader calling out some finicky timeline issue with that conflict. And when your writing style is less gritty realism and more (one hopes) Gentleman of the Road, what reader even expects that? Still, one reason that the project stalled is that I found the real anecdotes I adapted to my characters more compelling than the ones created from whole cloth. Whether you're ultimately going for realism or not, I definitely find that story-telling comes out much more vivid and richly textured when it's coming from a well-informed background, and I clearly wasn't there. Maybe one day when I don't have a toddler wanting to join in every time I sit down to read I'll finally feel prepared to circle back around to it. I hope so.

As seen by my many questions about the Queen Anne's War in previous questions on this sub, I am trying to write a novel set in the final years of the Queen Anne's War. The conflict will be about a good-hearted pirate (we'll call him CF, 'cause those are his initials) who plans to unite other pirates to try and rebuild Nassau after several Spanish-Franco attacks, while also striving to become an independent colony away from any dangers of the British, Spanish, or French powers and military/navy might.

I am very deep into the research part, even for historical fiction, research takes up much more time than the actual story writing.

What are the pitfalls of including historical personalities in your work, versus inventing a fictional character, or creating a character who is a pastiche of multiple historical persons?

Pitfalls of including historical personalities in your work ; I could say expressing the personalities of several pirate characters in my story can be quite difficult, as pirates during the GAOP were just criminals fighting for themselves and profit, not as freedom fighters or anything else for a good cause. It would be quite a challenge to blend in the good-cause personalities and beliefs of my piratical characters into a world filled with men who pillaged, raped and murdered for the hell of it, and didn't have other priorities higher than women or rum.

versus inventing a fictional character ; This part is where as a historical fiction writer, I really don't want to be too one-sided for what CF believes in (what's good, what's bad, what he wants, etc.) for the sake of making a likable character. CF's personality will reflect on his ethnic origins and his earlier choices in life. For his historical personality, it won't be like a regular pirate at the time ; he respects women, and people of other ethnic origins, he knows how to be a good leader and how to help out others, he tries to help the people as much as possible while also trying to profit for himself and his crew. This is the fun part of making his personality as it would basically affect the course of the story, the pirates involved, and even the course of GAOP history (so, basically a little bit of alternate history, I get to that in the next few questions).

When writing about a specific era, do you make an effort to keep up with the latest academic literature about that era or topic?

The specific era my story is set in -- the QAW (Queen Anne's War) -- is next to impossible to keep up with any of the latest academic literature about it, because there basically isn't any. sources from the recent past (at least a few years ago) I find are very good in depicting the history of the QAW.

Is writing Historical Fiction the same process as "doing history"? Does it draw on the same research and analytical skills?

I really want to be able to find out what people, ships, clothes, weapons, architecture, whatever, in the Caribbean during the QAW looked like. Therefore, when I'm finished doing that research, I feel like I will be comfortable enough to play with the real history of this era/topic. In a way, my story will involve some alternate history, but not too much that it's going to affect the real history ridiculously. What I mean by my historical fiction story having a bit of alternate history, I mean things will be exaggerated from that era. I wouldn't completely flip the tables of real-life events, because in a way it kind of ruins the immersion of real life events that happened in this era that I trying to keep historically accurate in.

How do authors approach major historical events, or ones that loom large in the public consciousness (e.g. World War 2, Kennedy assassination, etc)?

With my story taking place in the final years of the QAW, my research has shown me no major historical events taking place (other than the Treaty, obviously). How I approach major historical events/ ones that loom large in the public consciousness? I try to acknowledge them as much as I can in my story through the characters ; some characters will be involved, others will have known *"Hey, [this event] has happened lately" and some relevance will be made in the story. I also try to make them as relevant as possible to story, not just "Hey look at me! I am [this historical event]".