Alt History

[clarentine]

[so]...I'm posting a new journal entry.

If you were writing an alternate history story, would you feel obligated to make the point at which your story diverges an important point in the plot of that story?

If, for instance, instead of shooting Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth shoots Mrs. Lincoln, would your story revolve around a historical difference directly attributable to that historical change?

I don't mean that the story should pick up immediately after the event. Rather, my question involves the effects of the historical anomaly. You could write about Lincoln's grandchild and the effect the shooting had on him...

...or would such a plot requirement seem, to you, unnecessary? Do you regard the historical underpinning as no more than setting?

As you might have guessed, my current set of subs on the OWW workshop is an alt history "short" (well, it's something like 14k long, but it's still not a novel), and I'm having a hell of a time figuring out why my subconscious/muse flogged me into writing this, and rewriting it, and combining two shorts into one, and rewriting that.

Gene Spears, an OWW friend and a dab hand with the alt history pen, thus far seems to like the way the story's put together. I still think it's lacking something (like a decent, coherent opening and ending). I need to spend some more time thinking about what the story is supposed to be saying, I guess.

Comments

alt.history.org

[docdad2.livejournal.com]

For me, the alt history stories that work best for me seem to have the divergent point mentioned as an aside in a background conversation. In the setting you describe above, your character might have a quirk that friends attribute to his mother/grandmother's murder (not assasination). Everthing else procedes as you would expect. Who would have noticed George Washington's mother's death? and yet, how different would our life be if she had died Before George's birth? Would her death be noteworthing in that setting?
TOO MUCH RAIN here in the NE.

Re: alt.history.org

[clarentine]

(We did finally get some rain, about 5 inches in two days, but that's not even a patch on what you folks have gotten. Condolences on the loss of trees on the hillside.)

What I'm trying to get at with regard to alt history is this: if you're not going to make the changes to the alternate timeline relevant to your plot, should you bother making it an alt history at all?

If the historical diversion isn't present in your story in some fashion, is it even alt history?

[corrinalaw.livejournal.com]

I agree that I tend to like alternate history best with the inciting event as backstory. My favorite alternate history story is Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy series. The divergent event there is about 700 years old, with Richard III surviving the wound that killed him in our history and being succeeded not by Evil Prince John but by his nephew Arthur. The discovering of magic is thrown in about the same time period as well.

The Lord Darcy stories take place at approximately our contemporary time. (Well, contemporary to when the books were written.)

[clarentine]

I really enjoyed that series.

And here's where my question collides with my theorizing: I couldn't have told you, now, what the divergent part of the Darcy stories was. Other than the fact that they have magic and technology side by side, that is. Clearly, in the case of Darcy, the divergent point was not necessary to the plot. (It may have been worked in and I just forgot about it; you remember it, after all.)

Hmm.

[corrinalaw.livejournal.com]

I remember it because I'm a huge nut for the English royal family in medieval times. Lots of great stories, there. In our reality, poor nephew Arthur was captured and murdered by King John. In our reality, Richard Lionheart was a putz who used England as a cash cow. You want to like him for the military skill but.....

Anyway, it was nice to see Garrett give him a fictional redemption. Plus, it is woven into the plotline--a royal Plantagent Duke is Darcy's direct boss. In our reality, the Plantagents dynasty ended with Richard III of Shakespeare fame.