Accuracy in Fiction - Where to Draw the Line

One of the most fun things about having a book release these days is the #bookstagram world. So many book lovers make gorgeous collages with my book cover - like this one from Reading Between the Wines Book Club - and then tag me on Instagram. With THE ORCHID THRONE, I'm getting all kinds of beautiful orchids and it rocks so hard!

The hubs and I have been watching Reign on Netflix - from the beginning as we'd never seen it - and we're a few episodes into Season One. I realize I'm late to the game on this, as the show ran from 2013 to 2017. But I've seen so many people - like my editor Jennie Conway at St Martins - who just LOVE this show, that I wanted to check it out. 

And I get the appeal. 

This is the story of Mary, Queen of Scots, starting with her arrival as a fifteen year old to the French Court, where she's to marry Prince Francis. The history is familiar to most of us, kind of like watching an extended show about the Titanic - we know where this is going. And, of course, they take liberties with the narrative. Mary has her four ladies-in-waiting, making for a group of lovely, randy, and ambitious young women in the French Court. But where in history the four young women were all also named "Mary," modern viewers are spared the headache and they all have different names. They all have various love affairs, too, including with the French King Henry. 

It's basically a soap opera, a teen love and angst fest only historical. Which means gorgeous clothes! And swords! And cool political machinations. (I love Queen Catherine of Medici.)

There are also a LOT of historical inaccuracies, as one must expect. Characters have been created out of whole cloth. (Amusingly enough, some commenters list them as "goofs," and I want to ask them if they know that the show is fiction.) For the most part, I'm fine with the fictionalizing.

The ones that get under my particular skin are the ways Mary's ladies in waiting are snarky to her. The dynamic is solidly high school and the hubs and I are forever pausing and saying "No way she'd say that to her queen." But it lends to the dynamic and the drama, which makes it fun to watch.

The thing is, in telling historical and historical-feeling fantasy, we have to make choices. We want to create an accurate-feeling world, but also be true to the demands of Story. In my Twelve Kingdoms and Uncharted Realms books, I deliberately blur the lines with my High Queen Ursula. With her sisters, then her lover, and then a few friends, she begins to unbend. But she's always and ultimately High Queen - and that affects everything in her life.  

In THE ORCHID THRONE, I went to great effort to separate Queen Euthalia from even her closest ladies. That's part of who she is. She's been raised to be a queen and that weight of responsibility - and the formality her position brings - never leaves her. Though part of her character arc is peeling away her mask and exposing the vulnerable person beneath. 

In writing about the lives of rulers - whether created characters or fictionalizing historical ones - we want to create credible pressures, while still satisfying that story itch. Grace Draven and I were chatting about this and she mentioned something interesting. She said, "I did have some readers who thought Ildiko was being unnecessarily cruel to Brishen [in EIDOLON] by suggesting he put her aside in favor of a Kai consort. I was like 'Folks, that's how this kind of thing works. Look into history. It happened. Harold and Edith Swan Neck are a great example of a monarch having to set aside a beloved consort in favor of a political marriage to save a kingdom.'" 

I encountered this, too, with THE MARK OF THE TALA, where some readers felt my heroine Andi was forced into having sex with her new husband, where I felt she made the choice consciously. Yes, she wed her enemy, but she did it with the full intention of being his wife, because that was part of her responsibility as a princess and then a queen. (Besides, she was totally into him ;-) ) 

In the end, I think we all make choices to balance story drama with enough real-life truth to make the characters feel true. 

The Godparents: Jeffe's Top Five Influences as a Writer

We're heading into the last week of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) Fantasy Storybundle. The theme is "Kickass Heroines" and this is such a kickass collection. I was one of the first to download it, even though my own book is in it, and I've read a couple of others. So many fantastic books for an amazing price.

The Bundle was curated by Terry Mixon who says:

SFWA is over 50 years old and its membership consists of professional writers and publishing professionals from around the globe. It administers the Nebula Awards each year, and so very much more. It was a real pleasure reading the submissions from SFWA members this year and, as every year, we had a rough time narrowing the selection to just a few books. We think you'll be delighted as there is something for everyone in this great bundle.

 • The Arrows of the Heart by Jeffe Kennedy. What do you do when your boyfriend is an animal? Really. An animal.

 • The Twenty-Sided Sorceress, Books 1-3 by Annie Bellet. Gamer. Nerd. Sorceress. After twenty-five years fleeing from a powerful sorcerer, a mostly-human woman is finally safe – if she can resist using her magic. Or can she?

 • The Dragon Blood Collection, Books 1-3 by Lindsay Buroker. A dashing pilot, a comely sorceress, and a smart-mouthed soulsword all come together in a world intent on killing them.

 • Radiance by Grace Draven. A marriage between alien kingdoms – and two "spares" who find beauty in each other, and that heroism comes in many forms.

 • Ashwin by Kit Rocha. Can a genetically manipulated soldier be a hero? A healer finds a way to love a man without feelings—and fight for brightness in a dark world.

 • The Raven and the Reindeer by Ursula Vernon. An enthralling remix of a classic fairy tale, with a practical heroine who follows her heart to a very different ending.

There are more than those, too. Check out the deal here. 

*****
Our topic this week at the SFF Seven is "The Godparents: Your top five influences as a writer."

At least the person who suggested this one is letting me have five?

This isn't the definitive list, but it does come pretty close to encapsulating my major influences. These are the authors I not only love, but who influenced the way I write.

Tanith Lee

Anne McCaffrey

Patricia McKillip

Robin McKinley

Anne Rice

I linked to the best pages I could find for each (avoiding Wikipedia if possible). Sadly Tanith Lee and Anne McCaffrey are both dead now. I have no idea why three of them are "Mc" names - except that perhaps I identify with the Celtic voice, and they would've all been shelved close together. This goes beyond discoverability, however, as I started reading Robin McKinley much later.

All of these women write vividly sensual fantasy with women who are the front and center heroes of their own journeys. (With Anne Rice, it depends on the book.) They all created worlds I wanted to live in, presented complex interpersonal relationships, and explored shades of morality in fascinating ways.

They have been wonderful Godmothers to me, one and all.

Cold Outside - Flash Fiction for the Frozen

     Fire painted the stone walls of the throne room red. Corva Frostmache stood before her mother's throne, surrounded armed men. Dortel, the self-styled lord of the clan, sat forward, studying her, a hint of triumph in his too wide smile.
     "The charge is sedition, Corva," he said. "How do you plead?"
     "You sit upon the throne of the clans, my mother's rightful place, and you ask that question? The Gods strike you down for the murder of the queen and for usurping her throne," she replied.
     "Enough." Dortel waved a plump sausage of a hand and sat back. "Put her out."
     Elmat, a wizened skeleton of an advisor, hesitated, looking between Corva and his lord. "Sir. The vote."
     "Am I not lord here? There will be no vote. Put her out."
     "It's the frost moon!" the older man protested. "The cold . . ."
     Dortel's self-satisfied smile turned Corva's stomach. "Mayhap the cold will cool Corva's temper and her attempts to stir up treason."
     Her fists clenched. "We are the Frostmache. Justice is our call."
     "You were the Frostmache," he corrected. "A new age has come. No more will our mothers rule our clans. The might of our arms will bring riches and new glory to our age. . . Damn your plucking at my sleeve, old man! What do you want?"
     "You sought my wisdom, sir," Elmat said.
     "Speak it, then!"
     "You are young, yet. Much has been forgotten. Legend says the Forstmache draw their power from winter itself. If you mean to stamp out the line, you would do well to cut this one down where she stands."
     "This is your advice? Fairy tales and the means to make a martyr of her?" Dortal demanded. "You're older than I thought. You would give a rallying cry to those mired in a past swept away."
     "By your brutality," Corva said.
     "I will not sully the edge of my blade with her blood," he spat. "Get out and die, witch. We'll seek your corpse for burial come the thaw."
     The huge, iron-banded oak doors boomed. Snow and razor sharp crystals of ice snarled in on the wail of the wind.
     Corva lifted her chin lifted and strode for the door the usurper's soldiers held.
     Elmat met her at the door, a frown upon his lips that deepened the furrows already plowed across his brow. He held out a hand.
     A single coal from the hall fire. That much tradition they'd observe?
     Corva sneered. "Keep your pity, old fool."
     His frown deepened and he thrust the warm clay holder into her hand. "It's cold outside."
     She nodded. "Your wisdom is wasted when you speak it to one who will not hear. Cold you say? I'm counting on it."