How To Avoid Maligning Historical Persons (Guest Post)

Today, a brilliant guest post by my friend Ulrik Kristiansen! Thank you, Ulrik!

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How To Avoid Maligning Historical Persons

Some thoughts for historical non-fiction authors and biographers ... and thank you very much to Kathryn for allowing me to share them!

This post is based on a discussion that grew out of a brilliant interview I did with Kathryn about what life lessons we might learn from Edward's tumultuous reign - today.

Among other things, Kathryn and I talked in the interview about the countless fiction books and - more disturbingly - the non-fiction books - that portray Edward as a 'bad gay man', or effeminate, incompetent, cruel, etc. - the whole unsavory package.

Some of these books which then describe Edward like this to show him as the total opposite of the valorous, virile, heterosexual Mortimer.

In other words: The worse you portray Edward the better Mortimer looks. And vice versa. Oldest trick in the book - you see it in Hollywood movies all the time. The villain has to do something terrible to the heroine's family, for example. Then we can 'forget' that it is equally terrible that the 'heroine' murders 200 of the villain's henchmen or whoever else gets in her way, to get at the villain.

I won't comment on the homophobia and worse that might permeate some of the abovementioned descriptions of Edward, based on more or less flimsy 'facts' from 700 years ago. (I haven't read all the books but I take Kathryn's word for it. The stuff I have read is quite enough.)

But after I had written the entire article about everything we talked about I felt could add more value to Kathryn's blog than to my own if I took the parts of the discussion that had to do with WHY we so often want to write (and read) these 'black and white' stories about historical people ... and made that into a whole new article.

I hope you will think the same, for here it is:

The power of black and white

What are the consequences of writing about people as being mostly 'good' or mostly 'bad'?

Well, nothing really - in the short term. You might even end up selling more books. But I can give at least three good reasons why you should not. They will be up in a moment but they will be there with a catch. They are not easy to deliver on. In fact, they can come off as down-right nasty challenges if you deal with historical material that is often incomplete and, more importantly, you have the urge to see people who lived long ago as a mirror image of yourself or people of today.

I would like to confess that I am not entirely innocent here. It's so deep in us, this way of telling stories about people - painting them as either heroes or villains, or other archetypes (or stereotypes if you will). If in doubt, just take a moment and listen to what you and others talk about at the kitchen table - how easily you slip into: 'He totally nails it at marketing' - 'She's a total failure as a politician' - 'Moslems are violent, it's in their religion' - 'People who believe in God are childish' - 'People who don't believe in God are materialistic and selfish' - etc. - etc.. The black and white-characterization is also a storytelling model reinforced by 90 per cent of all fiction in film, literature, etc. No wonder it is so difficult to get around when we try to write good historical non-fiction. If you are a long-time reader of Kathryn's blog, you will know, what I am talking about. Even serious academics fall into this trap. I do myself all the time.

I'm guilty, too

Just recently I worked on an illustration for a website about the Incas my girlfriend and I have wanted to make for a long time. I drew Cura Occlo, an Inca coya - or queen/empress, as she would be in Europa. She was one of the last Inca 'queens' and she suffered a grim fate, being captured and killed by the Spanish conquistadors while her husband led a rebellion against them.

When I drew the picture I could only think of drawing her as some sympathetic victim-like figure, robbed unfairly of her life and youth by what we would see as a criminal act today, and that's also what I felt compelled to use as an angle for the article that was to accompany the picture. Horrible as Cura Occlo's death was 500 years ago, I got ... second thoughts about my first angle in writing about her fate - after having put the drawing aside for awhile.

For example, she wasn't necessarily as innocent as I felt compelled to portray her as, on the first hunch. Her husband, Manco Inca, brutally killed and executed his enemies just like the Spaniards did. It was war. It was a different time. Did I really believe this Inca queen went along in her own little world, not knowing about or condoning at least some of all this brutality around her?

I doubt it, but I can never know for sure, of course ... The sources we have about this particular woman are scarce and to a large extent contradictory and biased, just like most other material from the Conquest of the Americas (written by Spaniards to justify it or by indigenous people later on to decry it).

Anyway, I'm sure you can see some similarities here ...

... if not, how about writing about a very spe-shul beautiful queen of 14th century England as if she is an innocent pure-hearted and largely passive victim of a cruel fop-gay husband and his chamberlain-lover?

Hypothetical example, of course ... :-)

The point is that all of the aforementioned are stories based on stereotype humans who are mostly either good or bad, victims or victimizers. No real humans. Story-humans.

And I find myself being drawn to these archetypical stories, too - all the time! Even if I know they are not really true.

I don't believe you can entirely escape this attraction to storytelling. Everyone certainly has an agenda. (Kathryn's agenda, fortunately, is primarily about destroying myths in order to give a more balanced picture of Edward.)

But I'm not even talking agenda here - I'm talking more about this deep, deep structure in our minds that's almost magnetic. The grooves in our minds that affect how we see the world.

We want so often to fit people into little boxes in certain shapes, don't we? It's how we make sense of the world, I will argue. A natural thing.

There's a lot of fancy psychology terms behind these observations, but suffice to say you will just have to follow me in this or go read a tabloid instead (or something equally substantial). If you are here, you are probably a fan of Kathryn's work, as I am, and so I think you will stay. I hope so.

3 suggestions for telling stories about real people

So ... are you planning on doing a historical bio yourself?

Do you have some past history person - Medieval or otherwise - you really fancy? (Or love to hate?).

Maybe you are already an accomplished author and follow Kathryn's blog just out of interest for the period or because you dig it when Kathryn slams some less-fortunate-author's work about Edward II (and well-deserved, too - I've seen no examples to the contrary)?

In that case, I'd like to give you a recipe on how you might avoid the worst story-traps in your bio about King X or Queen Y.

And the best of it all is, you don't even need to be afraid that this is going to cost you. You are going to be able to write an exciting non-fiction bio - even if you hold yourself to  standard that doesn't allow for black villainous kings or white-hearted queens.

In fact, I don't think you will have anything but benefits from this approach. But with each benefit also comes a challenge - some hard work. Sorry - but nothing is for free, especially not integrity.

And with that said, here are my suggestions for a good approach to writing historical bios:

1) Do it to make peace - not to pick a fight

Yes, this may sound a little new age psycho-babble-ish, but my assertion here is that you will realize it gives more peace inside to try to diminish how many 'enemies' or 'failures' you see amongst other people. In other words, the less you look for things that can piss you off about others and the more you try to understand why people act 'like idiots', the less frustrated you will be. It is easier to forgive, ignore or bear with someone you understand, although you don't agree with him or her.

You must then strive to push your biographical storytelling - in fiction and non-fiction - in the same direction of understanding, otherwise there will be a disconnect between the way you treat people you write about and the way you treat people in the real world. It's a bit like being a troll on Facebook - it's hard to maintain that attitude and rant against some people and then go out and have a harmonic relation with your family or your spouse.

Sooner or later that urge to kick whoever annoys you will shine through into the real world. You might as well deal with it and try to cultivate a harmonic view of everyone - past or present. You can't really separate these people. I know it's another cliché but if you, say, really have a problem with Edward being a homo (or whatever he was) then you're not going to do well in the real world when you meet people who are just that and who you might need to relate to more peacefully: A boss, a family member, a friend who comes out, whatever.

Okay, enough psycho-babble - but I hope you get my drift: Your choice of biographical subject and how you treat it to a large extent a reflection of how you feel about yourself and other people - who you love and who you loathe. You might as well try to iron these feelings out, both in your bio, and in real life - instead of choosing to magnify them through writing a book about someone you paint as a real idiot/villain/schlock/etc. Trust me, when you get as old as I sometimes feel, you don't want to waste too much time delving in negativity. Not even in what you write.

2) Do it to get new insights

High quality non-fiction is about discussing the complexity of reality in an exciting way (with notes so people can see how you put your argument together). It is NOT about reducing complexity of reality in the mistaken belief that that will always be more exciting.

You are never finished with upping your writing quality in this department. You can always go back and do more. Yes, of course there is a deadline now and then, but it's an ideal, okay? What it means in practice is that you treat biographical writing as a science, so you are open to someone down the line proving you wrong about something - with arguments. You don't struggle forever to maintain a viewpoint you spend so many hours arguing into a text 3 years ago, if it is no longer tenable.

Yes, I know there isn't an absolute yardstick for when something is true or not. But there is a warning light: When you find yourself continually defending the status quo of your view points. That means you are probably not doing a good enough job trying to unveil the reality about a person. You are becoming stuck in your own reality.

3) Do it to educate people for real

- and not just trying to force your viewpoint on them. If you are in doubt about whether or not you have given people a choice in deciding what to believe in your biography ... you probably haven't.

And that's my advice really. Short and sweet.

Then inevitably comes the question ... "how"?

What should you do then if you are writing a book about your favorite historical period and its participants, and there are just long periods when you don't know what happened in people's lives for sure, or why they did something for sure? Well, in the case of Edward it is seems tempting to tell a  very particular story, although you don't have the evidence to back it up. So what do you do to fill in the blanks? For that will inevitably veer your story in a certain direction. You will have to decide what your character did and why and if you want your audience to like him or not.

Alternatively, do you hold back and instead write a lot of times: "we don't really know" - ?

In other words: How do you avoid that your narrative becomes ... dull?

How about ...

Treating your bio-story as a mystery

If you treat the possible options of what has happened and why as a mystery - and as regards interpreting actions of your characters especially - then that can, I will argue, be just as gratifying as anything else. It can be just as exciting as choosing a straight-forward narrative.

Like choosing:

Option 1: "Why did Edward really neglect Isabella - if at all?"

vs.

Option 2: "Edward neglected Isabella because he was an egoistic, gay man."

Your reader is with option 1 presented with different possibilities and can make her own narrative - but no attempt from your side is made to force your own story on the material! You argue your case - you don't shove it down someone's throat!

Yes, make an argument into the story in your non-fiction book. That's what he wrote.

Don't make a badly disguised fiction story that you wish for - or hope will be more entertaining, because you can't think of alternatives.

There are always alternatives.

Why should the 'mystery story' be less exciting to your audience - unless you don't care about them but only about feeding them your own truth?

So try to tell the captivating story effectively - and maintain high degree of honesty - by discussing multiple options for what the protagonists and antagonists may have thought. Or what they may have felt. Or how they may have related to each other.

If you can't really back your speculations up - discuss them!

Then you can make an argument for your case but allow the reader to choose his or her favored conclusion based on the options you have lead forth.

Note: The basic neutrality of this kind of (very challenging) storytelling is not the same as giving equal treatment to all facts, trying to balance them out so to speak.

If, for example, Edward dabbled in modern pastimes such as rowing and sports and outdoor life, mingled with commoners, took a genuine interest in furthering knowledge and had a more or less open bisexuality that doesn't mean it was just as important as him going to war (and losing it). It also makes for a stiff and boring narrative, should you try to give equal room in pages to both, or anything in line with that model.  (Luckily, Kathryn hasn't done that and hers is an example to be emulated!)

But each case is different. Each topic is different. Your knowledge is different. The available data. You will have to weigh how much space to give each aspect of a story. As you do so you inevitably call attention to what can be interpreted as moral qualities (or lack thereof) in your main characters. As we have already discussed, modern audiences are hungry to fit people into certain preconceived frames - stories with clear cut heroes and villains. Most people like those better than ambiguity.

Walking the talk

I will end this guest post by giving a personal example of how I try to do exactly what I have been describing above, when I tell stories about historical persons. I'm not saying I am doing it perfectly, only that I am trying to be very much aware of what I am doing and of living up to this ideal.

So ... I recently finalized my latest live-talk about fascinating historical persons and this time I chose to talk about Christopher Columbus. It is a 1.5 hour talk for a broad audience. I gave it recently for school children. Next month I will be giving a slightly adjusted version for seniors.

In my last two talks - about Joan of Arc and Eleanor of Aquitaine respectively - I've struggled to find a compromise between the short time, keeping an exciting straightforward narrative free of too much ambiguity and still giving a balanced picture of who these persons really were (as far as we can ever know - both ladies lived a very long time ago!).

Anyway, did I give myself a challenge with Christopher Columbus! Up until about World War II that man was a hero to many, regular folks and scholars - but as we closed in on the end of the last millennium he has become quite the opposite to many: Accused of everything from starting slavery, to genocide to being a religious nut to just being a plain idiot for not being able to find India. Bottom line: It's very easy to fall into either the 'no, he was really a hero-story or the 'he was definitely a villain'-story.

I don't want to see Columbus as a 'villain', but he was hardly a 'hero' either - in modern terms. He was a man of his time who thought slavery and subjugation of 'lesser (non-Christian) peoples' was all right - at least to a degree.

Oh, Columbus tried to fiddle a little bit with the criteria, such as at one point entertaining the notion that only cannibals should be enslaved. In the end, though, Columbus' inner urge to become rich and famous - a 'someone' - coupled with his need to placate the local colonists and deliver on the promises made to the Spanish crown for bringing SOME value home from the new islands ... all of that made it extremely difficult to maintain any ideals, he may have had about treating at least some Indians with benevolence. And heads rolled. In the end, it was almost Columbus' own when he was 'fired' as administrator of Hispaniola and sent home in chains.

I thought I could try to draw attention away from Columbus' violent actions by :

- talking about how much worse every other colonist had been

- talking down the extent of the violence

- or trying to divert the discussion to his religiousness and avowed goal to get gold enough to finance a new crusade (a motivation both dubious in its 'purity' and not particularly sympathetic in our part of the world today anyway)

But then I thought ... why not just admit it?

Like: Columbus wasn't as bad as they came in 1492, but compared to 2015 he wasn't particularly likable either.

I hesitated, though - for how could I then make an audience of children with their parents - and later seniors - see something likable about Columbus? So they would want to listen to a story about him for 2 hours?

Yup, first task for any storyteller: Create a person people can like, even if just a little bit. Or the audience won't care what happens to him or her. And that goes for biographers, too, no matter how 'objective' they say they strive to be.

So (deep breath) ... I did it by connecting Columbus' quest to get rich and famous and the gradual slipping of ideals to the modern quest to become ... rich and famous.

Sure, the means were different and perhaps also the definition of 'rich and famous'. But isn't there something here we can recognize today - something very human that we can see in our own lives ... say, in our interest in 'the stars' (especially when their fall 'from grace' in the tabloids)?

Isn't there something here that we may not particularly like but we can at least recognize enough from our own lives? Something that can help us to understand Columbus a little bit for being a seeker of fame and fortune himself - in his own time?

So far - and judging from the response of my audiences - the answer is 'yes'.

And by approaching it this way, we are over the idiotic discussion about whether or not Columbus deserves to be a called a 'hero' still for his admittedly courageous exploration expeditions, or if he was somehow singlehandedly responsible for the genocide on the American Indians. It's not longer about black or white but about people - in all their colors and shades.

The people of the past may be distant mirrors of ourselves, like historian Barbara Tuchman wrote, also the title of her book about - guess what - the 14th century. The mirror image may be distorted because of the distance in time and living conditions and social values - but we can still recognize a part of ourselves in it.

Perhaps one day someone will write a history book about a certain failed English king called Edward of Caernarfon in which he is not just shown as an effeminate wife-hating politically tone-deaf ruler, but as a man with both vices and virtues that perhaps aren't so foreign to us today.

Wait ... someone already did! :-)

Read more:

The fantastic interview I did with Kathryn(mp3-download)

The article that came out of it for my Life Story Lessons site - StoryMover.Academy:

"Life Story Lessons from the Epic Fail of Kings"

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My own ultra-short kind of bio: My name is Ulrik Kristiansen and I am a blogger, speaker and coach who is very much in love with all things Medieval - including anything as regards 14th century England. If you are in Denmark you might want to invite me to tell you about Joan of Arc, Eleanor of Aquitaine or Christopher Columbus all of whom I have made some pretty nifty live-talks about - see astrea.dk.  And if you just want to read some of all my other stuff, there's always the personal blog: TheStorm Lamp

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That's it - thanks for reading and thanks for having me, Kathryn. Drop a comment below and tell us what you think!