The Finagling Art of Historical Fiction

Historical fiction is a sub-genre of fiction, not history, since it often portrays fictional accounts or dramatization of historical figures or events. Historical fiction presents readers with stories that take place during a notable period in history and usually during a significant event in that period. Historical fictionists misrepresent historical "fact" in an attempt to achieve a certain artistic effect: to capture the social and cultural conditions of the people in a given time, with particular attention paid to accurate contemporary details often ignored by historians. This paper explores reasons why writers of historical fiction employ certain tactics when they write, such as lying and manipulating. Finagling an audience ties directly into Brown and Levinson's definition of Negative Face and so this paper also explores the intersection of B/L's politeness theory and creative writing, specifically how the relationship that exists between interlocutors in oral communication mirrors the same relationship between author and reader in creative fiction.