Historical fantasy and dealing with facts

Photo by Masaaki Komori on Unsplash

My series, Tales of Yamato, has been my first real attempt at writing historical fantasy. It wasn’t something I chose, but rather fell into by semi-accident. And because of that, and how I write by discovering as I go, I’ve found how I go about writing this genre is probably different from most.

Long before I started this series, and many years before I even started writing seriously, I, like many writers, wrote fanfic. It was a great way for me to learn writing skills without having to worry about making worlds and characters and I always found it fun. However, deep inside there was always a part of me that had to get the facts right. If my source was a book, I’d need to get everything close to that as I could. Character speech was imitated as best as I could, locations, interactions, everything. It was, and still is, important to me that I got it correct as it wasn’t my world, wasn’t my rules, and I desperately wanted to write the characters true to the author’s vision. Characters who were less fleshed out gave more leeway, but I went over the nuggets of information the author had left and built on that.

This is true now, even with my own writing. If it’s a general fantasy piece then there is much less for me to stick to, however with historical fantasy it’s not. Although, real life is much more difficult to imitate than gathering notes from books. Especially when it comes to writing about Japan, Shintoism, and yokai.

So when I approach a new story, and I rarely know what I am going to write fully before I start writing, it can be quite daunting. I write about the Muromachi period in Japanese history and there are many things which have been documented, but finding that information, finding correct information, and even finding translated information can be difficult. Later periods, such as the Edo period, have much more written about them and sometimes research will lead me to articles which don’t line up with the time I am writing about. I can spend a lot of time going down dead ends or given small paragraphs to work off and it leaves me stumped. It’s still important to me to get this correct, even more so as I’m writing about a culture that isn’t mine, and a place I unfortunately haven’t been to. I want those who do know a lot about my topics to see what I have written and enjoy it and not be put off by things being out of place. I personally have read a story set in London written by an American and I kept losing the immersion because of all the details which were incorrect. And so I don’t want to do that to other people.

That’s where the fantasy comes in.

I’m lucky I can blur the edges on some details as the Japan I write about isn’t the exact Japan of today. They are similar, but I have a leeway to change some things and it not be much of an issue. I still hold myself to the same values as before, and the things that I change I try my hardest to make logical and believable. So as I’m writing and stopping to research every time something new comes up, I’m always finding a happy middle ground between the two.

When it comes to Shintoism, especially the gods, I approach them similarly to how I wrote my fanfic characters all that time ago. I look at all the details given about them, how they present, what tales they have been in, and even what they are a god of as that can give hints at their personality. When I researched into Inari, I noticed how she was god of sake (amongst other things) and so I imagined her being quite laid back and approachable but, as she is also a fox goddess as has kitsune, she is also tricksy and manipulative. Whether for good or bad depends on who you are. She embodies kitsune on a larger level. And so once I had pieced those things together, she was quite easy to write.

Yokai, on the other hand, are a bit of a different matter. The more well known yokai such as kitsune, tanuki, and kappa, have quite a bit of information to go on. They also have ukiyo-e prints which are fun to see and work out how they were viewed by the Japanese people. Others only have a few bits of information to go by. All most likely have more known about them but only written in Japanese, so are out of my reach.

Now I could spend months and months heavily researching every thing I come across, but if I did I wouldn’t have any stories written and might even have become bored by it. So where I can, I lean into the fantasy side and fill in the gaps or make guesses to fully flesh out my world. I try and base yokai actions off of animals behaviour and look at what they are at their core. I take the information I do know and build on it carefully to hopefully let all my readers believe it is all true.

I have no idea how well I done in the whole matter, and once my first draft of Tales of Yamato is done I’ll be getting people who know more about Japan to check through to catch things, but maybe it’ll be enough.