How interesting that, to me, it sounds as if what aids your suspension of disbelief is the exact opposite of what would aid mine. This is why I love fandom, to see how different readers interpret the same things that I read and seeing what we all bring to the piece.
Certainly, the characters need to be people the readers relate to. Otherwise, the story is going to be a pain to read- and likely a pain to write. Also, as you point out, a line that needs to be drawn to make sure the story is being served, first and foremost. And that's why no historical fiction will ever be 100% fact (that is what nonfiction is for). Its just for me, the more truthful the story is to the characters and its setting, the better it is. After all, why set it in that setting or with those characters if they are not leading the story? I find it impossible that a person would be entirely untouched by their own culture, as would be the case with someone in a historical setting who acts as a person from our time would be. The character might have some of the desires and/or traits we value (for example maybe, a women in the twelfth century who's an intellectual and wants to go on a crusade, versus a woman in the same time period who describes herself as a career woman ) but all of them and none of their own time? Its not so much demanding that historical fiction exactly portray that time period (though, I do prefer it to be more, rather than less accurate, I admit) because, without having lived then, that's unfair to expect. But to me, I like to read to find what is universal between the characters and myself, but also to expierence a world-view and life I could never live. Part of reading that interests me most is how by expeirncing things second hand, things that we (thankfully) never have to or even can really live through.
Now you've sparks a desire to reread Lies My Teacher Told Me which has some really interesting things to say about how different soceities had different values (well, it also goes on to talk about how this is then treated by public educations, which gets us into a whole different realm, but yeah.) Sorry this is such a tl;dr comment....
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Certainly, the characters need to be people the readers relate to. Otherwise, the story is going to be a pain to read- and likely a pain to write. Also, as you point out, a line that needs to be drawn to make sure the story is being served, first and foremost. And that's why no historical fiction will ever be 100% fact (that is what nonfiction is for). Its just for me, the more truthful the story is to the characters and its setting, the better it is. After all, why set it in that setting or with those characters if they are not leading the story? I find it impossible that a person would be entirely untouched by their own culture, as would be the case with someone in a historical setting who acts as a person from our time would be. The character might have some of the desires and/or traits we value (for example maybe, a women in the twelfth century who's an intellectual and wants to go on a crusade, versus a woman in the same time period who describes herself as a career woman ) but all of them and none of their own time? Its not so much demanding that historical fiction exactly portray that time period (though, I do prefer it to be more, rather than less accurate, I admit) because, without having lived then, that's unfair to expect. But to me, I like to read to find what is universal between the characters and myself, but also to expierence a world-view and life I could never live. Part of reading that interests me most is how by expeirncing things second hand, things that we (thankfully) never have to or even can really live through.
Now you've sparks a desire to reread Lies My Teacher Told Me which has some really interesting things to say about how different soceities had different values (well, it also goes on to talk about how this is then treated by public educations, which gets us into a whole different realm, but yeah.) Sorry this is such a tl;dr comment....