A writing technique question for A/H stories

When reading (or writing) a story set a significant time after events diverged, which methods work best for showing the differences between our history and the one in the story.
Obviously, writing a short history conveys the needed information, but is tough to make interesting—and if the reader isn’t interested rather quickly, he (or she) will never get to the real meat.

Just proceeding with the action leaves the reader mystified—why are British and American ships firing at each other in 1915?

Sometimes, the discussions between characters are obviously just a method of passing things along to the reader, while not making much sense in the actual plot line.

I’d be very interested in which methods people like—it could come in handy, although my in depth works are more or less on hold until I have a bit more time.

I asked this on the Naval Fiction Board, but tastes vary, and I was hoping for some more thoughts over here.
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Albeit originating in a dream, I began AFOE with a very visual scene that I could then throw a load of exposition over - the Russian fleet at Kiel, and the observer thinking back on recent events.

I suppose another way I tried was with Tsar Michael The Great where I started with a prologue that was effectively the end of the novel and, though I say it myself lol, one of the most effective pieces of writing I have ever done. It addressed a few issues but raised a lot of questions

I don't think in essence the fact that the reader goes 'Uh, how did that happen?' is a bad thing as if the writing is good enough they will want to read on and find out the answer

Grey Wolf
 
The site with the "Unification Earth," "Atomic League," and "More Realistic Draka" TLs had a guide to doing exactly that. I can't remember the URL, but I think it's still existent.

Here's my advice...

AVOID USING CONVERSATIONS. The web-site emphasized that and said to avoid, "Hey Bob, do you remember when the Confederates won at Gettysburgs" like the plague.
 

Diamond

Banned
It depends really on the 'mood' of the story. The one I'm in the process of posting on this board right now, 'A Song of My People', is a story where the mood of desperation and resignation is more important to build convincingly in the first half or so. I'm working little tidbits in here and there to give the reader clues as to where the POD was, but the story really isn't about 'Guess the POD'.

As you get to the end of the story, the setting becomes more clear and you find out exactly what the 'Song' is.

*******************

Describing exactly how an ATL is different from ours is actually easier when you're writing in first person rather than third person. At least for me, anyway.

It seems to flow more easily if the story is being narrated by one coherent voice, and that voice can internally vocalize (on the page) stuff like, "If only the Soviets hadn't invaded Poland back in '29..." and it sounds more natural. Much less stilted than two people discussing the same thing. Of course, like any other gimmick, don't over-use it.
 
Matt Quinn said:
AVOID USING CONVERSATIONS. The web-site emphasized that and said to avoid, "Hey Bob, do you remember when the Confederates won at Gettysburgs" like the plague.

Unless you go this way.

"Hey Bob, what are you reading?" "Memoirs of marshal Ivan Rudenny." "Name sounds familiar but can't exactlly place him." "You know, he was commander of Soviet 30th army when Chinese invaded." "Right, of course. Wasn't he also the guy who took Peking at the end of war?" "Yep, that's him."

Or to use our OTL.....

"Hey Bob, what are you reading?" "Memoirs of filed marshal Manstein." "Name sounds familiar but can't exactlly place him." "You know, he was commander of AG Don during Soviet counter offensive at Stalingrad." "Right, of course. Wasn't he also the guy who commanded southern thrust at Kursk?" "Yep, that's him."
 
aktarian said:
Unless you go this way.

"Hey Bob, what are you reading?" "Memoirs of marshal Ivan Rudenny." "Name sounds familiar but can't exactlly place him." "You know, he was commander of Soviet 30th army when Chinese invaded." "Right, of course. Wasn't he also the guy who took Peking at the end of war?" "Yep, that's him."

Or to use our OTL.....

"Hey Bob, what are you reading?" "Memoirs of filed marshal Manstein." "Name sounds familiar but can't exactlly place him." "You know, he was commander of AG Don during Soviet counter offensive at Stalingrad." "Right, of course. Wasn't he also the guy who commanded southern thrust at Kursk?" "Yep, that's him."

Sure, but can't use this for long.
In my historical novel I'm writing (in two yeras I've written less than a hundred Word pages...), set during the Resistance in Liguria, I use first person memory of the main character. Sure I write in a context ever reader more or less knows.
If I were to write an AH novel (and I plan one, but I know I'll never have the time/will/ability to achieve this), I'd use multiple characters and omniscient narrator, like Turtledove, but in a less boringly repetitive way!, AND newspaper articles, war bulletins, later historical works abstracts etc. to interrupt the flow of the novel and clarify things to the perplexed reader.
 
basileus said:
Sure, but can't use this for long.

No, but you can use it to give reader broad description of ATL. There was sino-Soviet war, there was heavy fighting, Soviets took Peking, nukes were(n't) used....
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Anthony Appleyard said:
Tolkien once wrote: Work from a map and a timetable from the beginning, or you will risk getting into all sorts of inconsistencies.

I think it depends on the person - if I did that I would get tremendously bored and, um, not finish the novel....er ?

Grey Wolf
 
The site with the "Unification Earth," "Atomic League," and "More Realistic Draka" TLs had a guide to doing exactly that. I can't remember the URL, but I think it's still existent.

That would be AlternateHistory.Com Matt as those are from Ian's Gateway site.
 
One way of constructing a timeline is to do a little at a time, seeing how your world develops from the logic of the previous situation. When I was posting my maps for the Mithras timelines, I literally had no clue as to what the following map would look like untill I had thought it over some.
 
It will certainly necessary to intertwine the information with the rest of the story... i.e. Bob the history fan talking not only about the history from the book he read, but also about the cool battle scenes / characters; Jane the college student not only doing her history referat, but also planning her future after the college; politician X not only talking about the history of great country Y, but also saying, well what politicians in general say; the unit commander not only giving information about the enemy, but other things too. We live in a history that would be completely different for an ATL person, but how many minutes per day does the average guy (or even the avaerage AH freak) think about that? People are more than just people who live when historical events are happening.
 

Diamond

Banned
Max Sinister said:
People are more than just people who live when historical events are happening.

Exactly. That's why I try to keep the 'information dumps' as light as possible. To the people in the ATL, anything significant is most likely common knowledge, and you have to be careful about how you set it up to avoid looking contrived.
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Diamond said:
Exactly. That's why I try to keep the 'information dumps' as light as possible. To the people in the ATL, anything significant is most likely common knowledge, and you have to be careful about how you set it up to avoid looking contrived.

Hmm, but that's when moments of introspection come in handy, especially if the current state of affairs for a character is very grim and he can well be imagined standing there looking over it and wondering how the hell events came to such a pass

Grey Wolf
 

Diamond

Banned
Grey Wolf said:
Hmm, but that's when moments of introspection come in handy, especially if the current state of affairs for a character is very grim and he can well be imagined standing there looking over it and wondering how the hell events came to such a pass

Grey Wolf

But again, if you keep doing it, even if its only every 50 pages, the reader (this reader, anyway) thinks, 'damn, didn't i just read this a few pages ago?' I really think it works better kept to a minimum, even if you're writing in first person, where the story comprises the narrator's thoughts.

If you really think your background is too confusing for the reader to comprehend through inference, some of the other poster's suggestions about fake news articles or something similar as chapter breaks works well, and also looks nice.
 

NapoleonXIV

Banned
Anthony Appleyard said:
Tolkien once wrote: Work from a map and a timetable from the beginning, or you will risk getting into all sorts of inconsistencies.

This rather reminds me of what Theodore Sturgeon said about descriptions in general. He said never to consciously do one, but rather to visualize the immediate world/environment your character was in in very great detail and then move the character within it.

The same might apply here but to the ATL in general. You might wish to make up the whole thing before you start or imagine it as you go along, but be very clear in your own mind about what it is before you put your characters in it.
 
I have to admit that I prefer to read pure AH. Let's take Fatherland: A non-AH fan may find it strange how the author writes so many times about the history of the world. And I'm not even talking about "You know, Joe..." or musings of a character, but direct information given from author to reader. But I liked it. (If you think that contradicts what I wrote upthread about good AH novels: It doesn't. I just have different opinions than most readers, 'cause I'm an AH freak and they aren't.) But if you'd want to write an AH novel in the way I wrote upthread, you'd have to add a lot of non-AH stuff.

BTW, I was just thinking about one thing: We're working here in this forum on our ATLs like in a factory. That's only logical, we've got to know about the inner logic of our storys and how they work. But aren't maybe people out there who'd like to read AH stuff without having to know how to write one? Wish I could ask a lurker.
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Max Sinister said:
BTW, I was just thinking about one thing: We're working here in this forum on our ATLs like in a factory. That's only logical, we've got to know about the inner logic of our storys and how they work. But aren't maybe people out there who'd like to read AH stuff without having to know how to write one? Wish I could ask a lurker.

Ever read Grimwood's 3 Arabesque novels ? One gets the impression that he is not too bothered about the details of the divergence like we are - e.g. although you have the history drawn in some details from time to time, you cannot really quite work out where the POD is, how things came to pass precisely, and most especially why a company like Nokia still makes mobile phones in this very different world !

Yet despite the vagaries, he's got a cult following, wrote really very interesting and human novels and made a packet :)

Grey Wolf
 
I like using news reports. They give a lot of information in a short span.

Does anyone know how you would write news reports from the 19th Century, though? I've gotten bogged down there. I assume they're more wordy and complex than modern ones.
 
Story lines

I like Theodore Sturgeon's advice mentioned earlier.

You have to construct a world that is internally cohesive, and then have your character react to the world in which they live.

A good solid character will respond reasonably, because that is what people do. But remember that 'garbage in, garbage out', our characters are stuck within the 'zeitgeist' of the timeline, so a reasonable response might include behavior that would get us thrown in jail.

Dialog is hard, so I keep it simple, using the character's experience to flesh out what id really being said. But it should match the character (internal consistency). A character who is some half mad royal, is going to speak and act differently that a character who had pulled himself up by his bootstraps.
 
Top