Writing Blog Number 2

20240912 Alternate History

Alternate History

This is going to be a weird one, but I recently had an alternate history novel taken into third round of reading at a publisher. My story is set in 1770 when Captain Cook discovered Australia in British eyes… but another civilization had already taken Australia thousands of years earlier.
         With this on my mind, I thought I’d write about an oft-overlooked genre.


1. What is it?
Alternate history is a form of either science fiction or fantasy (it does depend on how it is written) where something happens in the past different to the way we know it.
         One of the best-known examples is The Man In The High Castle by Philip K. Dick, which is a tale set in 1962 (which was when it was written) after the Axis Powers had won World War II. I know it has been made into a movie and TV series, and there is sort of travel to our world involved (my memory of the book is it involves a novel), but the main world is the focus of the story.
         The Axis winning WW2, or Germany winning WW1, or the Russian Revolution not happening, or the Confederacy winning the US Civil War are the most common themes in alternate history stories. They have become clichés… and have resulted in some interesting works.


2. What does it involve?
Alternate history involves a lot of research. You have to not only understand the era where the timeline diverges in your story, but the effects that were put into place by those events happening. That last is really important, because the writer has to understand that things were going to be very different if any of the events happened. And the further back the events, the greater the effect on the present.
         A lot of steampunk can be considered alternate history, but good steampunk does take at least a passing knowledge of the way steam and clockwork machines operated at the end of the Victorian era, and how dirigibles and trains worked.
         For what it’s worth, future prognostication – as seen in much science fiction – is not a part of alternate history, despite some of the writers pushing for it.
         So, in my case, I had to research the different nations of Indigenous Australians, the technology available to the ancient invading race that takes over the country around 2000BCE, some 4000 years before the story, the geology of Australia, where the invaders would have landed based on water and ocean movements and the vegetation and water supplies pre-colonisation. I had more research material written out than I did book (which ended up at 90k+ words).
         But you do need to do your research well. People will know otherwise!
         The next step is the alternate histories that sell well are based around people in these worlds, not over-arching stories that read like a history book of events. Pick some characters and centre the action around them is always the best way to go.
         In comics, the What If…? series from Marvel and Elseworlds series from DC take their own stories and histories and do alternates for them. A female Captain America, Peter Parker saving Uncle Ben, the young Kal-El found by the Waynes in Gotham as an infant, Kal-El landing on Earth in the Middle Ages of Britain – all of these are amazing stories that use the fictional worlds to make other, alternate fictional worlds.


3. Works That Don’t Work
So, this section could be contentious, but here are some alternate history stories that do not work, and why they do not work:
* Yesterday (film, 2019): This film sees the lead character sent to an alternate world where there were no Beatles, as in the band. This means there is no Oasis as well. However, there is still rock and pop music like we have it today, including Ed Sheeran. But… the Beatles were not just a band that influenced Oasis. They enabled pop-rock to become mainstream. They affected Bob Dylan, who went electric, who invented folk-rock, and who led directly to Sheeran. They really made the stadium show a “thing”. They enabled experimental music to become mainstream, even harder rock. The story treats them just as a band of people who wrote some nifty songs; their impact on Western popular culture is so diminished, it might as well have been “what if The Honeycombs hadn’t existed?” (I don’t mind this film, FWIW, but the idea behind it always takes me out of the story.)
* Bright (TV movie, 2017): This film is very much fantasy-minded, with elves, orcs and magic in a modern setting. But, in a world with orcs, who are looked down on, there are still Africans in America who were once slaves when orcs are portrayed as the repressed group, the Alamo happened, and the world is exactly as it is now, just with fantasy creatures that have been there with humans for thousands of years. That makes no sense; the change to history had no impact on our world at all. Ridiculous. ("MOVIE #2 – BRIGHT" )
* December 7th, 1941: A Different Path by David L. Alley (1995): This book takes one basic conceit – that Japan decided to attack the USSR instead of the USA in World War 2 – and makes assumptions that do not make any sense. They defeat the USSR (yes), causing it to fall apart, then take over SE Asia before conquering and killing everyone in Australia with no resistance. This somehow makes the UK give up, the Germans get the atomic bomb and nuke NYC… it makes even less sense now. (Terrible book, but the writing was not horrible; I only read it after finishing my negative reviews, or else it might have made the list.)
So, why highlight the negative? Because I think we can learn more from the mistakes of others than trying to pastiche copy the great works of the good examples.
         Speaking of which:


4. Works That Work
The best alternate history stories stay in their timeline and do not look at how the world would change. One Upon A Time… In Hollywood (film, 2019) is a great example of this in film; my favourite trilogy – Harrison Harrison’s Eden trilogy – is another good one in this vein.
         Anyway, here are some of my favourites that do work, and why they work:
* 11/22/63 by Stephen King (2011): A man gets a chance to go back in time and stop the assassination of JFK, and does so, but the world falls apart because of that decision. While the consequences of the outcome are not harped on, they are still there because it presents JFK surviving as not necessarily a great thing. Yes, the story is mainly focused on the man organizing himself to stop the assassination, but it is still a great tale.
* Watchmen by Alan Moore (writer) (graphic novel, 1986-7): I am focusing on the graphic novel because it is more interesting. Superheroes are real, and their existence changes the world, especially Dr Manhattan, including having Nixon serve four terms as president and technology not advancing as much because the world doesn’t need to after Dr Manhattan basically wins the Vietnam War for the US. The consequences are logical, and the police state scenario, the way heroes are treated and all the rest makes sense.
*1945 by Robert Conroy (2007): In this book, the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki do not stop the war; some Japanese generals, in desperation, kidnap Hirohito to stop him from signing the surrender, and basically continue the battles. A third atomic bomb is dropped, but the US people are getting upset because the US soldiers who were in Europe are not going home but are being sent to Japan, so more and more of them die. McArthur is killed. The USSR and China do not sign an agreement, so they are tense, and this means Korea is not split, and so there is no Korean War. Yes, consequences beyond just more US soldiers dying and the war continuing.
Some well-done and well-thought-out scenarios in entertaining media forms.


5. Conclusion
This is one of those genres that fluctuates in popularity, but it is in the process of going through a resurgence, so there are some markets opening up. Short stories more than novels at the moment, but they are there.
         One argument I have read is that any fictional story is an alternate history, and there is an element of that, I agree. But to take an event and change it to change the world is something that is an interesting generic diversion. Could be a fun thing for a writer to try.
         Hope I have piqued your interest!